"I have now to inform the Convention of the reason of my not having written before. It is a year ago that I had strong reason to believe that Robespierre was my inveterate enemy, as he was the enemy of every man of virtue and humanity. The address that was sent to the Convention some time about last August from Arras, the native town of Robespierre, I have always been informed was the work of that hypocrite and the partizans he had in the place. The intention of that address was to prepare the way for destroying me, by making the People declare (though without assigning any reason) that I had lost their confidence; the Address, however, failed of success, as it was immediately opposed by a counter-address from St. Omer which declared the direct contrary. But the strange power that Robespierre, by the most consummate hypocrisy and the most hardened cruelties, had obtained rendered any attempt on my part to obtain justice not only useless but even dangerous; for it is the nature of Tyranny always to strike a deeper blow when any attempt has been made to repel a former one. This being my situation I submitted with patience to the hardness of my fate and waited the event of brighter days. I hope they are now arrived to the nation and to me.
"Citizens, when I left the United States in the year 1787, I promised to all my friends that I would return to them the next year; but the hope of seeing a Revolution happily established in France, that might serve as a model to the rest of Europe, and the earnest and disinterested desire of rendering every service in my power to promote it, induced me to defer my return to that country, and to the society of my friends, for more than seven years. This long sacrifice of private tranquillity, especially after having gone through the fatigues and dangers of the American Revolution which continued almost eight years, deserved a better fate than the long imprisonment I have silently suffered. But it is not the nation but a faction that has done me this injustice, and it is to the national representation that I appeal against that injustice. Parties and Factions, various and numerous as they have been, I have always avoided. My heart was devoted to all France, and the object to which I applied myself was the Constitution. The Plan which I proposed to the Committee, of which I was a member, is now in the hands of Barrère, and it will speak for itself.
"It is perhaps proper that I inform you of the cause assigned in the order for my imprisonment It is that I am 'a Foreigner'; whereas, the Foreigner thus imprisoned was invited into France by a decree of the late national Assembly, and that in the hour of her greatest danger, when invaded by Austrians and Prussians. He was, moreover, a citizen of the United States of America, an ally of France, and not a subject of any country in Europe, and consequently not within the intentions of any of the decrees concerning Foreigners. But any excuse can be made to serve the purpose of malignity when it is in power.
"I will not intrude on your time by offering any apology for the broken and imperfect manner in which I have expressed myself. I request you to accept it with the sincerity with which it comes from my heart; and I conclude with wishing Fraternity and prosperity to France, and union and happiness to her representatives.
"Citizens, I have now stated to you my situation, and I can have no doubt but your justice will restore me to the Liberty of which I have been deprived.
"Thomas Paine.
"Luxembourg, Thermidor 19th, 2d year of the French Republic, one and indivisible."
No doubt this touching letter would have been effectual had it reached the Convention. But the Committee of Public Safety took care that no whisper even of its existence should be heard. Paine's participation in their fostered dogma, that Robespierre le veut explained all crimes, probably cost him three more months in prison. The lamb had confided its appeal to the wolf. Barrère, Bil-laud-Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois, by skilful use of the dead scapegoat, maintained their places on the Committee until September 1st, and after that influenced its counsels. At the same time Morris, as we shall see, was keeping Monroe out of his place. There might have been a serious reckoning for these men had Paine been set free, or his case inquired into by the Convention. And Thuriot was now on the Committee of Public Safety; he was eager to lay his own crimes on Robespierre, and to conceal those of the Committee. Paine's old friend, Achille Audibert, unsuspicious as himself of the real facts, sent an appeal (August 20th) to "Citizen Thuriot, member of the Committee of Public Safety."
"Representative:—A friend of mankind is groaning in chains,—Thomas Paine, who was not so politic as to remain silent in regard to a man unlike himself, but dared to say that Robespierre was a monster to be erased from the list of men. From that moment he became a criminal; the despot marked him as his victim, put him into prison, and doubtless prepared the way to the scaffold for him, as for others who knew him and were courageous enough to speak out.*
* It most be remembered that at this time it seemed the
strongest recommendation of any one to public favor to
describe him as a victim of Robespierre; and Paine's friends
could conceive no other cause for the detention of a man
they knew to be innocent.