LECTURE XXIX. BEFORE TENTH OF AUGUST. N the last lecture an allusion was made to the state of IN Paris during the month of July, 1792, and beginning of August; but how little can this state of Paris and of the French nation be now conceived! Think of a people of their sensitive, electric, theatric nature; think of such a people being roused from a state of servility and ignorance, told of their sovereignty, and indulged in the lawless and often bloody exercise of it now for three years together; think of every needy man of talents now with a prospect of elevation in the state, of affluence, and honours, and, above all, of fame and the gaze of the multitude, if he could but overpower and depress those who were already above him; think of the new opinions, what they at the time were; think of the sacred flame of liberty and the cause of the rights of man, how worthy to animate, how fitted to betray into excess, not only the feelings of the daring and the lawless, but the understandings of the wisest and the best; and in the mean time think of foreign armies approaching, united evidently in wishes and opinions with the king and royal family, openly even denouncing and coming professedly to destroy a certain portion of the popular party; think of the king surrounded by confidential servants, in whom the speakers and leaders in and out of the Assembly placed no confidence, but the reverse; while the French armies were all this time not successful, and while the armies ranged against them were the regular troops of the first military powers of Europe. This was a situation fitted to excite and exasperate a people like this (a military nation, too,) into a state of perfect frenzy; and even the events that followed, appalling as they were, can convey to us no adequate apprehension of the scene that existed, at this particular period, in this revolutionized kingdom, and more especially in its revolutionized metropolis. And now I must digress for a moment, to mention a particular circumstance that occurred. I have represented to you the state of awful uncertainty in which every thing was now placed; and I have intimated to you that this uncertainty, great as it would be, whoever had been the actors, is rendered even still greater by the very sensitive and electric nature of the French people. It is for the purpose of turning your attention to an instance of this last kind, that I am now digressing. Can you conceive it possible, that the very next scene you are to remark, after what you have just had described to you of the situation of the country and of its different parties and interests, is the opposite leaders and members of the Legislative Assembly rushing into the arms of each other, all distinctions of parties and opinions at an end, the right side and the left side confused and mixed together, and all this, merely because the Abbé Lamourette had on a sudden appealed to the good feelings of the Assembly, and had made a sort of petition, expostulation, and remonstrance with all and every person and party before him? "Who," he called aloud," who is there for a republic, and who for the two chambers? There is no one," he cried, "there can be no one. What cause, therefore, for our dissensions? He who unites us, is the vanquisher of Austria and Coblentz. Let us devote to execration both the republic and the two chambers. One hope, one sentiment,-eternal fraternity, and our country is saved." A few words of this kind were all the magic he had used; and the Assembly had started up as I have intimated, and eternal fraternity had been sworn, and the provinces were to be informed, and the army, and the king, of this new oblivion of every thing but the interests of the country; and the king was sent for, and he and the Assembly dissolved in the interchange of their expressions of sympathy and joy, their sentiments of affection and respect, and their mutual felicitations on the future happiness of France. This is really one of the facts of the history; and design, contrivance, hypocrisy, all suppositions of this kind, are quite out of the question. Brissot was obliged to alter his intended speech on account of what had passed, and a man of genius (if Louis had been of this temperament), it is quite to be believed, might have now put himself at the head of the general emotion, and, by persuading the allied sovereigns to withdraw their armies, or even marching himself against them, might yet, it was possible (for any thing was possible in such a country), might yet have saved his crown and dignity, and given freedom and happiness to his people. But the genius, the electric flashes, the high and sudden resolve, the daring, the impetuous, the elevated, the sublime, whatever was fitted to affect a nation of mere feeling and impulse like the French nation, every thing of this kind was always found, if found at all, on the popular side, and never seemed for a moment to have reached the court, or visited the cold region of its counsels. But how soon was this happy amnesty, this generous effusion of kindness and forgiveness, this pleasing dawn of brightening and of better days, how soon was it to disappear! It scarcely lasted to the next sitting. "Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Only two days after this oath of union and peace had been taken with so much unanimity and enthusiasm, the Girondist party returned to the charge, and Brissot delivered the speech which he had adjourned, and which had little appearance of having been moderated by the author and cleared of its violent passages. It lasted three hours, and nothing can be more violent than several of the sentences extracted from it and given in the Mercure. He numbered up the enemies of France, described the neutrality of other powers; then pictured the situation of kings: that it was between them and the Revolution a war of life and death; that the courts knew well that the Jacobins were no constituted power, and had neither money nor means, nor even emissaries; but that they had assemblies, which were volcanoes that never ceased to shower down lava on the heads of tyrants; that poignards they had none, but they had the gospel of their constitution, and that it was with that they fought, and could make more proselytes than ever tyrants could. "But our country," he continued, "must be declared in danger; extraordinary measures must be resorted to; the nation must rise, as one man, if the executive power refuse to unite with you. Here I pause. The good of the people will inspire you. I have well reflected on these measures. Silence would in me be a crime. I will picture the executive power-the evil that it hath done. Men change not their natures in a day: I should consider myself as a traitor if I believed so unheard-of a conversion. Strike the court and the Tuileries, and you will strike all the traitors at once. The abscess is in the head." Brissot then proceeded (according to the account in the Mercure) to propose various decrees of a revolutionary nature. The same speech is given in a more regular form by Bertrand de Moleville, but is not less hostile to the king; on the contrary, it is more distinct and more immediately directed to procure his overthrow. "Our country is in danger; our strength has been paralyzed; and to whom is this fatal lethargy owing? To a single man, whom the nation has made its chief, and whom perfidious courtiers have made its enemy. There is a plot, of which the heart is at the court, and all our dangers, internal and external, are the fruit of that plot. If the king be guilty, let it be said frankly; all composition with the executive power would be a crime." These are expressions to be found in Bertrand de Moleville's version of the speech, accompanied by some of those, the most violent, found in the Mercure; and in conclusion, Brissot moved, and in the name of the king, that his conduct should be investigated, and that the article of the constitution should be considered, which ordained, that in case of the king's not formally opposing any enterprises entered upon in his name against the constitution, he should be deemed to have abdicated. After such a speech, the meaning of such a motion was sufficiently clear. Ere the middle of July, there remained little trace of the great indignation that had been raised by the outrages of the 20th of June, still less of the union effected by the Abbé Lamourette. Another circumstance occurred. Pétion had been suspended by the directory; the king had very unwillingly taken a part, and had confirmed the suspension; and then the Assembly immediately after, though they had themselves desired the king to interfere, actually restored him. This was again a pretty clear indication that his services would be soon wanted, and that they had been found important on the 20th. The federation was on the 14th of July, and the violent party had summoned to appear there, under the denomination of Federates, men chosen generally from among the most furious members of the clubs of the provinces. At the federation, though the king was not assassinated, as the queen had expected, the great idol of the day had been Pétion. Nothing could be more mournful and discouraging to the king and the court, than the ceremony and all its circumstances; and the king's danger had not at all passed away with the day of the federation. The Federates could be easily retained in Paris; more of the Marseillois had been sent for; many had before arrived for the federation; and Barbaroux was ready for the insurrection: and violent speeches and motions were continually made from time to time by Brissot, Guadet, and the rest of the Girondists. The decree that the country was in danger had produced the greatest effect all over the interior; Paris was in a constant state of alarm and agitation; the abdication or deposition of the king was every where the common topic of conversation, was every where the measure of the clubs and sections, and was the point laboured by all the revolutionary demagogues out of the Assembly, and by many of the leading orators within. In the mean time, it appears from Bertrand de Moleville, that the minister had (for his own part) taken heart when he saw the federation of the 14th had produced no commotion, and that the concourse of the Federates had been less than he had expected. "These circumstances," he says, "gave a little relief to the fears of a general confusion, which the violent ferment of |