[16] This I find to be false, and the book a common job.
[17] This is worse than Rousseau's conduct, who only sent his children to the Foundling hospital, that he might never know them again. (See his Confessions.)
[18] A plan adopted within these few years in our own country, which, if prosecuted with the same industry with which it has been begun, will soon render our circulating Libraries so many Nurseries of Sedition and Impiety. (See Travels into Germany by Este.)
[19] Had the good man been spared but a few months, his surprise at this neglect would have ceased. For, on the 19th of November 1793, the Archbishop of Paris came to the Bar of the Assembly, accompanied by his Vicar and eleven other Clergymen, who there renounced their Christianity and their clerical vows; acknowledging that they had played the villain for many years against their consciences, teaching what they knew to be a lie, and were now resolved to be honest men. The Vicar indeed had behaved like a true Illuminatus some time before, by running off with another man's wife and his strong box.—None of them, however, seem to have attained the higher mysteries, for they were all guillotined not long after.
[20] I cannot help observing, that it is perfectly similar to the arrangement and denominations which appear in the secret correspondence of the Bavarian Illuminati.
[21] The depositions at the Chatelet, which I have already quoted, give repeated and unequivocal proofs, that he, with a considerable number of the deputies of the National Assembly, had formed this plot before the 5th of October 1789. That trial was conducted in a strange manner, partly out of respect for the Royal Family, which still had some hearts affectionately attached to it, and to the monarchy, and partly by reason of the fears of the members of this court. There was now no safety for any person who differed from the opinion of the frantic populace of Paris. The chief points of accusation were written in a schedule which is not published, and the witnesses were ordered to depose on these in one general Yes or No; so that it is only the least important part of the evidence that has been printed. I am well informed that the whole of it is carefully preserved, and will one day appear.
[22] To prevent interruptions, I may just mention here the authorities for this journey and co-operation of the two deputies.
1. Ein wichtiger Ausschluss über en noch wenig bekannte Veranlassung der Französchen Revolution, in the Vienna Zeitschrift for 1793, p. 145.
2. Endliche Shickfall des Freymaurer Ordens, 1794, p. 19.
3. Neueste Arbeitung des Spartacus and Philo, Munich, 1793, p. 151—54.