152] 
from his confinement, through the 
connivance, it was suspected, of the 
government. Buthisassociate, Ba- 
beuf, was not so fortunate. He was 
tried by the high criminal court at 
Vendome, which condemned him to 
death. 
Great and unfeigned was the sa- 
tisfaction of the public at the dis- 
covery and suppression of this san- 
guinary plot. The jacobins became 
more than ever the objects of gene- 
ral execration. The extermination 
of all who rejected their principles 
seemed a fundamenial maxim of 
that inexorable faction. Their in- 
flexible resolution and perseverance 
in their projects, which, had they 
been attended with humanity, might 
have rendered them respectable, 
only tended to excite a dread and 
abhorrence of them. Thus, they 
were viewed by the generality as 
the pests of the community ; anda 
speedy riddance of them became the 
wish of all but those who were in- 
volved in the criminal intrigues. 
It was not with the same facility 
that government was able to crush 
the advocates of the — persecuted 
royalists. A seizure of those estates, 
which were to devolve to emi- 
grants on the demise of the actual 
possessor, had been decreed by the 
council of five hundred, and reject- 
ed by that of elders. The decree 
excepted only that portion which 
by law was to remain with the pre- 
sent possessor. It was warmly op- 
posed, as too rigorously intrenching 
upon the rightsof private property ; 
but, after long and violent debates, 
it was decreed that, instead of a di- 
rect seizure, that moiety should be 
levied for the use of the state which 
the legislature had already appro- 
priated to that purpose. This, how- 
c 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796. 
ever, it was plain, afforded no relief 
to the possessor. 
The chief obstacle to these and to 
the other pecuniary arrangements, 
respecting the estates of emigrants, 
was the difficulty of finding pur- 
chasers for the lands that had been 
declared national property. Many 
individuals, though warmly adher- 
ing to the republrc, reprobated the 
confiscation of property on avy pre 
text, while no misdemeanor was im- 
putable to the proprietor; who, 
while obedient to the laws, could 
not, without manifest injustice, be 
punished for the misdeeds of others. 
The sale of confiscated estates, met 
also with perpetual obstructions from 
the scruples infused into the minds 
of numbers by the nonjuring clergy ; 
who explicitly denounced damna- 
tion to those who purchased them. 
Hence a large proportion of national 
lands remained unsold, to the great 
inconvenience of the government, 
in its want of those sums that would 
have been produced by the disposal 
of them. 
This interference of the nonjur- 
ing clergy, in a matter of so much 
importance to the ruling powers, 
could not fail to increase their ha- 
tred to that order of men. They 
accused them of contributing more 
to the detriment of the state, by their 
bigotry, than its foreign enemies 
had done by theirarms. They per- 
verted the dispositions of the weak 
and the ignorant, by intimidating 
them with arguments founded upon 
falsehoods and absurdities. The un- 
happy propensity of unenlightened 
minds to superstition gave ecclesi- 
astics so decided an ascendancy over 
them, that, unless they were checked 
by the most effectual restraints, they 
would progressively become the ab- 
solute 
