ess were possible, 
5 BA TOR “PAPER'S, 
tepair their immense losses, and 
had prepared all the seeds of their 
future prosperity. 
I am now going to take a view 
of the external situation of this 
vast empire—of the relations of 
France with other hations, and of, 
their interests with are? to her. 
I will tell you how the happiness 
of the world must necessarily result 
from the establishment of the li-- 
berty of France, and the peace of 
the universe, from the peace you 
are going to negotiate with your 
neighbours. 
T will advertise the greater part 
of those who make war upon us, 
of the dangers to which they ex- 
pose themselves by declaring against 
us; which dangers are of such a 
nature, that success itcelf, if suc- 
would serve 
only to render them more immi- 
nent. I will repel the atrocious 
‘calumnies of those orators in the 
ay of tyrants, who, having no 
ae any hope of enslaving us by 
arms, would still excite against us 
as many enemies as there are go- 
vernaients in Europe, and deprive 
us of that national credit. which 
accrues to a great nation, from its 
respect for other nations and its 
public morality. 
It is time that the formulas of an 
“ancient and ill- advised policy give 
place to the frank and sincere ex- 
pressions of freemen ; it is time 
that truth, in the tribune of the 
legislator, resume that influence 
which, she ought never to have lost. 
The language I shall hold, will 
form a TINE contrast to the 
insidious words with which the 
sittings | of another s.i-disaut repre- 
sentative assembly resound at this 
moment ; an assembly which, in 
its counterfeit debates, i its quixotic 
7 
189 
rhodomontades, and fawning ad- 
dresses, denies your successes, dis. 
sembles your victories,. outrages 
your principles, and dares still to 
threaten a liberty which three years 
of fruitless attack ought at length 
to compel the worid to respect. 
When the most exasperate pas- 
sions are every where forging arms 
to divide us, to destroy or enslave 
us, animated by the most noble 
passions, inflamed by the love of 
liberty and our country, we must 
oppose imperturbable justice to 
their violent fury, and republican 
constancy to their rash impetuc~ 
Silty. 
Almost all the thrones of. the: 
earth have put themselves in mo. 
tion to fall upon us; their mi- 
nisters have leagued together; their 
armies have conglomérated; their 
thunders have flashed to. destroy 
our infant. liberty. But their ra. 
vaging cohorts, overthrowa by our 
patriot battalions, have been dis- 
sipated like those thick clouds 
which seem to announce a tempest, 
and which a salutary wind dis- 
perses and annihilates. 
While we had to combat only 
the hatred of coalesced kings, and 
the fury of their soldiers, the burn- 
ing valour of the French, | their 
inexhaustible courage, the constasr 
sacrifices of all the citizens, sufficed 
to prove to the universe, how 
worthy we are of liberty, and how 
chimerical the hope of thoie whe 
would wrest it from us. But now, 
citizens, that our triumpas have 
carried disinay into the bosam of 
the countries which pre‘ended to 
give chains to Fravte, we have 
another kind of attack to gustaia, 
and other efforts of repulse. They 
cannot conquer the French-—-they 
endeayour to calumniate them. «. 
All 
