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TO M. DE BOUILLE'.

July 3, 1791.

"You have done your duty, sir: cease to accuse yourself. And yet I can conceive your affliction: you have risqued every thing for me, and have not succeeded. Destiny opposed my projects and yours; fatal circumstances palsied my will, your courage, and rendered null your preparations. I do not murmur against providence. Success, I know, depended on myself: but he must have an atrocious mind who could have shed the blood of his subjects, and, by making resistance, have caused a civil war in France. Those ideas rent my bosom; and all my resolutions vanished. To succeed, I must have had the heart of Nero, and the soul of Caligula. Receive, sir, my thanks: why have I not the power to testify to you all my gratitude? "LEWIS."

TO MONSIEUR.

July 23, 1791.

"My misfortunes then must fall upon you; and you are doomed to be a new victim of that fatality by which I am pursued. While I sought an asylum, repose, honour, and Frenchmen, I only found, at every step, treason, a cruel desertion, the boldness of crime, and the fatality of circumstances. All thoughts of regaining the French are over; no justification is to be hoped, no liberty to be obtained, no good to be effected from my own spontaneous will. A few days since, I was a vain phantom of a monarch, the impotent chief of a people the tyrants of their king, and the slaves of their oppressors: I now share with them their chains.

A prisoner in my palace, I am deprived even of the right of complaint. Separated from my whole family, my wife, my sister, my children, sigh at a distance from me; while you, my brother, by the most noble disinterestedness, have condemned yourself to exile. You are now in those regions that echo the moans of so many victims, whom honor called to the banks of the Rhine, but whom my affection, my orders, or rather my earnest entreaties, sought to bring back to the bosom of their desolate country. You say they are unhappy! ah! tell them that Lewis, that their king, their father, their friend, is more unhappy still! This flight, which was so necessary for me, which would perhaps have procured my happiness, and that of my people, will furnish motives for a terrible accusation. menaced; the cries of hatred strike my ear! They talk of interrogating me: No, never! While I am suffered to believe myself king of France,, I will avoid whatever would tend to degrade me. Oh! my brother! let us hope for a milder futurity: the French loved their king; what then have I done to deserve their hatred? I, who have ever borne them in my heart. Were I a Nero, a Tiberius,Let us still cherish a soothing hope; and may my next letter inform you that my fortune is changed!

I am

"LEWIS."

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drawn from the theory of politics, vanish in the execution. Besides, what weapon can be used against the multiplied sophisms employed to enforce the pretensions of innovators? The queen displays the same courage: her fortitude seems to augment in proportion as our situation becomes desperate. All that surrounds us, appears to me very insufficient to contend successfully with the hordes of our enemies. I cannot engage you too strongly to show an example of circumspection: pretexts are eagerly watched for; and we must endeavour, by our prudence, to neutralise the efforts of crime. "You know, my dear brother, the immutability of my tenderness for you.

"LEWIS."

TO THE PRINCE OF CONDE.

"My Cousin,

"In vain I have intimated to my brothers how much those armed assemblies on the banks of the Rhine are contrary to sound policy, the interests of the exiled French, and my own cause. They still persist in their resolutions of attack, threaten us with foreigners, and oppose them to Frenchmen led astray. This conduct fills me with sorrow, and must produce the most disastrous consequences: it will perpetuate hatred, excite vengeance, and deprive me of all means of conciliation. The moment that hostilities begin, you may be assured that all return into France will be impossible; emigration will become a state-crime: those will then be attacked as criminals, who now are only victims; and Frenchmen, whom violence bad forced to fly, will be consider

ed as traitors, who sought to lace rate the bosom of their country. This re-union of emigrants, which will never obtain my approbation, multiplies an hundred-fold the forces of my enemies. They persist in considering me as the soul of your preparations; they ima gine I have a secret council, under the name of the Austrian committee, directed by the genius of the queen, encouraged by my approbation, and who retain you on the banks of the Rhine. They cry, to arms!' their agents, well instructed, spread themselves in the streets, in the public squares, under the windows of my palace; and every day they sound in my ear the funeral cry of war! war! I am affrighted at their tenacious obstinacy, their fury, their cries of rage. What madmen! they wish for war! Ah! if ever the signal were given, it would be a long and cruel contest: having no other object than vengeance and hatred, it would become barbarous. Oh God ! preserve France from this fatal scourge! let not those homicide yells be heard! If I must descend from the throne, mount the scaffold where Charles the First was immolated, and abandon all that is dear to me on earth, I am readybut no war! no war!

"Nevertheless, the noise of your preparations has reached meYou, my cousin, who are desirous of uniting glory and duty-you, whom the emigrants consider as their father and their chief, and I myself esteem as a loyal and magnanimous prince-oppose, I conjure you, the wild projects of the French assembled around your person; make known to them the danger; oppose my will, my counsels, even my prayers, to this valor, inflamed by injustice, misfor

tune,

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November 27, 1791.

"The measures, sir, that may kindle civil war, are not those which I will adopt to preserve my authority. I would rather abdicate the throne, than deliver up my fortified places to the powers who propose giving me proofs of their high ⚫ interest. I have accepted, not without much repugnance, the new constitution: but I am resolved to maintain it, because I have sworn to do so. The loyalty of my principles can alone justify the confidence of the French people: my brothers, by obstinately pursuing the plan they seem to have adopted, are preparing many sorrows for me, and depriving themselves, perhaps for ever, of all means of consoling me. Employ, sir, your powers of persuasion, to make them conceive the horrors of my situation. Their return would surely lead to union in that great family, of which the title of father is so dear to me.

"I appreciate your generous offers, sir, and the pure zeal by which they are dictated; but at this moment I can accept nothing, and still less commit myself by promises which would be considered as crimes. Depend, sir, alike on my good wishes, and the desire I feel to realise them.

"Ltwis."

TO M. VERGNIAUD.

August 11,1792, Ten in the Morning.

"Mr. President,

"Amidst the disorder of a sitting so tumultuous, so cruel for my feelings, and such an outrage on the dignity of the national representation, the legislative body will, I suppose, employ means to calm the popular effervescence. I do not demand justice for the magnitude of that crime which has forced me to come with my family, and place myself with confidence under the ægis of the delegates of the people. There would be too many culprits to punish, to have hopes that a striking example might intimidate the wicked. May the evil already perpetrated be buried in oblivion; may peace arise from the ashes of the palace of my fathers! I shall not think the pain of any sacrifice equal to the profound grief I feel at the violation of public order.

"The labours of the assembly require that an asylum should be, chosen for me, where I may find security for my family, and enjoy myself a benefit which the universality of Frenchmen expect from your solicitude.

"LEWIS."

TO THE DUCHESS OF GRAMMONT.

At the National Assembly,
August 11.

"We accept, madam, your generous offers: the horror of our situation makes us feel all their value. The only manner in which we can acknowledge so much loyalty, is by the duration of our most tender sentiments.

"LEWIS."

ΤΟ

TO MONSIEUR.

August 11, 1792.

At the National Assembly. "Carnage and flames signalised in their turn, my dear brother, the horrible hours of yesterday. Forced to abandon my palace with all my family, to seek an asylum in the midst of my most cruel enemies, it is under their very eyes that I paint to you, perhaps for the last time, my dreadful situation.

"Francis I. in perilous circumstances, wrote, all is lost but honour:' for me, I have no longer any hope but in the justice of God, and in the purity of those benevolent intentions which I have never ceased to cherish for the French. If I should fall, which every thing leads me to believe, remember and imitate Henry IV. during the siege of Paris, and Lewis XII. when he

ascended the throne.

"Adieu! My heart is oppressed: all I see, and all I hear, afflicts me. I am ignorant when, and how, I can henceforth write to you.

"LEWIS."

Billet addressed to M. de ***** wounded on the 10th of August, at the Château; (of which circumstance Lewis XVI. was ignorant.)

[This billet was delivered by Lewis XVI. in a bit of bread, to M. de L****, one of those who would not abandon the monarch after the 10th of August, until the moment when the commune of Paris compelled the legislative body to deliver the king, and his family, into the hands of general Santerre. Lewis XVI. in confiding this paper to M. de L****, shed tears. "This,"

said he, is an eternal adieu which I send my brother. You will render me a signal service, sir, by remitting this billet where it is addressed." The person who undertook this task did not succeed. The billet was intercepted on the frontier; seized upon by the commune, and deposited among its archives, from which it was withdrawn by M. C****d, after the 9th Thermidor.]

Paris, August 12, 1792,
Seven in the Morning.

"My Brother,

"I am no longer king! The public voice will make known to you the most cruel catastrophe I am the most unfortunate of husbands, and of fathers!I am the victim of my own goodness, of fear, of hopeIt is an impenetrable mystery of iniquity! They have bereaved me of every thing: they have massacred my faithful subjects; I have been decoyed by stratagem far from my palace; and they now accuse me! I am a captive: they drag me to prison and the queen, my children, and madame Elizabeth, share my sad fate.

"I can no longer doubt that I am an object odious in the eyes of the French, led astray by prejudice

This is the stroke which is most insupportable. My brother, but a little while, and I shall exist no longer. Remember to avenge my memory by publishing how much I loved this ungrateful peo ple. Recal one day to their remembrance the wrongs they have done me, and tell them I forgave them. Adieu, my brother, for the last time!

" LEWIS." Letter

Letter of M. de MALESHEREES, to the President of the National Convention, at the Epocha of the Trial of Lewis XVI.

"I am ignorant, citizen president, if the convention will allow Lewis XVI. a counsel to defend his cause, and whether they will leave him the choice. If that be the case, I wish he should be informed, that, if he appoints me to that office, I am ready to devote myself to his service. I do not ask that you should impart my proposition to the convention, being far from thinking myself a personage of sufficient importance to occupy its thoughts: but I was twice

admitted into the council of him who was then my master, at a time when that function was coveted by all the world; and I owe him the same service at present, when it is become a function which many consider as dangerous. Had I known any possible method of making him acquainted with my wishes, I should not have taken the liberty of addressing myself to you. I suppose, that, in the place you fill, you have a greater facility than any other person of communicating to him this letter.

"LAMOIGNON MALESHERBES."

TO M. DE MALESHERBES.

At the Temple.

"I have no terms, my dear Malesherbes, in which to 'express how sensibly I am affected by your sublime devotedness. You have anticipated my wishes: your aged hand is stretched forth towards me, and would push me from the scaffold. Were I still in possession of my throne, I ought to share it with you, in order to render myself more worthy of the remaining half.

1803.

But I have only chains, which you render lighter by holding them up. I refer you to heaven and your own heart, for your reward.

"I do not cherish illusions relative to my fate. which has dethroned me, will not Ingratitude, pause in the midst of its career. They would have too much cause to blush, if they were continually to support the sight of their victim. I shall undergo the fate of Charles the First; and my blood will flow, to punish me for having never shed any.

"But would it not be possible to ennoble my last moments? The national assembly contains the destroyers of my monarchy, my acmy executioners. Nothing can encusers, my judges, and probably lighten such men: they are not to be rendered just; and they are still less to be softened. Would it not be better to give some energy to my defence, since its weakness will never save me? It ought, I think, to be addressed, not to the national convention, but to the whole of France,who would judge my judges, and would restore me a place in the hearts of the people, which I have never deserved to lose. In that supposition, the part I should have to act would consist in not acknowledging the competence of the tribunal before which I should be forced to appear. I would observe a dignified silence; and, in condemning me, the men who call themselves my judges, would become my assassins.

"Upon the whole, you, my dear Malesherbes, and Tronchet who shares your devotedness, are more enlightened than I. Weigh, in wisdom, my reasons and your own. I will acquiesce, without hesitation, in all you propose.

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