Baron Cuvier's Historical Eloge of Baron Ramond. 11 



en masse of the king's guard, that violent step in which it was 

 easy to see the prelude to the overthrow of the throne. Some- 

 times his language is that of the day, the only one which was 

 intelligible, but his conclusions were in favour of justice and 

 reason. Vain efforts. To men in the heat of passion no^ 

 thing can appear reasonable and just bul the objects of their 

 desire, and often the most eloquent discourses only exasperated 

 them more in an opposite direction. It happened even that 

 in those circuitous means, in those difficult manoeuvres to 

 which they were obliged to resort who strove to put ofT a ca- 

 tastrophe, M. Ramond had the misfortune to involve himself 

 in a proceeding which, contrary to his intention, accelerated 

 the progress of it. M. Delessart, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 

 had by an imprudent communication drawn upon himself the 

 hatred of the ruling party. The minister of war, M. de Nar- , 

 bonne, an honest but frivolous man, committed an imprudence 

 of another kind by declaiming publicly against his colleague, 

 and thus exposing the division which reigned in the ministry. 

 The king irritated, dismissed him. His friends, who consi- 

 dered him a necessary support to the throne, believed that the 

 time had come when it was necessary to serve the cause of 

 royalty in spite of itself, by urging the assembly to testify its 

 regret at this removal, and M. Ramond, their organ, proposed 

 even to declare that the other ministers had lost the confidence 

 of the nation. But it was one thing to make a proposition 

 and another to calculate the result of it. The stormy debate 

 which followed took a turn quite contrary to the views of 

 those who had provoked it : In place of a resolution, the 

 effect of which was confined to bring back the king to coun- 

 sellors who could save him, the party who wished to destroy 

 him demanded the impeachment of M. Delessart. An insi- 

 dious report, prepared before hand by the famous Brissot, and 

 the existence of which was not even known to the authors of 

 the first proposition, supported this demand. No answer 

 was ready: The fatal decree was passed, and from that time 

 the unfortunate monarch could find only faithless or pusilla- 

 nimous ministers, and no serious obstacles any longer stopped 

 the audacity of his enemies. 



On the disgraceful day of the 20th June, the voice of M. Ra- 



