Volume III Part 24 (1/2)

_Extract of M. de Lally Tollendal's Second Letter to a Friend_.

”Parlons du parti que j'ai pris; il est bien justife dans ma conscience.--Ni cette ville coupable, ni cette a.s.semblee plus coupable encore, ne meritoient que je me justifie; mais j'ai a cur que vous, et les personnes qui pensent comme vous, ne me cond.a.m.nent pas.--Ma sante, je vous jure, me rendoit mes fonctions impossibles; mais meme en les mettant de cote il a ete au-dessus de mes forces de supporter plus longtems l'horreur que me causoit ce sang,--ces tetes,--cette reine _presque egorgee_,--ce roi, amene _esclave_, entrant a Paris au milieu de ses a.s.sa.s.sins, et precede des tetes de ses malheureux gardes,--ces perfides janissaires, ces a.s.sa.s.sins, ces femmes cannibales,--ce cri de TOUS LES eVeQUES a LA LANTERNE, dans le moment ou le roi entre sa capitale avec deux eveques de son conseil dans sa voiture,--un _coup de fusil_, que j'ai vu tirer dans un _des carrosses de la reine_,--M.

Bailly appellant cela _un beau jour_,--l'a.s.semblee ayant declare froidement le matin, qu'il n'etoit pas de sa dignite d'aller toute entiere environner le roi,--M. Mirabeau disant impunement dans cette a.s.semblee, que le vaisseau de l'etat, loin d'etre arrete dans sa course, s'elanceroit avec plus de rapidite que jamais vers sa regeneration,--M.

Barnave, riant avec lui, quand des flots de sang couloient autour de nous,--le vertueux Mounier[A] echappant par miracle a vingt a.s.sa.s.sins, qui avoient voulu faire de sa tete un trophee de plus: Voila ce qui me fit jurer de ne plus mettre le pied _dans cette caverne d'Antropophages_ [The National a.s.sembly], ou je n'avois plus de force d'elever la voix, ou depuis six semaines je l'avois elevee en vain.

”Moi, Mounier, et tous les honnetes gens, ont pense que le dernier effort a faire pour le bien etoit d'en sortir. Aucune idee de crainte ne s'est approchee de moi. Je rougirois de m'en defendre. J'avois encore recu sur la route de la part de ce peuple, moins coupable que ceux qui l'ont enivre de fureur, des acclamations, et des applaudiss.e.m.e.nts, dont d'autres auroient ete flattes, et qui m'ont fait fremir. C'est a l'indignation, c'est a l'horreur, c'est aux convulsions physiques, que le seul aspect du sang me fait eprouver que j'ai cede. On brave une seule mort; on la brave plusieurs fois, quand elle peut etre utile. Mais aucune puissance sous le ciel, mais aucune opinion publique ou privee n'ont le droit de me cond.a.m.ner a souffrir inutilement mille supplices par minute, et a perir de desespoir, de rage, au milieu des _triomphes_, du crime que je n'ai pu arreter. Ils me proscriront, ils confisqueront mes biens. Je labourerai la terre, et je ne les verrai plus. Voila ma justification. Vous pourrez la lire, la montrer, la laisser copier; tant pis pour ceux qui ne la comprendront pas; ce ne sera alors moi qui auroit eu tort de la leur donner.”

This military man had not so good nerves as the peaceable gentlemen of the Old Jewry.--See Mons. Mounier's narrative of these transactions: a man also of honor and virtue and talents, and therefore a fugitive.

[A] N.B.M. Mounier was then speaker of the National a.s.sembly. He has since been obliged to live in exile, though one of the firmest a.s.sertors of liberty.

[93] See the fate of Bailly and Condorcet, supposed to be here particularly alluded to. Compare the circ.u.mstances of the trial and execution of the former with this prediction.

[94] The English are, I conceive, misrepresented in a letter published in one of the papers, by a gentleman thought to be a Dissenting minister. When writing to Dr. Price of the spirit which prevails at Paris, he says,--”The spirit of the people in this place has abolished all the proud _distinctions_ which the _king_ and _n.o.bles_ had usurped in their minds: whether they talk of _the king, the n.o.ble, or the priest_, their whole language is that of the most _enlightened and liberal amongst the English_.” If this gentleman means to confine the terms _enlightened and liberal_ to one set of men in England, it may be true. It is not generally so.

[95] Sit igitur hoc ab initio persuasum civibus, dominos esse omnium rerum ac moderatores deos; eaque, quae gerantur, eorum geri vi, ditione, ac numine; eosdemque optime de genere hominum mereri; et qualis quisque sit, quid agat, quid in se admittat, qua mente, qua pietate colat religiones intueri: piorum et impiorum habere rationem. His enim rebus imbutae mentes haud sane abhorrebunt ab utili et a vera sententia.--Cic.

de Legibus, l. 2.

[96] Quicquid multis peccatur inultum.

[97] This (down to the end of the first sentence in the next paragraph) and some other parts, here and there, were inserted, on his reading the ma.n.u.script, by my lost son.

[98] I do not choose to shock the feeling of the moral reader with any quotation of their vulgar, base, and profane language.

[99] Their connection with Turgot and almost all the people of the finance.

[100] All have been confiscated in their turn.

[101] Not his brother, nor any near relation; but this mistake does not affect the argument.

[102] The rest of the pa.s.sage is this:--

”Who, having spent the treasures of his crown, Condemns their luxury to feed his own.

And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame Of sacrilege, must bear Devotion's name.

No crime so bold, but would be understood A Real, or at least a seeming good.

Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name, And free from conscience, is a slave to fame.

Thus he the Church at once protects and spoils: But princes' swords are sharper than their styles.

And thus to th' ages past he makes amends, Their charity destroys, their faith defends.

Then did Religion in a lazy cell, In empty, airy contemplations, dwell; And like the block, unmoved lay: but ours, As much too active, like the stork devours.

Is there no temperate region can be known Betwixt their frigid and our torrid zone?

Could we not wake from that lethargic dream, But to be restless in a worse extreme?

And for that lethargy was there no care, But to be cast into a calenture?

Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance So far, to make us wish for ignorance, And rather in the dark to grope our way, Than, led by a false guide, to err by day?

Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand What barbarous invader sack'd the land?

But when he hears no Goth, no Turk did bring This desolation, but a Christian king, When nothing but the name of zeal appears 'Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs, What does he think our sacrilege would spare, When such th' effects of our devotions are?”