[250] The French Revolution had stirred the political spirit of the Irish nation as, ten years before, it had been aroused by the American War. It appealed most strongly to the people by the abolition of tithes and all religious disqualifications. The Presbyterians of the North were Republican in their sympathies, and ready to make common cause with the Roman Catholics for the repeal of all penal laws and the extension of the franchise. The United Irishmen were the growth of this approximation of parties. Among the Roman Catholics also there was a rapid spread of the democratic spirit. The English Government was ready to grant a liberal measure of Catholic relief and to extend the suffrage to the Roman Catholics. At first the Irish Government strongly opposed any change which threatened the maintenance of Protestant ascendency. But the danger of union between the Protestant Republicans and the Catholic democrats became apparent, when the Catholic Convention met at Dublin in December, 1792, and a Relief Bill, repealing many oppressive enactments and conceding the franchise, was carried, almost without opposition, in the beginning of 1793. The Roman Catholics, it may be added, were excluded from the Irish Parliament in the reign of William III. (3 W. & M. c. 2) and deprived of the franchise in that of George II. (1 Geo. II. c. 9). Lord Sheffield, as a later letter shows, agreed with the Lord Lieutenant, Lord Westmorland, in advocating resistance to the Catholics "in limine and in toto," and in thinking that the suspicion, that the "British Government means to take up the Catholics, and to play what is called a Catholic game," would disastrously weaken the hold of the Government upon the country. Burke (Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 32) seems to suggest that Lord Sheffield was prejudiced by the possession of Irish property in the county of Louth.
[251] Miss C. Moss, a frequent visitor at Sheffield Place.
[252] Mdlle. Pauline de Pully.
[253] The massacres of September, 1792.
[254] The Duc de Liancourt (1747-1827) took the title of Rochefoucault-Liancourt on succeeding to his cousin, the Duc de la Rochefoucault who was murdered at Gisors in September, 1792. He had been a distinguished member of the Feuillants, or constitutional reformers. He escaped to England and thence to the United States. On his return to France he occupied himself with philanthropic works and the management of his estates. Both he and his cousin were generous patrons of Arthur Young during his travels in France (1787-89), and promoted that revival of agriculture at the close of the eighteenth century which corresponded with the similar movement in England.
[255] The Princesse d'Hénin was rescued from Paris by Madame de Staël (Forneron, Hist. des Emigrés, vol. i. p. 244). It was at her house that Malouet, La Fayette, and the Constitutionnels had planned an escape for Louis XVI. in May, 1792.
[256] The Duchess of Fitzjames was the daughter of the Comte de Thiars, and dame de palais in the household of Marie Antoinette. Charles, her eldest son, died with the army of the princes. Edward, her second son, who succeeded to the title, distinguished himself by his oratorical powers in the Chamber of Peers at the Restoration, and in that of the Deputies under Louis Philippe.
[257] On September 17, 1792, seventy-six French priests, and among them the Bishop of Avranches, landed at Hastings.
[258] The report of the French Diplomatic Committee upon the two treaties of October 22 and November 2 was delivered by Brissot on November 21. It neither ratified nor rejected the treaties, reserving the question whether a free people could bind itself by treaties. At the same time the Convention ordered the French troops to respect the neutrality of Geneva, if the Swiss troops evacuated the city by December 1, 1792.
[259] The Duke of Brunswick was charged with being bribed to retire. No ground for the accusation has ever been alleged, except that, on the duke's return, he paid off heavy debts. The charge was made by Talleyrand in 1802. It is repeated by both Lacretelle and Thiers in their histories. It is omitted by Michaud in his article on Brunswick, which appeared in the Biographie Universelle in 1812; but it is given in the articles which the same writer contributed on Dumouriez and Drouet to the supplementary volume (1837). It is also made by the Comte d'Allonville in his Mémoires Secrets (vol. iii. pp. 94-97).