STATE PAPERS. 
The excesses of which the people 
have been guilty, are cértainly 
dreadful; but we cannot forget 
that sedu€tion and violence have 
had greater influence over them 
than opinion and inclination; and 
we know, that even while they 
favoured the revolutionary schemes, 
their hearts remained faithful, and 
secretly disayowed the condu& 
which terror direfted. That peo- 
ple, alternately deccived and sub- 
dued, but always more deserving 
of pity than of censure; that people, 
who have been sufficiently, nay 
too severely punished by six years 
of slavery and oppression; by that 
multitude of calamities which they 
have drawn down upon their own 
heads; that people, who were 
always dearly beloved by the kings 
our predecessors, will make us 
amends for the cruel torments we 
have suffered, by affording us an 
opportunity of loading them with 
our benefa¢tions. 
Who would have ventured to be- 
lieve, that perfidy and rebellion 
could ever have infected that army 
which was the support of the 
throne, and at ail times devoted to 
honour and to their sovereign !— 
Their successes have proved that 
courage is never to be extinguished © 
in the heart of a Frenchman, But 
how maiy tears ought you to shed 
over those fatal successes! They 
have been the principle of the ge. 
feral oppression ; they have consti- 
tuted the support, and increased 
the audacity of yout execrable ty- 
rants; they are the instruments 
employed by the hand of God for 
the chastisement of France. What 
soldier is there, who will not, when 
he returns to his home, find the 
still bloody traces of those calami- 
ties which his victories have occa- 
259 
sioned? But the French army can- 
not long remain the enemy of. its 
king. Since it has preserved its 
ancient valour, it will resume ite 
primitive virtues; since honour is 
not extinguished in its bosom, it 
will follow. her ditates; it will 
listen to her voice. Soon, we doubt 
hot, the ery of wive de roi, will re. 
place the clamours of sedition ; soon 
will the army return, submissiveand 
faithful, to re-establish our throne ; 
to éxpiate at our feet even its own 
glory ; and to read in our looks 
oblivion of past errors, and pardon 
of past crimes. 
We might let justice take her 
course against the criminal authors 
of the people’s errors, against the 
chiefs and instigators of the revolt ; 
and perhaps we ought so to do; 
though how could we palliate the 
irreparable injury which they have’ 
done to France? But those whom 
Divine justice has not yet over. 
taken, we will leave to their own 
conscience; that will be punish- 
ment enough. May they; overa 
powered by this excess of indul. 
gence, and remaining submissively 
attached to their duty, justify usin 
our own mind for the unexpected 
pardon which we shall have granted 
them ! 
But there are crimes (why can 
they not be effaced from our recol- 
letion, and from the memiory of 
man !)—there are crimes, the atro. 
city of which exceeds the bounds 
of royal clemency. In that horrid 
sitting, in which subjects had the 
audacity to bring theirking to trial, 
all the members who sat as judges 
were accomplices in the crime.— 
But we are still willing to believe, 
that those whose votes were calcu. 
lated to save his sacred head from 
the parricidal axe, were only in- 
$2 duced 
