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[ Lord Malmesbury, "Diaries," II., 544. (September 9, 1797.) The words of Mr. Colchen.) "He went on to say that all the persons arrested are the most estimable and most able men in the Republic. It is for this reason and not from any principles of royalism (for such principles do not belong to them) that they are sentenced to transportation. They would have supported the constitution, but in doing that they would have circumscribed the authority of the executive power and have taken from the Directory the means of acquiring and exercising undue authority.">[
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[ Barbé-Marbois, "Journal d'un Déporté," preface, p. XVI.]
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[ Mathieu Dumas, III., 84, 86.]
5162 ([return])
[ De Goncourt, "La Société Française pendant le Directoire," 298, 386. Cf. the Thé, the Grondeur, the Censeur des journaux, Paris, and innumerable pamphlets.—In the provinces, the Anti-Terrorist, at Toulouse the Neuf Thermidor, at Besançon, the Annales Troyennes at Troyes, etc.]
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[ Mallet-Dupan, II., 309, 316, 323, 324, 329, 333, 339, 347. "To defend themselves constitutionally, whilst the Directory attacks revolutionarily, is to condemn themselves to inevitable perdition."—"Had it a hundred times more ability the Legislative Corps without boldness is a lightning flash without thunder."—"With greater resources than Louis XVI. had in 1792, the Legislative Corps acts like this prince and will share his fate, unless it returns war for war, unless it declares that the first generals who dare send out the deliberations of their armies are traitors to the State."—"It is owing to the temporizing of the legislative councils, to the fatal postponement of the attack on the Luxembourg in the middle of August, on which Pichegru, Villot, General Miranda and all the clairvoyant deputies insisted on,.... it is owing to foolishly insisting on confining themselves to constitutional defenses,... it is owing to the necessity which the eighty firm and energetic deputies found of conciliating three hundred others who could not agree on the end as well as the means, which brought about the catastrophe of the Councils.">[