(844) On the 21st of January, Louis the Sixteenth had been beheaded in the Place Louis Quinze, erected to the memory of his grandfather. M. Thiers thus concludes his account of this horrible event:—"At ten minutes past ten, the carriage stopped. Louis rising briskly, stepped out into the Place. Three executioners came up; he refused their assistance, and stripped off his clothes himself; but, perceiving that they were going to bind his hands, he betrayed a movement of indignation, and seemed ready to resist. M. Edgeworth, whose every expression was then sublime, gave him, a last look, and said, 'I Suffer this outrage, as a last resemblance to that God who is about to be your reward.' At these words the victim, resigned and submissive, suffered himself to be bound and conducted to the scaffold. All at once, Louis took a hasty step, separated himself from the executioners, and advanced to address the people. 'Frenchmen,' said he, in a firm voice, 'I die innocent of the crimes which are imputed to me; I forgive the authors of my death, and I pray that my blood may not fall upon France.' He would have continued but the drums were instantly ordered to beat: their rolling drowned the voice of the Prince, the executioners laid hold of him, and M. Edgeworth took his leave in these memorable words, ''Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven!' As soon as the blood flowed, furious wretches dipped their pikes and their handkerchiefs in it spread themselves throughout Paris, shouted Vive la Republique! vive la nation! and even went to the gates of the Temple to display their brutal and factious joy." Vol. ii. p. 228.-E.
(845) "The causes which at this time put assignats apparently on a par with specie were the following. A law forbade, under heavy penalties, the traffic in specie, that is, the exchange at a loss of the assignat against money: another law decreed very severe penalties against those who, in purchases, should bargain for different prices according as payment was to be made in paper or in cash: by a last law, it was enacted, that hidden gold, silver, or jewels, should belong partly to the state, partly to the informer. Thenceforth people could neither employ specie in trade nor conceal it; it became troublesome; it exposed the holders to the risk of being considered suspected persons; they began to be afraid of it, an(l to find the assignat preferable for daily use." Thiers, vol. iii. p. 213.-E.
(846) Louis-Philippe-Joseph, Duke of Orleans, who had relinquished his titles and called himself Philippe Egalit`e, and become a member of the National Convention, in giving his vote for the death of his kinsman, had read these words:—"Exclusively governed by my duty, and convinced that all those who have resisted the sovereignty of the people deserve death, my vote is for death!" The atrocity of this vote occasioned great agitation in the -assembly; it seemed as if, by this single vote, the fate of the Monarch was irrevocably sealed. On the 6th of November, in the same year, the Duke was himself brought before the revolutionary tribunal, and condemned on account of the suspicions which he had excited in all parties. "Odious," says M. Thiers "to the emigrants, Suspected by the Girondins and the Jacobins, he inspired none of those regrets which afford some consolation for an unjust death. A universal disgust, an absolute scepticism were his last sentiments; and he went to the scaffold with extraordinary composure and indifference, As he was drawn along the Rue St. Honor`e, he beheld his palace with a dry eye, and never belied for a moment his disgust of men and of life," Vol. iii, P. 205—E.
(847) A little work which Miss More had Just published anonymously. The sale of it was enormous. Many thousands were sent by government to Scotland and Ireland. Several persons printed large editions Of it at their own expense; and in London Only many hundred thousands were circulated.-E.
Letter 401 To Miss Hannah More.
Berkeley Square, March 23, 1793.(page 538)
I shall certainly not leave off taunting your virtues, my excellent friend, for I find it sometimes makes you correct them. I scolded you for your modesty in not acquainting me with your "Village Politics" even after they were published; and you have already conquered that unfriendly delicacy, and announced another piece of which you are in labour. Still I se there wanted your ghostly father, the )Bishop of London, to join you to be quite shameless and avow your natural child.(848) I do approve his doctrine: calling it by your own name will make its fortune. If, like Rousseau, you had left your babe among the enfans trouv`es, it might never be heard of more than his poor issue have been; for I can but observe that the French patriots, who have made such a fuss with his ashes, have not taken the smallest pains to attempt to discover his real progeny, which might not have been impossible by collating dates and circumstances. I am proud of having imitated you at a great distance, and been persuaded, much against my will and practice, to let my name be put to the second subscription for the poor French clergy, as it was thought it might tend to animate that consumptive contribution.
I am impatient for your pamphlet, not only as being yours, but hoping it will invigorate horror against French atheism, which, I am grieved to say did not by any means make due impression. very early apply to your confessor, to beg he would enjoin his clergy to denounce that shocking impiety; I could almost recommend to you to add a slight postscript on the massacre of that wretch Manuel. I do not love such insects as we are dispensing judgments yet, if the punishment of that just victim might startle such profane criminals, it might be charity to suggest the hint to them.
24th.
I must modify the massacre of Manuel; he has been a good deal stabbed, but will, they say, recover.(849) Perhaps it is better that some of those assassins should live to acknowledge, that "Do not to others what you would not have done to you" is not so silly a maxim as most of the precepts of morality and Justice have lately been deemed by philosophers and legislators—titles self-assumed by men who have abolished all other titles; and who have disgraced and debased the former denomination, and under the latter have enjoined triple perjuries, and at last cannot fix on any code which should exact more forswearing. I own I am pleased that that ruffian pedant Condorcet's new constitution was too clumsy and unwieldy to go down the throats of those who have swallowed every thing else. I did but just cast my eyes on the beginning and end, and was so lucky as to observe the hypocrite's contradiction: he sets out with declaration of equality, and winds up with security of property; that is, we will plunder every body, and then entail the spoils on ourselves and our (wrong) heirs.(850)
Well! that bloody chaos seems recoiling on themselves! It looks as if civil war was bursting out in many provinces, and will precipitate approaching famine. When, till now, could one make such a reflection without horror to one's self? But, alas! have not the French brought it to the question, whether Europe or France should be laid desolate'! Religion, morality, justice, have been stabbed, torn up by the roots: every right has been trampled under foot. Marriage has been profaned and undermined by law; and no wonder, that, amidst such excesses, the poor arts have shared in the common ruin! And who have been the perpetrators of, or advocates for, such universal devastation? Philosophers, geometricians, astronomers—a Condorcet, a Bailly, a Bishop of Autun, and a Doctor Priestley, and the last the worst. The French had seen grievances, crying grievances! yet not under the good late King. But what calamities or dangers threatened or had fallen on Priestley, but want of papal power, like his predecessor Calvin? If you say his house was burnt -but did he intend the fire should blaze on that side of the street? Your charity may believe him innocent, but your understanding does not. Well! I am glad to hear he is going to America; I hope he will not bring back scalping, even to that National Assembly of which he was proud of being elected a member! I doubt if Cartouche would have thought it an honour. It was stuck up in Lloyd's coffeehouse lately, that the Duke of Orleans was named "Chef de la R`epublique." I thought it should be "Chef de la Lie publique."