HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
which, happily for France, were so 
seasonably prevented, the govern- 
ment was preparing a law, by which 
it hoped to reconcile the parties 
that divided the nation, so far as to 
extinguish the motives of terror 
that rendered ‘so many Frenchmen 
enemies, through necessity, of their 
countrymen in power. 
This law, from which such salu- 
tary effeéts were expeéted to flow, 
was an aét of universal amnesty, 
which was to put an immediate 
Stop to all prosecutions for revolu- 
tionary crimes and offences, com- 
mitted since the commencement of 
July, 1789, to the fourth of Bru- 
maire, in the fourth year of the re- 
public,1796. Theonly exceptions 
to this amnesty were those con- 
tained in the law enacted in the last 
sitting of the late convention, and 
called the law of the third Bru- 
maire. 
These exceptions were levelled at 
the opposers of the new constitu- 
tion, transported priests, and emi- 
grants, and those who had partici- 
‘pated in the insurreétion at Paris 
against the decree of the convention, 
ordaining the re-eleétion of two- 
thirds of its members. 
But this law had always been 
considered, by the impartial, as too 
indiscriminately favourable to the 
adherents of the party which had 
framed it, asit not only puta stop 
to the proceedings against the agents 
of terrorism, but even against indi- 
viduals guilty of crimes, for which 
they had been sentenced to severe 
and merited punishment, and whom 
it set at liberty in direét violation 
of all justice, and to the consterna- 
tion of all persons inclined to mo- 
_ deration and pacific measures. 
A committee had been appointed 
fo draw up the planof this proposed 
[159 
amnesty, the report of which led to 
a variety of discussions relating to it, 
and occasioned at last a proposal to 
repeal the very law of the third of 
Brumaire, as bearing too inequita- 
bly upon those who were related 
to emigrants, whom it excluded 
from public offices, together with 
those who had been concerned in 
the insurrection of last Oétober, 
against the decrees of the conven- 
tion for the re-eleétions. 
These members of the legislature, 
who favoured the repeal of this law, 
considered it as inconsistent with 
the real principles of the constitu- 
tion, by which no man ought to be 
subjected to so heavy a punishment 
as the forfeiture of his civic rights, 
without evident proof of his deserv- 
ing it. In consequence of the rea- 
sonings they used in support of this 
opinion, a committee was chosen to 
deliberate on the merits of this law 
and whether it could, with safe 
ty, be repealed at the present pe- 
riod. 
The public was, in the mean 
time, greatly divided in its opinion 
on this question. Some pronounced 
it at once a trial of strength be- 
tween the royalists and the repub- 
licans. Were the law to be repeal- 
ed, an inundation of the former 
would infallibly take place in every 
department, and the restoration of 
monarchy would be the unavoidable 
consequence. . 
The nation at large held itself 
3 
‘deeply concerned in the decision 
of. this important question, and 
waited for it with the utmost impa~- 
tience. ‘The committee, appointed 
to examine the advantages and ill- 
consequences resulting from the law 
alluded to, was considered as hold- 
ing in its hands the fate of the na- 
tions. Loud and fervent were the 
wishes 
