On October 19th the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Deforgues, writes to Morris:
"I shall give the Council an account of the punishable conduct of their agent in the United States [Genêt], and I can assure you beforehand that they will regard the strange abuse of their confidence by this agent, as I do, with the liveliest indignation. The President of the United States has done justice to our sentiments in attributing the deviations of the citizen Genêt to causes entirely foreign to his instructions, and we hope that the measures to be taken will more and more convince the head and members of your Government that so far from having authorized the proceedings and manoeuvres of Citizen Genêt our only aim has been to maintain between the two nations the most perfect harmony."
One of "the measures to be taken" was the imprisonment of Paine, for which Amar's denunciation had prepared the way. But this was not so easy. For Robespierre had successfully attacked Amar's report for extending its accusations beyond the Girondins. How then could an accusation be made against Paine, against whom no charge could be brought, except that he had introduced a French minister to his friends in America! A deputy must be formally accused by the Convention before he could be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal. An indirect route must be taken to reach the deputy secretly accused by the American Minister, and the latter had pointed it out by alluding to Paine as an influence "from across the channel." There was a law passed in June for the imprisonment of foreigners belonging to countries at war with France. This was administered by the Committees. Paine had not been liable to this law, being a deputy, and never suspected of citizenship in the country which had outlawed him, until Morris suggested it. Could he be got out of the Convention the law might be applied to him without necessitating any public accusation and trial, or anything more than an announcement to the Deputies.
Such was the course pursued. Christmas day was celebrated by the terrorist Bourdon de l'Oise with a denunciation of Paine: "They have boasted the patriotism of Thomas Paine. Eh bien! Since the Brissotins disappeared from the bosom of this Convention he has not set foot in it. And I know that he has intrigued with a former agent of the bureau of Foreign Affairs." This accusation could only have come from the American Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs—from Gouverneur Morris and Deforgues. Genêt was the only agent of Deforgues' office with whom Paine could possibly have been connected; and what that connection was the reader knows. That accusation is associated with the terrorist's charge that Paine had declined to unite with the murderous decrees of the Convention.
After the speech of Bourdon de l'Oise, Bentabole moved the "exclusion of foreigners from every public function during the war." Bentabole was a leading member of the Committee of General Surety. "The Assembly," adds The Moniteur, "decreed that no foreigner should be admitted to represent the French people." The Committee of General Surety assumed the right to regard Paine as an Englishman; and as such out of the Convention, and consequently under the law of June against aliens of hostile nations. He was arrested next day, and on December 28th committed to the Luxembourg prison.
CHAPTER VI. A TESTIMONY UNDER THE GUILLOTINE
While Paine was in prison the English gentry were gladdened by a rumor that he had been guillotined, and a libellous leaflet of "The Last Dying Words of Thomas Paine" appeared in London. Paine was no less confident than his enemies that his execution was certain—after the denunciation in Amar's report, October 3d—and did indeed utter what may be regarded as his dying words—"The Age of Reason." This was the task which he had from year to year adjourned to his maturest powers, and to it he dedicates what brief remnant of life may await him. That completed, it will be time to die with his comrades, awakened by his pen to a dawn now red with their blood.
The last letter I find written from the old Pompadour mansion is to Jefferson, under date of October 20th:
"Dear Sir,—I wrote you by Captain Dominick who was to sail from Havre about the 20th of this month. This will probably be brought you by Mr. Barlow or Col. Oswald. Since my letter by Dominick I am every day more convinced and impressed with the propriety of Congress sending Commissioners to Europe to confer with the Ministers of the Jesuitical Powers on the means of terminating the war. The enclosed printed paper will shew there are a variety of subjects to be taken into consideration which did not appear at first, all of which have some tendency to put an end to the war. I see not how this war is to terminate if some intermediate power does not step forward. There is now no prospect that France can carry revolutions thro' Europe on the one hand, or that the combined powers can conquer France on the other hand. It is a sort of defensive War on both sides. This being the case how is the War to close? Neither side will ask for peace though each may wish it. I believe that England and Holland are tired of the war. Their Commerce and Manufactures have suffered most exceedingly—and besides this it is to them a war without an object. Russia keeps her-self at a distance. I cannot help repeating my wish that Congress would send Commissioners, and I wish also that yourself would venture once more across the Ocean as one of them. If the Commissioners rendezvous at Holland they would then know what steps to take. They could call Mr. Pinckney to their Councils, and it would be of use, on many accounts, that one of them should come over from Holland to France. Perhaps a long truce, were it proposed by the neutral Powers, would have all the effects of a Peace, without the difficulties attending the adjustment of all the forms of Peace.—Yours affectionately Thomas Paine."