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- 2¢8 DABS 
ali ceased to exist. No sooner 
did the throne become a prey to 
usurpers, than your fortunes were 
seized by plunderers : the instant 
the shield of royal authority ceased 
to protect you, you were oppressed 
by despotism, and sunk into slavery. 
To that ancient and wise consti- 
tution, whose fall has proved your 
ruin, we wished to restore all its pu- 
rity which time had corrupted ; 
all its vigour which time had im- 
paired :- but it has itself fortunately 
deprived us of the ability to change 
it. It is our holy ark; we are 
forbidden to lay rash hands upon 
it; it is your happiness and our 
glory ; it is the wish of all true 
Frenchmen; and the knowledge 
we have acquired in the school of 
misfortune, all tend to confirm in 
our mind the necessity of restoring 
it entire. It is because France .is 
dear to us, that we are anxious to 
replace her under the: beneficent 
protection of a government, the 
excellence’ of which has been 
proved by so long a continuance of 
prosperity. It is because we feel 
it to be our duty to quell that 
spirit of system making, that rage 
for innovation which has been the 
cause of your ruin, that we are. 
anxious to renovate and confirni 
those salutary laws which are alone 
capable of promoting a general 
unity of sentiment; of fixing the 
general opinion, and of opposing 
an insurmountable barrier to the 
revolutionary rage, which every 
plan of a change in the constitution 
of our kingdom would again let 
loose upon the public. 
But while the hand of time gives 
the stamp of wisdom to the insti- 
tutions of man, his passions are 
studious to degrade them ; and they 
place either their own work on the 
Vor. XXXVII. 
PA P/E-RS. 
side of the laws, with a view to 
weaken their effet, or make it 
usurp the place of the Jaws, in 
order to render them useless. In 
those empires which have attained 
the highest pitch of glory and 
prosperity, abuses most generally 
prevail ; because in such states they 
are the least likely to attract the ats 
tention of those who govern. Some 
abuses had therefore crept into the 
government of France, which were 
257° 
‘not only felt by: the lower class of 
people, but by every order of the 
state. The deceased monarch, 
our brother and sovereign lord and 
master, had< perceived ayd ‘was - 
anxious to remove them; in his 
last moments he charged his suc- 
cessor to execute the plans which 
he had in his wisdom conceived, 
for promoting the happiness of that 
very people who suffered him to 
perish on the scaffold. On quitting 
the throne, from which crime and . 
impiety had hurled him, to ascend 
that which Heaven had reserved « 
for his virtues, he pointed out to 
us our duties in that immortal 
will, the inexhaustible source of 
admiration and regret. The king! 
that martyr! submissive to the 
God who had made him a king, 
followed his: example without a 
murmur, in rendering the instru. 
ment of his punishment a trophy 
of his glory, and in attending to 
the welfare of his people at the ° 
very time when they were com. 
pleting the sum of his misfortunes ! 
What Louis XVI. could not effect, 
we will accomplish! ; 
But though plans of reform may~- 
be conceived in the midst of con. 
fusion, they can only be executed 
in the bosom of' tranquillity. To 
replace upon its ancient basis the 
constitution @f the kingdom, to 
$ give 
