History of the Girondists, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 709 pages of information about History of the Girondists, Volume I.

History of the Girondists, Volume I eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 709 pages of information about History of the Girondists, Volume I.
security there is no free will, no expression of opinion, no liberty; there will be only a predominant power, a tyranny popular or otherwise, until you have separated the constitution from the workings of the revolution.  Behold all these principles of justice, morality, and liberty which you have laid down, hailed with joy, and oaths renewed, but violated immediately with unprecedented audacity and rage.  It is at a moment when the holiest or the freest of constitutions has been proclaimed that the most infamous attempts against liberty, against property,—­nay, what do I say?—­against humanity and conscience, are multiplied and perpetuated!  Does not this contrast alarm you?  I will tell you wherefore.  Yourselves deceived as to the mechanism of political society, you have sought its regeneration without reflecting on its dissolution; you have considered as an obstacle to your plans the discontent of some, and as a means the enthusiasm of others.  Only desirous to overcome obstacles you have overturned principles, and taught the people to brave every thing.  You have taken the passions of the people for auxiliaries.  It is to raise an edifice by sapping the foundations.  I repeat to you then, there is no free and durable constitution out of despotism but that which terminates a revolution, and which is proposed, accepted, and executed, by forms, calm, free, and totally different from the forms of the Revolution.  All we do, all we seek for with excitement before we reach this point of repose, whether we obey the people or are obeyed by them; whether we would flatter, deceive, or serve them, is but the work of folly,—­madness.  I demand, therefore, that the constitution be peaceably and freely accepted by the majority of the nation and by the king.  (Violent murmurs.) I know we call the national will, all that we know of proposed addresses, of assent, of oaths, agitations, menaces, and violence. (Loud expressions of angry dissent.) Yes, we must close the Revolution by beginning to destroy every tendency to violate it.  Your committees of inquiry, laws respecting emigrants, persecutions of priests, despotic imprisonments, criminal proceedings against persons accused without proofs, the fanaticism and domination of clubs; but this is not all, licence has gone to such unbounded extent,—­the dregs of the nation ferment so tumultuously:—­(Loud burst of indignation.) Do we then pretend to be the first nation which has no dregs?  The fearful insubordination of troops, religious disturbances, the discontents of the colonies, which already sound so ominously in our ports,—­if the Revolution does not stop here and give place to the constitution;—­if order be not re-established at once, and on all points, the shattered state will be long agitated by the convulsions of anarchy.  Do you remember the history of the Greeks, where a first revolution not terminated produced so many others during a period of only half a century?  Do you remember that Europe has her eyes fixed on your weakness and agitations, and whilst she will respect you if you are free within the limits of order, she will surely profit by your disorders if you only know how to weaken yourself and alarm her by your anarchy?”

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History of the Girondists, Volume I from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.