[441] Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantes, p. 90.
[442] Thiers, vol. iii., p. 242. New Annual Register.
[443] Carlyle's History of the French Revolution, vol. ii., p. 460.
[444] "This Constitution was the best, the wisest, the most liberal, and the most provident that had as yet been established or projected; it contained the result of six years' revolutionary and legislative experience."—Mignet, p. 301.
[445] Las Casas.
[446] There is no exaggeration in the following account of the condition of France at this time: "Since France had become Republican every species of evil had accumulated upon its devoted head. Famine, a total cessation of commerce, civil war, attended by its usual accompaniments—conflagration, robbery, pillage, and murder. Justice was interrupted; the sword of the law wielded by iniquity; property spoliated; confiscation rendered the order of the day; the scaffold permanently erected; calumnious denunciations held in the highest estimation. Nothing was wanting to the general desolation."—Hist. de la Conv., vol. ii., p. 215, 216.
[447] Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantes, p. 118.
[448] "After this memorable conflict, when Bonaparte had been publicly received with enthusiasm by the Convention, who declared that he and Barras deserved well of their country, a great change took place in him, and the change in regard to attention to his person was not the least remarkable. He now never went out but in a handsome carriage, and he lived in a very respectable house, Rue des Capucines. In short, he had become an important, a necessary personage, and all without noise, as if by magic."—Duchess of Abrantes.
[449] The States-General held its session from May 6, 1789.
[450] Thiers, Fr. Rev., vol. iii., p. 333.