242 
when surrounded by poniards, 
conflagration, and all those convul- 
sions which are natural conse- 
quences of anarchy and revelt. 
The King of France, had he 
enjoyed perfect freedom, would 
doubtless have consulted only the 
honour of his crown, the interest 
of his people, his protestation of 
the 20th of June, 1791, and his re- 
ligion, which they endeavoured to 
make him renounce. Had he en- 
joyed freedom, by making a gene- 
rous sacrifice, he would certainly 
have resigned life, had it been ne- 
cessary, to rescue his people from 
that pretended constitution with 
which they were loaded; but all 
Europe knows that his refusing to 
accept it would have caused the 
three faithful guards who were ar 
rested with him at Varennes to be 
massacred betore his eyes; that a 
famine, created on purpose. already 
presaged the most horrid attempts ; 
that the murder of all the royal 
family was resolved on by the con- 
spirators; that such of the nobility 
and clergy as in France remained 
faithful to their God and to their 
King, would have been instantly 
butchered, and that foreign powers 
would have had to punish thousands 
of criminals and regicide monsters. 
A ray of hope, which still seem- 
ed to beam forth in the heart of his 
most Christian Majesty, made him 
doubtless entertain an idea that 
the factious would soon repent ; 
and he probably flattered himself, 
that by this last act of condescension 
he should be able to disarm their 
fury, and dissipate that fatal cloud 
* Letter of the King to the Assembly, 
+ Month of July, 1791. 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1792. 
of error by which they were blind- 
ed. The nullity of his acceptance, 
fully demonstrated by those rigor- 
ous circumstances which imperious- 
ly commanded it, sufficiently de- 
stroyed the inconveniences of it. 
Hewished, as he himself declared*, 
that the constitution might be 
judged by experience. Ina word, 
he was obliged either to accept it, 
or condemn France to commit exe- 
crable crimes, to abandon it to all 
thehorrors of civil war, and to bury 
it entirely under its own ruins. 
The King signed it. but his hand 
was at that time in chains. The 
act which he performed was invalid. 
The protestation of the 20th of 
June had previously annulled it. 
A prisoner can enter into no en- 
gagement, can sanction nothing, 
nor accept of any thing; and a 
monarch, who is reduced to the 
necessity of writing that he is free, 
is not so in reality. All powers, 
filled with indignationat this horrid 
spectacle, had already concerted 
measures for avenging the honour, 
of the diadem.—His late Imperial 
Majesty, by his circular letter, 
written from Paduat, invited all 
the powers of Europe to form a 
confederation for this purpose. The 
convention of Pilnitz determined 
those circumstances which made 
their Imperial and Prussian Majes- 
ties to have recourse to arms; but 
the acceptation of his most Chris- 
tian Majesty, though forced, and 
consequently null, seemed to pro- 
mise anew order of things: it ren- 
dered the danger less threatening}, 
and the latter events seemed to af- 
September 18, 1791. 
$ Dispatch of Prince de Kaunitz to several ministers at fureign courts, Nov. 12, 
4721. 
ford. 
