439 
the deluded monarch. The duke having 
learned the particulars, by means of two 
deputies, who had been prefent, inftantly 
flew from the Affembly to the palace, and 
entering the privy chamber, difclofed the 
fatal fecret to the king. ** Quw’ai-je done 
fait pour que le peuple seve contre moi?” 
ait-il avec une douleur profonde niais calme,. 
§§ Ou’ il life avec moi dansma conference, & il 
verra fi jamais tla eu un meilleuy am, fi 
depuis que jai le drat de neoccuper de fon 
Lonbeur, nion caeur ajamais eu une autre 
penfee.” 
_ This would have done great honour-to 
his majefty’s heart, were it not one of the 
beft afcertained faéts in hiftory, that he 
had prepared an army, at this very mo- 
ment, under M. de Broglio, on purpofe to | 
chaftife the Parifians, and ft:fle the fant 
cry of liberty. 
On being brought back a prifoncr, after 
his flight to Varennes, he exclaimed, in. 
the fame firain, to the duke: * Ab! f 
jeus atteint le but de mon voyage, le peu- 
ple aurvit wu fi ge meritois fes foupgons & 
fon inuftice?’ Now, it feems evident 
that le but de voyage was to throw himfelf 
into the hands of the Auftrians and Emi- 
grants, as his brother, Monfieur, did, who 
fled at the fame time, and efcaped by 
raking a different road. 
M. de la Rechefoucauld Liancourt foon 
after left Fran¢e, and was lucky enough to 
arrive fafe in kngland. Preferring the 
country to the capital, he took up his re- 
fidence at Bury St. Edmund’s, in Suffolk ; 
but he has fince gone over to America, 
whence a publication of his has appeared, 
on the Improvement of the Criminal 
code in Pennfyivaina. 
When Lovis XVI, like our Charles I, 
was doomed to undergo a public trial, the 
duke addreffed a letter to Barrere, then 
prefident of the Aficmbly,. dated Novem- 
ver 19th, in which be offered to become 
his defender, at the bar of the National 
Tribunal. On the zoth of December, 
1792, he wrote a letter to M, Maletherbes, 
who had been chofen, by Louis, as his 
advocate, in which he endeavoured to de- 
pet his charaéter, as that of an amiable 
and philanthropic fovercign; exclaiming 
at the fame time, Ab! / la facrifice de ma 
wie cf utile au bonheur de la France, 7’y 
fais. preparé!” . The truth is, that Hen- 
rictta Maria, confort of Charles I, and 
Maria Antoinette, the partner, not only 
ef the bed, but the occupier of the throne 
ef Louis XVI, occafioned the cataftrophe 
of both. Louis was not unacquainted 
with his own foibles, for the duc de 
Liancourt has feen a MS. in his majefty’s 
L, 
Original Anecdotes—Rochefoucauld Liancourts &c. 
[july 
hand-writing, in which he freely depiéted 
his own charaéter, and particularifed his 
good qualities, and even his faults; in 
‘which he'recounted the obftacles he had 
met with, and endeavoured to furmount, 
in his own difpofition: the views with 
which he afcended the throne ; the plaas 
he had refifted; thofe he was esabled to 
execute, and thofe he did not dare to un-= 
dertake, To fuch a difpcfition, had he 
either added foititude, or been lucky 
enovgh to have been furrounded by a 
prudent confort and virtuous counfellors, 
he night have rivalled the only two good 
princes of his family, Henry IV and 
Louis KIJ ; while ali the crimes of the 
other Bourbons would have been etffaced 
by his glory. 
LINDET,. 
The fecond edition of the Jacobins, and 
the firft edition pf the Emigrants, were 
proverbially violent. Robert Lindet ap- 
pertained to the former cla{s, and was one 
of the moft clamorous members in the 
Convention for the arreft of the thirty-two 
Girond:ft deputies. 
In the committee of public fafety, he 
difplayed great energy of charaéter: and 
it muft be acknowledged, notwithfiand- 
ing the odium ftill attached to their name, 
that the Jacobins faved Francé, and efta- 
blifhed the foundation of the republic, 
Les Philofophes, as the Briffotins were 
termed, entertained a laudable abhorrence 
of bioad-fhed, rapine, and injuftice ; elo- 
quent, metaphyfical, ditatory, tmid—they 
were not calculated to . 
«¢ Ride in the whirlwind, and dire& the ftorm !7? 
They were adimirably fitted, however, to 
fucceed the rempett ; and thofe who have 
fervived it, after forming a junétion with 
Carnot, the ableft man France—perhaps 
Ev-rope, has ever preduced, they feem 
p pared to alter the lot of nations, and 
the deftiny of mankind! . 
Sy fome of the fouthern departments, 
whither he was fent en miffion, Robert 
Lindet has been accufed of fanguinary 
proceedings, but, by others, his innocence 
has been afferted, even after the 1oth 
Thermidor, when the colleagues of Ro- 
befpierre were arrefted. 
He fat in the Convention, as a deputy 
from the department of Eure; but was 
not one of the ¢zvs ¢hzds, or in other-words, 
he was not re-elected. 
He has lately been implicated in the 
confpiracy faid to have been meditated 
by Babceuf, Drouct, &c. and is now in 
confinement. . 
on Biter ke CuamProng 
