If, unfortunately, a due attention should not be paid to these his Majesty’s benevolent and neighborly offers, or if any circumstances should prevent the Most Christian King from acceding (as his Majesty has no doubt he is well disposed to do) to this healing mediation in favor of himself and all his subjects, his Majesty has commanded me to take leave of this court, as not conceiving it to be suitable to the dignity of his crown, and to what he owes to his faithful people, any longer to keep a public minister at the court of a sovereign who is not in possession of his own liberty.

THOUGHTS

ON

FRENCH AFFAIRS,

ETC., ETC.

WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1791.

THOUGHTS ON FRENCH AFFAIRS.

In all our transactions with France, and at all periods, we have treated with that state on the footing of a monarchy.  Monarchy was considered in all the external relations of that kingdom with every power in Europe as its legal and constitutional government, and that in which alone its federal capacity was vested.

[Sidenote:  Montmorin’s Letter.]

It is not yet a year since Monsieur de Montmorin formally, and with as little respect as can be imagined to the king, and to all crowned heads, announced a total Revolution in that country.  He has informed the British ministry that its frame of government is wholly altered,—­that he is one of the ministers of the new system,—­and, in effect, that the king is no longer his master, (nor does he even call him such,) but the “first of the ministers,” in the new system.

[Sidenote:  Acceptance of the Constitution ratified.]

The second notification was that of the king’s acceptance of the new Constitution, accompanied with fanfaronades in the modern style of the French bureaus:  things which have much more the air and character of the saucy declamations of their clubs than the tone of regular office.

It has not been very usual to notify to foreign courts anything concerning the internal arrangements of any state.  In the present case, the circumstance of these two notifications, with the observations with which they are attended, does not leave it in the choice of the sovereigns of Christendom to appear ignorant either of this French Revolution or (what is more important) of its principles.

We know, that, very soon after this manifesto of Monsieur de Montmorin, the king of France, in whose name it was made, found himself obliged to fly, with his whole family,—­leaving behind him a declaration in which he disavows and annuls that Constitution, as having been the effect of force on his person and usurpation on his authority.  It is equally notorious, that this unfortunate prince was, with many circumstances of insult and outrage, brought back prisoner by a deputation of the pretended National Assembly, and afterwards suspended by their authority from his government.  Under equally notorious constraint, and under menaces of total deposition, he has been compelled to accept what they call a Constitution, and to agree to whatever else the usurped power which holds him in confinement thinks proper to impose.