250 
King; he will always be your fa- 
ther, your best friend. What plea- 
gure it will give him to forget all 
the personal injuries he has suffer- 
ed, and to see himself in the midst 
of you—when religion shall be re- 
spected, and government establish- 
ed on a stable basis; —when the 
property and persons of individuals 
shall no lonzer be molested ;—when 
the laws shall not be infringed with 
impunity ;—and, in short, when li- 
berty shall be placed on a solid and 
Jasting foundation!”? 
III. oF THE REVOLUTION AS IT 
RESPECTS FOREIGN PRINCES 
WHO HAVE POSSESSIONS IN 
FRANCE, 
Considered under the third 
point of view, the French revolu- 
tion, so fatal to France, becomes 
still more so by the violence and in- 
tolerable injustice offered to foreign 
princes who have possessions with- 
in the territories of the kingdom, 
and by the rigorous means which 
must necessarily be employed to do 
them justice. 
The Comtat of Avignon belong- 
edto the holysee. The sovereignty 
of the Pope over this domain was 
founded on an_ incontrovertible 
title of acquisition, on possession, 
» which among all nations is equal to 
a title. The usurping assembly 
united it to their territories by the 
Sanguinary right of utility and ne- 
cessity ; and compounding after- 
wards with themselves, and with 
justice, they offered an indemnity 
to the holy see. But if the sove- 
reignty of the Pope was legal, they 
had no right to deprive him of it; 
and if they had a right to deprive 
him of it, why did they offer him an 
indemnification ? 
The Prince Bishop of Basle, a 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1792. 
state of the empire, possesses in its 
sovereignty defiles which tempted 
the ambition of the National As- 
sembly. It caused them to be for- 
cibly seized, and removed a detach- 
ment of troops which the Emperor 
had sent thither, on the requisition 
of the French Bishop, for the safety 
of the country, agreeaoly to the 
Germanic constitution. ‘The trea- 
ties of Westphalia, the Pyrenees, 
Breda, Aix-la-Chapelle, Nimeguen, 
Ryswick, Utrecht, Baden, and Vi- 
enna, gave to France the provinces 
of the three bishoprics, and of Al- 
sace and Franche Compte, by ex- 
pressly reversing the rights and pro- 
perty of the princes and states of 
the empire in these provinces, and 
by stipulating that no innovation 
could be made in them. either with 
regard to ecclesiastical or political 
matters.—It is evident that these 
treaties cannot be infringed at the — 
will of the usurping assembly ; and — 
that by calling tor the execution of 
those clauses which serve their 
views, they have no right to reject 
those which displease them. It is 
perfectly clear that they ought to 
renounce provinces which have 
been ceded to the crown of France, 
or punctually execute the condition 
of the cessions made to it. 
But their decrees respecting the 
dismemberment of dioceses, and of 
the right of metropolitans; the 
abolition of feudality, the suppres- — 
sion of several privileges: or the an- 
nihilation of territorial jurisdiction, 
without indemnification, and the 
sale of the possessions of the clergy, 
are a direct infringement of the 
treaty of Westphalia, as well as of 
subsequent treaties. These decrees 
have violated political and ecclesi- 
astical rights secured in perpetuity 
by the treaties of cession. These 
cessions consequently, which are 
synallagmatic | 
