belong to the King of the French, but also all the credit which his Majesty could have by the ties of blood and the interest of his personal situation. When the severity of the laws required from the King a rigorous conduct against the French princes of his family and his blood, unhappy as the moment was for his heart, did he hesitate between the voice of nature and the duties of royalty? The King has, doubtless, used every endeavour to avoid the war, and it was also in spight of himself, and when he could no longer withhold from it, that he determined upon this cruel measure, of which the people support all the weight; and, the war being once declared, he has spared nothing to support the glory of the French arms. What orders has he not given for the provisioning and increase of the armies? The King opposed the forming a camp in the interior of the kingdom, and almost under the walls of Paris, but to propose a formation of volunteer battalions, more numerous, and collected in a manner more useful, Foreign armies menace you. Frenchmen, it is for you to daunt them by your countenance, and especially by your union. They insult your independence; renew with the King your oath to defend it. They usurp his name to invade the French territory. Frenchmen, all your enemies are not in the armies which attack your frontiers; know them by their project to disunite you, and believe that those are not far from having a common interest, who accord so well in the ideas which they wish to spread.-Those who would conquer France, announce that they have taken up arms for the interests of the King; and those who agitate it within, dare equally to say that it is for his interests they struggle against himself. His Majesty gives to the assertions of both parties the most formal disavowal. It is to all good Frenchmen, to all those who have the national honour at heart, the interest of liberty, the safety of the country, to reject such perfidious insinuations, opposing to the arms of the first an invincible courage, to the plots of the latter an inflexible attachment to the law. On these considerations, The King thinking it his duty to recal the execution of the laws, the respect due to the constituted authorities, and to give to the national force all the energy of which it is susceptible, by impressing upon all thoughts, upon all wills, upon all efforts, a common direction towards the safety of the state. His Majesty invites all active citizens to repair with punctuality to the legal assemblies, to which they are called, to express their will, and to pay to their country the tribute of their understandings. His Majesty invites them equally to serve personally in the national guards, to give force to the law, to maintain the execution of judgments, to defend the peace and public tranquillity, and exhorts them especially to an inviolable attachment, to the constitution, to which they have sworn to be faithful. Given at the Council of State, LOUIS, CHAMPION, nations, and to all individuals, the great example of forgetting, on the appearance of common danger, their ancient divisions and their private concerns, that they may attend only to the public good, in a crisis so important, of which no in EIR Majesties the Emperor and King of Prussia, in com- stance is to be found in history. mencing a war occasioned by the They think, and with justice, that most unjust and most imperious cir- on this occasion, all empires and cumstances, have successively and all states ought to be unanimous, separately published the particular and that all sovereigns, becoming motives of their conduct. Animat- the firm guardians of the happied, however, by a regard for the ness of mankind, cannot fail to sacred interests of humanity, their unite their efforts, in order to Imperial and Royal Majesties think- rescue a numerous nation from its ing it not sufficient to have commu- own fury; to preserve Europe micated to the different courts of from the return of barbarism, and Europe the circumstances which the universe from that subversion oblige them to have recourse to and anarchy with which it is threatarms, consider it as of importance ened. to their glory and the happiness of their faithful subjects, to enlighten all nations respecting the causes and effects of the late deplorable revolution in France, and in a manifesto, to lay open to the present generation, as well as to posterity, their motives, their intentions, and the disinterestedness of their personal views. Taking up arms for the purpose of preserving social and political order among all polished nations, and to secure to each state its religion, happiness, independence, territories, and real constitution, it is to be presumed the use which their Imperial and Royal Majesties are about to make for the general safety of the forces committed by Providence to their disposal, will console mankind, if possible, for the evils to which war has already exposed them, and for that blood which the disturbers of public tranquillity may yet cause to be shed. In this hope their Majesties have not hesitated to give to all However celebrated the French revolution may unhappily have been, a manifesto against it ought to exhibit a true picture of it; and it is by facts alone that the public can be enabled to judge of this grand cause of all nations against faction and rebellion. For four years past, Europe has viewed with attention, and beheld with increasing indignation, the revolutionwhich has oppressedFrance, and which detains in captivity an august monarch, worthy of the love of his subjects, and entitled to the esteem, friendship, and support of all sovereigns. Since his accession to the throne, it is well known that his most Christian Majesty has testified, in every possible manner, his affection for his subjects, his love of justice, his constant and sincere desire to establish order and economy in the administration of his finances, and his honesty towards the creditors of the nation. To make personal sacritices was his highest enjoyment, and and a desire of complying with public opinion has always deter mined him in the choice of his measures. Continually employed in devising means for relieving his people, and for knowing and gratifying the public wishes, he has erred with them and for them; obeyed the dictates of humanity rather than those of justice; and overlooked their faults, in hopes that they would repair them without rendering it necessary for him to have recourse to punishment. Calumny itself has, however, always respected his intentions; and the most criminal and audacious factions, while attacking his sovereign authority and insulting his sacred person, struck by his private virtues, have neither been able, nor dared to deny them. After trying in vain every method that occurred to him of promoting the welfare of his subjects, of discharging the public debt of the nation-unfortunate in the choice of his measures, deceived in his hopes, and disappointed by various events -yet, still firm in his benevolent intentions, and encouraged, though there was no occasion for his being so, by the Queen and all the royal family, to incessantly pursue the object of his wishes, the darling passion of his heart, the happiness of his people, Louis XVI. not finding the succour which he sought in the assembly of the notables, convoked the states-general of the kingdom. He was desirous of collecting around him, in the three orders of the monarchy, all his subjects, and to ask themselves by what means he could at length render them happy. Scrupulous even in the form, and fearing to take any thing upon himself, he endeavoured to learn, in every manner possible, the public opinion respecting the calling together of the states-general; he found himself compelled, by circumstances which his goodness and magnanimous loyalty could not avoid to change, in this convocation, the ancient form followed by his predecessors *; he signed, without distrust, orders, insidiously and artfully drawn up, which endangered his sovereign authority, tended to excite discord, and insinuated disobedience to his commands. Under these fatal auspices, the statesgeneral met; and one of the best kings that France can boast of, addressed to this august, but soon after criminal assembly, these valuable words, which sovereigns, who might have found them in their own sentiments, still take a pleasure in repeating: 86 Every thing that can be expected from the tenderest interest in the happiness of the publicevery thing that can be required of a sovereign, the best friend of his people, you may and ought to hope for from my sentiments t." These memorable expressions, which might have recovered the most estranged hearts and the most alienated minds, and which ought, in a peculiar manner, to have inspired with the most lively gratitude a people loaded with kindness by their King, were scarcely pronounced, when the signal of revolt was given on all sides. One of the three orders, converting a momen * Results of the Council of Dec. 27, 1788. Letters of Convocation addressed to the grand bailiffs. + Speech of the King on opening the states-general, 5th of May 1789. tary tary concession into right, and abusing a double representation, the object of which, on the part of the monarch, was to increase his information without increasing his preponderance, wished, by taking the fead, to swallow up the other two, and to bear them down by its weight; In vain did the laws of the monarchy, the authority of precedent, the nature of things, and the sacred and imprescriptible rights of each order oppose this ambitious, unjust, and illegal confusion. The resistance of the two first orders were soon overcome, by turning against them their love for the King; opposing the danger of the monarch to that of the monarchy, and exciting a revolt, which threatened in an imminent degree the life of his Most Christian Majesty. On the report of a danger, which the resistance of the two first orders might doubtless have despised, had it threatened only them, consternation put an end to reasoning there was no longer room for deliberation—it was necessary to act. The nobility and clergy rushed into the assembly, with the third estate, to save France from the most horrid of crimes; and from that moment the statesgeneral, in ceasing to be free,ceased to exist. The monarchy was overturned by a mad and tumultuous assembly; rebellious subjects, deputed towards the sovereign to learn his decisions, and to receive his laws, dared to dictate to him others, which in every respect were intolerable, and violently pulled down that throne which they were called to support. They commenced their sacrilegious usurpation by violating the oath they took when they received their powers. They had the audacity to style themselves the national constituent assembly, as if they had possessed a right to constitute themselves what they were not established, and when they were only the deputies of the assemblies of the bailiwicks, the real representatives of the nation. Perjured in respect to the oath of fidelity, which they swore to the King, as well as in respect to that which they swore to their constituents: and substituting the individual will of their criminal majority to the imperative letter of their instructions, the national will, expressed in all the bailiwicks, they rendered all their subsequent operations absolutely null, by making themselves superior to their powers, by rendering themselves independent of them, and by assuming authorities to which they had no title; they treated France as a country not subject to a monarchical form of government, without monarch, without laws, and leagued together to plunge it into all the errors of nations almost yet savage, and to form a government after the rude sketches of infant states making their first advances towards civilization, and which at present would mark the last stage of their decline. Like all usurpers, they flattered the people, in order that they might subject them to obedience; assigned to them a sovereignty, with a view of converting it to their own purposes; spoke to them of the Rights of Man, while they were silent respecting their duty, and employing, according to the dictates of their turbulent and destructive ambition, the poignard of assassins and the flames of revolt; and taking advantage of the prejudices and passions of the multitude, they successively called to their assistance fa mine and abundance to incense the populace, that they might afterwards seduce and govern them; and, to add to the horror of their proceedings, they caused the virtuous monarch, who had convoked them, to be accused of those very crimes which they themselves had committed. Alarmed at the dangers which surrounded him, and foreseeing the afflicting evils which were preparing for his people, his Most Christian Majesty in vain endeavoured to avert them.-Concessions, rendered prudent by necessity*, and the urgency of circumstances, which were fully approved by the instructions of all the bailiwicks, and consequently by all Frenchmen, encreased that thirst for reigning with which the usurping assembly was inflamed. All France, deceived and misled by the most infamous impostures, was the same day instantly in arms.† The people imagined that they were taking them up to oppose robbers; and those robbers turned them against the King. From that moment the sovereign authority was annihilated; and the incontestible rights of the two first orders were sacrificed to nourish the destructive ardour of the conspirators. The orders were proscribed §, the King himself, and his brothers, deprived of that private patrimony which their ancestors had brought to the crown on their accession to the throne. The parliaments, the sovereign courts, the states of the provinces, and all the political bodies, almost as ancient as the monarchy, which in turns supported and moderated its power, which were securities to the people for the justice of the monarch, and securities to the monarch for the fidelity of his subjects, were buried under the ruins of the throne. Religion also was involved in the same general wreck. Its property was seized; its altars were overturned; its temples profaned, sold, or demolished; and its ministers persecuted, and continually placed in such a situation, that they must either violate the dictates of their consciences, or submit to death, commit perjury, or suffer punishment; often resigned themselves as victims, in order that they might avoid the commission of a crime. Thus attacking Heaven itself, an impious sect vilified all religions, under a pretence of toleration, and permitted all modes of worship in suffering them all to be oppressed, and offering equal violations to them all. In their room, they substituted political irreligion, without comfort for the unfortunate, without morality for the vicious, and without any check for crimes. Nay, crimes themselves were everywhere tolerated, encouraged, rewarded. Insurrection was consecrated as the most sacred of duties. Solemn and public festivals were decreed in honour of the basest and greatest cri • Declaration of the King, June 23, 1789. + Declaration of the King, July 26, 1789. The principle proposed by M. La Fayette, and adopted by the National As sembly. minals, |