112] ANNUAL REGISTER, 1795. 
ple who had been taught to feel 
their strength, and might have ex- 
erteditto their cost. They resign- 
ed, however, only a name that was 
no longer tenable with safety ; but 
they retained the substance of that 
authority they had solong exercised, 
and with their usual dexterity esta- 
blished it upona constitutional basis, 
when they found that no other 
means would secure its existence. 
Conscious at the same time that the 
constitution, which they had been 
obliged to frame, would operate to 
their disadvantage, unless they were 
placed at the head of it, they never 
rested till, by their intrigues and 
machinations, they had found means 
to exclude, from the principal ma- 
nagement of affairs, those men whose 
intentions were to abide with the 
strictest punctuality tothe letter and 
spirit of the new constitution, upon 
whom the eyes of their countrymen 
were fixed, as individuals of unim- 
peached integrity, and who, in the 
midst of those atrocities which they 
could not prevent, had the courage 
to reprobate them, and to keep 
their own characters . unstained. 
These being men precisely the re- 
verse of themselves, they had no 
other method of preserving their 
own consequence with the public, 
than to represent them either as timid 
and fearful to aét a strong and re- 
solute part in the tempestuous scenes 
that had accompanied the formation 
of the republic, or as concealed par- 
tisans of royalism under the mask 
and denomination of moderates, 
They had even the insolence to brand 
them withthe appellation ofChouans, 
the most odious of all those who op- 
posed the revolution, on account of 
the barbarities and depredations 
with which they disgraced the cause 
they had espoused, ang rendered 
many who were not disinclined to 
favour it, suspicious that, should it 
obtain the upper hand, it would, 
under another name, renew the 
reign of terrorism, and fill France 
with proscriptions and massacres. 
These surmises against the Chouans, 
and their abettors, being founded ort 
facts that could not be denied, ope- 
rated powerfully against the roy- 
alists in general, sand made people 
apprehensive that were they to suc- 
ceed in their indefatigable attempts 
‘to crush the republican party, they 
would not make a more moderate 
use of their success than these had 
done. Hence multitudes, dreading 
the repetition of the horrors they had 
witnessed, were cordially willing to 
acquiesce in the government now 
established ; and viewed not only 
with disapprobation, but with ab- 
horrence, every endeavour that was 
made to overturn it, as tending ne- 
cessarily to create new confusions, 
and replunge the nation into those 
miseries from which it was gradually 
emerging. 
Could the predominant party 
have effected their intention te 
ruin, in the public Ricem, those 
men who had so spiritedly opposed 
their attempt to. annul the new con- 
stitution, they would have been un- 
controlled masters of the new sys. 
tem. But, happily for the nation, 
its opinion of those men was so 
strongly, as well as so justly, settled 
in their favour, that small as their 
number was in the new legislature, 
its weight was such as to form ne 
inconsiderable counterpoise to the 
great majority of worthless and pro- 
fligate men it had to oppose. The 
respect of the public for these men 
had been testified in the most mortj- 
fying manner for their antagonists. 
Thedifferent departments vied with 
each 
