lately on the scene, one Ronedie Breton, arrived from England.  He has already been exciting the whole quarter of the Poisonnerie in favour of the Jacobins, but I shall have him laid siege to.—­Petion is to come to-morrow for fifteen thousand livres, [This sum was probably only to propitiate the Mayor; and if Chambonas, as he proposed, refused farther payment, we may account for Petion’s subsequent conduct.] on account of thirty thousand per month which he received under the administration of Dumouriez, for the secret service of the police.—­ I know not in virtue of what law this was done, and it will be the last he shall receive from me.  Your Majesty will, I doubt not, understand me, and approve of what I suggest.

     (Signed) “Chambonas.” 
     Extract from the Papers found at the Thuilleries.

It is impossible to warrant the authenticity of these Papers; on their credibility, however, rests the whole proof of the most weighty charges brought against the King.  So that it must be admitted, that either all the first patriots of the revolution, and many of those still in repute, are corrupt, or that the King was condemned on forged evidence.

The King might also be solicitous to purchase safety and peace at any rate; and it is unfortunate for himself and the country that he had not recourse to the only effectual means till it was too late.  But all this rests on no better evidence than the papers found at the Thuilleries; and as something of this kind was necessary to nourish the exhausted fury of the populace, I can easily conceive that it was thought more prudent to sacrifice the dead, than the living; and the fame of Mirabeau being less valuable than the safety of those who survived him, there would be no great harm in attributing to him what he was very likely to have done.—­ The corruption of a notorious courtier would have made no impression:  the King had already been overwhelmed with such accusations, and they had lost their effect:  but to have seduced the virtuous Mirabeau, the very Confucius of the revolution, was a kind of profanation of the holy fire, well calculated to revive the languid rage, and extinguish the small remains of humanity yet left among the people.

It is sufficiently remarkable, that notwithstanding the court must have seen the necessity of gaining over the party now in power, no vestige of any attempt of this kind has been discovered; and every criminating negotiation is ascribed to the dead, the absent, or the insignificant.  I do not, however, presume to decide in a case so very delicate; their panegyrists in England may adjust the claims of Mirabeau’s integrity, and that of his accusers, at their leisure.