"The National Convention will take into consideration the object of your petition, and invites you to its sessions."
A memorandum adds: "Reference of this petition is decreed to the Committees of Public Safety and General Surety, united."
It is said that Paine sent an appeal for intervention to the Cordeliers Club, and that their only reply was to return to him a copy of his speech in favor of preserving the life of Louis XVI. This I have not been able to verify.
On leaving his house for prison, Paine entrusted to Joel Barlow the manuscript of the "Age of Reason," to be conveyed to the printer. This was with the knowledge of the guard, whose kindness is mentioned by Paine.
CHAPTER VII. A MINISTER AND HIS PRISONER
Before resuming the history of the conspiracy against Paine it is necessary to return a little on our steps. For a year after the fall of monarchy in France (August 10, 1792), the real American Minister there was Paine, whether for Americans or for the French Executive. The Ministry would not confer with a hostile and presumably decapitated agent, like Morris. The reader has (Chaps. IV. and V., Vol. II.) evidence of their consultations with Paine. Those communications of Paine were utilized in Robespierre's report to the Convention, November 17, 1793, on the foreign relations of France. It was inspired by the humiliating tidings that Genêt in America had reinforced the European intrigues to detach Washington from France. The President had demanded Genêt's recall, had issued a proclamation of "impartiality" between France and her foes, and had not yet decided whether the treaty formed with Louis XVI. should survive his death. And Morris was not recalled!
In his report Robespierre makes a solemn appeal to the "brave Americans." Was it "that crowned automaton called Louis XVI." who helped to rescue them from the oppressor's yoke, or our arm and armies? Was it his money sent over or the taxes of French labor? He declares that the Republic has been treacherously compromised in America.
"By a strange fatality the Republic finds itself still represented among their allies by agents of the traitors she has punished: Brissot's brother-in-law is Consul-General there; another man, named Genêt, sent by Lebrun and Brissot to Philadelphia as plenipotentiary agent, has faithfully fulfilled the views and instructions of the faction that appointed him."
The result is that "parallel intrigues" are observable—one aiming to bring France under the league, the other to break up the American republic into parts.*