268 ANNUAL REGISTER, 
perfidious counsellors to whom a 
confiding people had long the ha- 
bit of attributing all the crimes of 
our kings. 
The National Assembly then saw 
that the safety of the country re- 
quired extraordinary measures. 
They opened a discussion on the 
means of saving their country; they 
instituted a commission charged to 
consider of and prepare a plan of 
these means. Mijas 
The declaration that the country 
is in danger called all the citizens 
to the common defence, all per- 
sons in public trust to their posts ; 
and yet in the midst of complaints 
unceasingly repeated of the inac- 
tion of government, on the neglect 
or ill management of the prepara- 
tions for war, on the useless or dan- 
gerous motions of the armies, the 
avowed object of which was to fa- 
vour the political plans of one of 
the generals, ministers unknown 
or suspected were seen to succeed 
one another rapidly, and to pre- 
sent, under new names, the same 
inactivity and the same principles. 
A declaration of the general of 
the enemy, which doomed to death 
all freemen, and promised to cow- 
ards and traitors his disgraceful pro- 
tection, could not but add to these 
suspicions. In it the enemy of 
France seemed to attend to nothing 
but the defence of the King of the 
French. Twenty-six millions of 
men were nothing in his estima- 
tion, in comparison of a privileged 
family ; their blood must wet the 
earth to avenge the slightest insult; 
and the King, instead of expressing 
his indignation against a manifesto 
intended to take from him the con- 
fidence of the people, seemed to 
Oppose to it, and that reluctantly, 
a cold and timid disavowal. 
1792. 
Who then can be astonished that 
distrust in the supreme head of the 
executive power should inspire ci- 
tizens with the desire of no longer 
seeing the forces intended for the 
common defence at the disposition 
ora king in whose name France 
was attacked, and the care of main- 
taining her internal tranquillity 
confided to him whose interests 
were the pretexts of all her trou- 
bles? To these motives, common 
to all France, were joined others 
particular to the inhabitants of 
Paris. They saw the families of the 
conspirators at Coblentz forming. 
the habitual society of the king and 
his family. Writers, paid by the 
civil list, endeavoured by base ca- 
lumnies to render the Parisians 
odious or suspected in the eyes of 
the rest of France. Attempts were 
made to sow division between the 
poor citizens and the rich ; the na- 
tional guard was agitated by per- 
fidious nanceuvres, in order to form 
in it a party of royalists. In fine, 
the enemies of liberty seemed to 
be divided between Paris and Cob- 
Jentz; and their audacity increased 
with their number. 
The constitution enjoined the 
King to ‘give notice of imminent 
hostilities to the National Assem- 
bly; and long solicitations were 
necessary to obtain of the ministry 
the tardy information of the march 
of the Prussian troops. The con- 
stitution pronounced abdication 
against the King if he did not, by » 
some formal act, declare his oppo- 
sition to enterprizes undertaken in 
his name against the nation; and 
the emigrant princes had opened 
public Joans in the King’s name, 
and had hired foreign troops in his 
name, had levied French regiments 
in his name, had formed a military 
house- 
