STATE PAPERS. 



193 



Piedmontese penetrated into Mont 

 Blanc, you saw them come out from 

 their retreats, fly to the walls, and 

 there collect in groups, with the 

 manifest intention to proht by the 

 circumstances, and recover their 

 lost ascendency. You have heard 

 them sigh for a counter-revolution 

 in Frauce, which could not fail to 

 bring about one in this republic ; 

 and express their wishes for the suc- 

 cess of the confederate powers, the 

 royalists of la Vendee, and the re- 

 bels of Lyons. You must recollect 

 their derisions, bravadoes, and de- 

 monstrations of joy, at the news of 

 the miscarriatjes occasionally sus- 

 tained by the French republican ar- 

 mies. You have heard them boast of 

 rendering our revolution abortive, 

 by the derangement of the finances} 

 and you have seen them concur to- 

 wards this aim, by rejecting the first 

 plan of an edict on public contri- 

 butions, manifesting at the same 

 time similar viev.'s relative to that 

 which was to have been presented 

 to the sovereign council on the 

 10th of the same month. 



You may, perhaps, have been ig- 

 norant that their emissaries in' Swit- 

 zerland have made the strongest ef- 

 forts to deter our aUics from ac- 

 knowledging our constitutional re- 

 gimen ; and that sunie of them, 

 whose names are not as yet known, 

 took measures a few weeks ago to 

 co-operate in a counter-revolution- 

 ary plan with the French emigrants, 

 having no less a tendency than to 

 light up a nev>' Vendee in the de- 

 partments which border on our ter- 

 ritory ; to provoke hostilities be- 

 tween the French republic and the 

 Helvetic body ; and to make our 

 city the centre of union for the 

 aristocrats, and a point of support 

 lor their hberticidal measures. 



Vol. XXXVI. 



Their incorrigible attachment to 

 aristocracy, their counter-revolu- 

 tionary wishes, their plans, and 

 their arrangements, were not un- 

 known to the French ; and this is 

 what served to prejudice the latter 

 so strongly against our republic. 

 They could not conceive but that 

 with us the revolution in favour of 

 liberty would terminate in giving to 

 the aristocracy an intire freedom to 

 intrigue with impunity ; and they 

 conceived that they ought to mis- 

 trust a people who boasted of having 

 bestowed a triumph on the princi- 

 ples of liberty and equahty, and 

 who had at the same time allowed 

 a tranquil residence among them to 

 a multitude of aristocrats who did 

 not even take the precaution to dis- 

 semble their aversion for liberty and 

 equality, and their joy at the tri- 

 umphs of the enemies of the French 

 republic. 



Remark also, that their number 

 and their union gave them a power- 

 ful influence in the assemblies of the 

 sovereign council. Their suffrages, 

 united to those of so many pre- 

 tended patriots, of so many whose 

 lukewarm and indifferent disposi- 

 tions made them unworthy of that 

 title, might with facility have en- 

 abled them to subvert the law* 

 most favourable to the people, and 

 the institutions most essential to 

 their happiness. 



Revolutionary citizens, it is time 

 that this contention should terrni* 

 nate. It is time that the people 

 should, without obstacle or impedi- 

 ment, set about the organization gf 

 their happiness. They are wearied 

 with having to vvatch unceasingly 

 the tnemies by whom they are sur- 

 rounded, and with wasting their 

 time in disconcerting their plots. 

 The compass of our walls is too 

 O narrow 



