LIFE

OF

NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.

CHAPTER XII.

VIEW OF THE French Revolution (continued). Jacobins determine upon the Execution of Louis.—Progress and Reasons of the King's Unpopularity.— Girondists taken by surprise, by a proposal for the Abolition of Royalty made by the Jacobins. Proposal carried. Thoughts on the New System of Government- Compared with that of Rome, Greece, America, and other Republican States.-Enthusiasm throughout France at the Change

-Follies it gave birth to-And Crimes.-Monuments of Art destroyed.-Madame Roland interposes to save the Life of the King.-—Barrère.-Girondists move for a Departmental Legion-Carried-Revoked-and Girondists defeated. The Authority of the Community of Paris paramount even over the Convention.-Documents of the Iron-Chest. Parallel betwixt Charles I. and Louis XVI.-Motion by Pétion, that the King should be Tried before the Convention.

It is generally to be remarked, that Crime, as well as Religion, has her sacramental associations, fitted for the purposes to which she desires to pledge her votaries. When Catiline imposed an

oath on his fellow-conspirators, a slave was murdered, and his blood mingled with the beverage in which they pledged each other to their treason against the republic. The most desperate mutineers and pirates too have believed, that by engaging their associates in some crime of a deep and atrocious nature, so contrary to the ordinary feelings of humanity as to strike with horror all who should hear of it, they made their allegiance more completely their own; and, as remorse is useless where retreat is impossible, that they thus rendered them in future the desperate and unscrupulous tools, necessary for the designs of their leaders.

In like manner, the Jacobins,-who had now full possession of the passions and confidence of the lower orders in France, as well as of all those spirits among the higher classes, who, whether desirous of promotion by exertions in the revolutionary path, or whether enthusiasts whose imagination had become heated with the extravagant doctrines that had been current during these feverish times,—the Jacobins resolved to engage their adherents, and all whom they influenced, in proceeding to the death of the unfortunate Louis. They had no reason to doubt that they might excite the populace to desire and demand that final sacrifice, and to consider the moment of its being offered as a time of jubilee. Nor were the better classes likely to take a warm or decisive interest in the fate of their unhappy prince, so long the object of unpopularity.

From the beginning of the Revolution, down to the total overthrow of the throne, first the power of the King, and afterwards his person and

the measures to which he resorted, were the constant subject of attack by the parties who successively forced themselves into his administration. Each faction accused the other during the time of their brief sway, of attempts to extend the power and the privileges of the crown; which was thus under a perpetual siege, though carried on by distinct and opposite factions, one of whom regularly occupied the lines of attack, to dislodge the others, as fast as they obtained successively possession of the ministry. Thus the Third Estate overcame the two privileged classes, in behalf of the people and against the crown; La Fayette and the Constitutionalists triumphed over the Moderates, who desired to afford the King the shelter and bulwark of an intermediate senate; and then, after creating a constitution as democratical as it could be, leaving a name and semblance of royalty, they sunk under the Girondists, who were disposed altogether to dispense with that symbol. In this way it appeared to the people, that the King was their natural enemy, and that the royal interest was directly opposed to a revolution which had brought them sundry advantages, besides giving them the feelings and consequence of freemen. In this manner, one of the mildest and best disposed monarchs that ever swayed a sceptre, became exposed to general suspicion and misconstruction in his measures, and (as is sure speedily to follow) to personal contempt, and even hatred. Whatever the King did in compliance with the current tide of revolution was accounted as fraudful complaisance, designed to blind the nation. Whatever opposition he made to that