[153] "Count de Dampierre, a nobleman inhabiting a chateau near the road, approaching to kiss the hand of the King, was instantly pierced by several balls from the escort; his blood sprinkled the royal carriage, and his remains were torn to pieces by the savages."—Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 271; M. de Campan, tom. ii., p. 154.
[154] Drawn up by Brissot, author of the Patriot Française.
[155] Lacretelle, tom. viii., p. 311.
[156] Mémoires de Mad. Roland, art. "Robert,"—S.—[part i., p. 157.]
[157] Thiers, tom. i., p. 312.
[158] "Mr. Fox told me in England, in 1793, that at the time of the King's departure to Varennes, he should have wished that he had been allowed to quit the kingdom in peace."—M. de Staël, vol. i., p. 408.
Napoleon said at St. Helena:—"The National Assembly never committed so great an error as in bringing back the King from Varennes. A fugitive and powerless, he was hastening to the frontier, and in a few hours would have been out of the French territory. What should they have done in these circumstances? Clearly facilitated his escape, and declared the throne vacant by his desertion. They would thus have avoided the infamy of a regicide government, and attained their great object of republican institutions."
[159] Mignet, tom. i., p. 141; Dumont, p. 244.
[160] "One evening M. de Narbonne made use of this expression: 'I appeal to the most distinguished members of this Assembly.' At that moment the whole party of the Mountain rose up in a fury, and Merlin, Bazire, and Chabot, declared, that 'all the deputies were equally distinguished.'"—M. de Staël, tom. ii., p. 39.
[161] Cazalès, one of the most brilliant orators of the Assembly, was born at Grenade-sur-la-Garonne in 1752. He died in 1805. In 1821, Les Discours et Opinions de Cazalès were published at Paris, in an octavo volume.