STATE 
is honourable, to treat with us: 
but the measure is become indis- 
pensable to your satety ; we have 
made known to you the necessity 
of it, learn the meaus; we are too 
grand, too powerful, to have any 
thing to disguise. 
Our past dangers, the necessity 
of rendering the return of them 
impossible, the example of the me- 
nacing league which wanted to 
Over-run us, and at one time car- 
ried desolation into the heart of 
France ; the sincere desire of ren- 
dering peace solid and durable, 
obliges us to extend our frontiers, 
to take for our limits great rivers, 
mountains, -and the ocean, and 
thus, beforehand, and for a long 
series of ages, to secure ourselves 
from all invasion and from all at- 
tack. At this price the powers 
of Europe may depend upon an 
inviolable peace, and upon cou- 
rageous allies, capable of disengag- 
ing them from the weight of the 
two rash Colossusses that, in their 
guilty delirium, want to arrogate 
at once the empire of the land and 
of the seas. 
Such, citizens, are the grand 
truths which every thing now com- 
mands us to develope before the 
eyes of Europe. 
In vain is it attempted to mislead 
the people of other nations, by 
telling them that our government 
being only provisional, no tie, no 
treaty, -can have any gnarantec. 
Our government is the pieniporen- 
tiary nominated by the totality of 
the Freneh people to terminate in 
their name the revolution and the 
war; and I doubt if ever ambas- 
sador was seen invested with power 
thore ample, ot a charaéter more 
augutt, 
PAPERS. 195° 
What signify the combinations 
of which governments are formed, 
when treaties are formed with the 
people to whom those governments 
belong! the peace which you will 
soon solicit, will be much more 
solid from being given ‘to you by 
the assent of the whole people. 
Our government is the will of the 
nation ; our forms are justice; our 
principles are humanity; your 
guarantee is the sincerity and the 
courage of a nation which has 
willed to be free: 
Appreciate our actual governs 
ment by the spectacle which it of- 
fers to the world; it has repressed 
intestine troubles ; annihilated re- 
bel factions ; broken down the scat- 
folds ; opened the prisons; aveng~ 
ed innocent blood; devoted to 
death and infamy the ministers of 
terror; it has restored liberty to 
commerce; tranquillity to agricul - 
ture: in the interior it has made 
justice the order of the day, and 
victory on the frontiers. 
Ah! all enlightened nations will , 
listen with the smile of contempt 
and of pity, to the absurd or per- 
fidious politicians who call in ques- 
tion, whether a nation that can 
conguer has the power of nego- 
tiating ; who dare still to maintain 
that peace is impossible, at the mo- 
ment when every thing demon- 
strates that obstinacy is insensate 
and resistance vain? 
Adopt, citizens, the ideas I have 
traced; speak with that noble 
frankness which befits the majesty 
of the French people, and you will 
soon see the diplomatic subtleties 
of your enemies confounded by the 
wisdom of your councils, as you 
have seen their temerity punished 
by the conrage of your warriozs. 
wea Proclamation 
