Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

T

tered. The anodyne draught of oblivion, thus drugged, is well calculated to preferve a galling wakefulness, and to feed the living ulcer of a corroding memory. Thus to administer the opiate potion of amnesty, powdered with all the ingredients of fcorn and contempt, is to hold to his lips, instead of " the balm of hurt minds," the cup of human mifery full to the brim, and to force him to

drink it to the dregs.

Yielding to reafons, at least as forcible as those which were fo delicately urged in the compliment on the new year, the king of France will probably endeavour to forget these events, and that compliment. But history, who keeps a durable record of all our acts, and exercises her awful cenfure over the proceedings of all forts of fovereigns, will not forget, either those events, or the æra of this liberal refinement in the intercourse of mankind. History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October 1789, the king and queen of France, after a day of confufion, alarm, dismay, and laughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of refpite, and troubled melancholy repose. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the centinel at her door, who cried out to her, to fave herself by flightthat this was the last proof of fidelity he could give-that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with with an hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from whence this perfecuted woman had but just time to fly almost naked, and through ways unknown to the murderers had escaped to feek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment.

was

This king, to say no more of him, and this queen, and their infant children (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and generous people) were then forced to abandon the fanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated carcases. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unrefifted, promiscuous slaughter, which made of the gentlemen of birth and family who composed the king's body guard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publickly dragged to the block, and beheaded in the great court of the palace. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives who followed in the train were flowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the vilest of women. After they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the flow torture of a journey of twelve miles, miles, protracted to fix hours, they were, under a guard, composed of those very foldiers who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a Bastile for kings.

Is this a triumph to be confecrated at altars? to be commemorated with grateful thanksgiving? to be offered to the divine humanity with fervent prayer and enthusiastick ejaculation?-These Theban and Thracian Orgies, acted in France, and applauded only in the Old Jewry, I affure you, kindle prophetic enthusiasm in the minds but of very few people in this kingdom; although a faint and apostle, who may have revelations of his own, and who has so completely vanquished all the mean superstitions of the heart, may incline to think it pious and decorous to compare it with the entrance into the world of the Prince of Peace, proclaimed in an holy temple by a venerable sage, and not long before not worse announced by the voice of angels to the quiet innocence of shepherds.

At first I was at a loss to account for this fit of unguarded transport. I knew, indeed, that the fufferings of monarchs make a delicious repast to some fort of palates. There were reflexions which might serve to keep this appetite within some bounds of temperance. But when I took one circumstance into my confideration, I was obliged to confefs, that much allowance ought to be made for the Society, and that the temptation was too strong for common

1

difcretion; I mean, the circumstance of the lo Pæan of the triumph, the animating cry which called " for all the BISHOPS to be hanged on "the lamp-posts*," might well have brought forth a burst of enthusiasm on the forefeen confequences of this happy day. I allow to fo much enthusiasm some little deviation from prudence. I allow this prophet to break forth into hymns of joy and thanksgiving on an event which appears like the precursor of the Millenium, and the projected fifth monarchy, in the destruction of all church establishments. There was, however (as in all human affairs there is) in the midft of this joy fomething to exercise the patience of these worthy gentlemen, and to try the long-fuffering of their faith. The actual murder of the king and queen, and their child, was wanting to the other aufpicious circumstances of this " beautiful day. The actual murder of the bishops, though called for by fo many holy ejaculations, was also wanting. A groupe of regicide and facrilegious flaughter, was indeed boldly sketched, but it was only sketched. It unhappily was left unfinished, in this great hiftory-piece of the maffacre of innocents. What hardy pencil of a great mafter, from the school of the rights of men, will finish it, is to be seen hereafter. The age has not yet the compleat benefit of that diffusion of knowledge that has undermined fuperftition and error; and the king of France wants another object or two, to confign to ob

* Tous les Eveques à la lanterne.

livion,

יין

livion, in confideration of all the good which is to arife from his own fufferings, and the patriotic crimes of an enlightened age *.

Although

* It is proper here to refer to a letter written upon this subject by an eye-witness. That eye-witness was one of the most honeft, intelligent, and eloquent members of the National Assembly, one of the most active and zealous reformers of the state. He was obliged to fecede from the affembly; and he afterwards became a voluntary exile, on account of the horrors of this pious triumph, and the dispositions of men, who, profiting of crimes, if not causing them, have taken the lead in public affairs.

EXTRACT of M. de Lally Tollendal's Second Letter to a Friend.

"Parlons du parti que j'ai pris; il est bien justifié dans ma confcience.-Ni cette ville coupable, ni cette assemblée plus coupable encore, ne meritoient que je me justifie; mais j'ai à cœur que vous, et les personnes qui pensent comme vous, ne me condamnent pas. - Ma santé, je vous jure, me rendoît mes fonctions impossibles; mais meme en les mettant de coté il a eté au-dessus de mes forces de supporter plus long-tems l'horreur que me causoit ce sang,-ces têtes, cette reine presque egorgée, ce roi, amené esclave,-entrant à Paris, au milieu de ses assassins, et precedé des tetes de ses malheureux gardes. - Ces perfides jannissaires, ces affaffins, ces femmes cannibales, ce cride, TOUS LES EVEQUES A LA LANTERNE, dans le moment ou le roi entre sa capitale avec deux eveques de fon conseil dans sa voiture. Un coup de fufil, que j'ai vu tirer dans un des carosses de la reine. M. Bailley appellant cela un beau jour. L'assemblée ayant declaré froidement le matin, qu'il n'étoit pas de sa dignité d'aller toute entiere environner le roi. M. Mirabeau disant impunement dans cette assemblée, que le vaisseau de l'état, loins d'etre arrêté dans sa course, s'élanceroit avec plus de ras pidité que jamais vers sa régénération. M. Barnave, riant avec lui, quand des flots de sang couloient autour de nous.

Le

« ElőzőTovább »