you will only return to your reason and to your duty, your dearest interests inviting you to it.-It is in full assurance of this that we think ourselves justified in joining our standard to those of foreign powers. By publishing their intentions they have shewn the propriety of the step we are taking, and our wishes for their success are mixed with those which we are constantly entertaining for the welfare of our country. The factious, your real enemies as well as ours, have told you that we were animated with violent and implacable resentments; that we breathed nothing but vengeance, carnage, and proscription; and that there was no mercy to be expected from a nobility too justly offended not to be deaf to the calls of it. Those who tell you this, Frenchmen, are the men who for three years past have been in the habit of deceiving you, who have made it their principal study, who have established shops for lies and false news, which the orators of the tribunes promulgate, the clubs believe, and the revolution-libellists spread far and wide. Interested in alienating you from those with whose pure and unalterable attachment to the King, and the fundamental principles of monarchy, they are acquainted, they strive to raise your hatred against your emigrated countrymen; the abuse not being able to seduce us, and to destroy the fondness you have for the heirs of a name dear to you for many ages back, they endeavour to terrify you with the intentions with which (they say) we are coming into the kingdom. But be no longer the dupes of their guilty arts: we solemnly de clare to you, and all Europe is witness to what we declare, as well in our names as in those of all the French who are marching with us, and who are of our way of thinking, "that, united to deliver the King and the people from the despotism of usurpers, we do not separate ourselves from those who have the same intention: that no spirit of particular vengeance guides our steps: that we are very far from confounding the nation with the perverse seducers who have led it astray; and that, leaving to justice the case of punishing the guilty, we come to hold out our hands to all those who, renouncing their errors, shall immediately return to their duty." The emigrated French have not taken up arms to recover by the sword the rights which violence has wrested from them; it will belong to the King, when liberated, to restore them; they will willingly lay at the foot of his unshackled throne the care of their own interests; and we, the first citizens of the state, will give to all an example of submission to justice and his Majesty's will.-But being born hereditary defenders of the throne of our ancestors, faithful to the religion of our forefathers, attached to the fundamental maxims of monarchy, "we will rather shed the last drop of our blood than abandon any of these high interests." Our sentiments, already expressed in our letter of the 10th of last December, and recapitulated in a few words in our publication of the 30th of October, are unchangeable. The protestations we made then, we now repeat again; inspired by honour, engraven on our hearts from duty,nothing shall ever be able to move us. We We will not go a point beyond that; and the support of the courts whose formidable armies surround France on every side, adds nothing to our first wishes and intentions. Adhering fully to the spirit of moderation with which their Imperial and Prussian Majesties have just published a solemn declaration of, which does honour to and will immortalize the use they make of their power, -we declare moreover again, under their auspices," That our only object is to redemand from the usurpers the monarch and the monarchy; the freedom of the august head of the state, and that of his people; public order, and the protective power of individual right; our ancient laws; our manners; our religion, national honour, justice, peace, and security." Is there a rational Frenchman who does not agree with us in these views? Is there one who does not join with us in demanding an end of the frightful chaos into which the factious have plunged all the branches of administration; the establishment of the finances, devoured by the vilest depredations; the re-constitution of the public revenue, destroyed through unskilful administration of it; a permanent and regular order of things, which may close the pit that has swallowed up three thousand millions of stock; the security of state-credi tors, and the destruction of credit, which may and ought to operate by a strict reform in the expenditure, and by the suppression (which the King has always had in view) of abuses which were long ago in troduced into the constitution: abuses which it is not easy to wipe away, but which those who have overturned every thing, even so as to change the ideas and sentiments of men, have affected to confound with the government itself. In thus expressing our wishes, which are no otherwise guided than by that common interest which the whole nation, by its representatives, pronounced to be one, we have reason to hope that all those who are not seditiously inclined,-all that are not inimical to royalty, inimical to legitimate authority and public tranquillity, will not hesitate a moment to join us; and that a very great majority of the inhabitants of the kingdom, hitherto restrained by the terror of popular tyranny, or uneasiness about what will become of them at last, having now the prospect of being protected against both, will soon flock to the royal standard which we are following. Full of this confidence, and convinced that in France there can be but two parties, the King's, of which we are the head during his captivity; and that of the factious, which comprehends all the different innovators, some of whom have undertaken to overset the throne, and others to degrade it; we exhort all those who have not partaken of the crimes of the factious; all those who, having been merely led astray, do not wish to be the accomplices of furious usurpers, in destroying or perverting the French government; all those who abhor that atrocious doctrine which tends to disturb the peace of all nations; we beseech them to be of one and the same mind with us, not to dispute on the mode of regulating the state, when the question is to fight together against those who wish to destroy it; and to acknowledge, that if it is necessary to correct the abuses which time introduces into the R 3 best best institutions, all innovations in the primæval principles of a government which antiquity renders respectable, is always impolitic, is always dangerous, and almost always fatal. We have no doubt but the bishops, especially those in the frontier provinces, will redouble their zeal at this very moment to strengthen the courage of the pastors, whom the flight of the intruders will soon put into possession of the exercises of their duties, and to excite their diocesans to avert, by a speedy submission, the storm that is ready to burst upon their heads. We give to the King's troops the most pressing invitations, and even orders (which the state of captivity in which his Majesty is, authorises us to give in his name) that, conformably to the summons contained in the 3d article of the declaration of his Serene Highness the reigning Duke of Brunswick, and without looking upon themselves as bound by an illusory oath, which they could not willingly take to the prejudice of their supreme chief, they will lose no time in returning to their ancient fidelity to their law ful sovereign; that, after the example of the greatest part of their officers, they will join the troops which we, his Majesty's brothers, command for him; that they will give us free passage to march to his assistance; and that they will give him, in conjunction with us, proofs of an inviolable attachment to his service. We expressly require, in the King's name (as being at this moment the necessary medium through which his will is to be made known) all commanders of towns, citadels, and fortresses throughout the kingdom, to open their gates and deli ver up the keys on the first summons which shall be given by us, or by the general officers who may be the bearers of our orders to that effect: as also to give free admission to the troops that shall present themselves to assist us in taking possession in the name of the King our brother. If, contrary to our expectation, any of these commanders shall refuse it, they shall be personally answerable for the consequences, tried for disobedience to the King, and treated as rebels.-The inhabitants of places and forts, as well as the troops in garrisons, who shall oppose and disobey the chiefs and commanders who would bring them back to their duty, shall be punished as traitors, and have neither favour nor mercy to expect. The voice of Henry the Fourth's descendants will not be disowned by the French army; we are alrea dy informed in part of its good-will; and we know that, blushing to follow the chiefs of a conspiracy whom it despises, it only waits a favoura ble moment to make its just indig nation burst upon those corrupters who dishonour it.-That moment is at hand, and we have good ground to believe, that as soon as the troops of the line advance towards them, the corps of French cavaliers, led by the Bourbons, and preceded by that ancient banner which was always the signal of honour to our army, the voice of the public opinion for fourteen centuries past will make itself be heard in their ranks, as well as in our own; that they will flock to their ancient colours, and at the sight of the untarnished and immortal purity of the Fleur de Lys, they will quit with horror the disgraceful colours adopted by fanaticism.-Oh! may we thus termi nate, nate, without spilling the blood of our fellow-citizens, a war which is only directed against criminal and obstinate resistance! May the seditious inhabitants of the capital be restrained by the fear of the most just and the most terrible vengeance, with which their Imperial and Prussian Majesties have declared they will overwhelm that guilty city, in "the least violence or insult shall be offered to the King, the Queen, and the royal family; or in case their security, their preservation, and their liberty, is not immediately provided for." case God forbid that infamous villany should dare to brave these threats! If such atrocity-our very blood boils and shudders at the thought! -let us hope, rather hope that chimeras are near a conclusion; that the bandage will drop from all eyes, and that reason will resume its reign. It is our most earnest wish, and we pray to the God of Justice and Peace, that the submission of the factious may spare us the necessity of fighting them: but if that necessity should be inevitable, if we must fight the enemies of the altar and the throne, we will invoke with confidence the assistance of the God of Armies! Given at our Head Quarters, near Treves, the 8th Day of August, 1792. (Signed) LOUIS-STANISLAUSXAVIER, MONSIEUR, a Son of France, and Brother to the King. CHARLES PHILIP COUNT D'ARTOIS, a Son of France, and Brother to the King. LOUIS ANTHONY D'ARTOIS, Duke d'Angouleme, a Grandson of France. CHARLES FERDINAND D'ARTOIS, Duke de Berry, a Grandson of France. LOUIS JOSEPH DE BOURBON, Prince of Condé. LOUIS HENRY JOSEPH De Bour- Exposition of the Motives on which the French National Assembly have proclaimed the Convocation of a National Convention, and pronounced the Suspension of the Executive Power in the Hands of the King. THE National Assembly owe to the nation, to Europe, and to posterity, a rigorous account of the motives which have determined their late resolutions. Placed between the duty of remaining faithful to their oaths, and that of saving their country, they wished to fulfil both at the same time, and to do all that the public safety required, without usurping the powers with which the people had not entrusted them. At the opening of their session, an assemblage of emigrants, formed on the frontiers, kept up a correspondence with all the enemies of liberty that were still to be found in the departments, or among the troops of the line; and fanatical priests, infusing trouble into superstitious minds, sought to persuade those deluded citizens that the constitution wounded the rights of conscience, and that the law had confided the functions of religion to schismatical and sacrilegious persons. Finally, a league formed among R 4 powerful powerful kings menaced the liberty of France; they fancied that they had a right to fix to what degree the interest of their despotism permitted us to be free, and flattered themselves that they should see the sovereignty of the people and the independence of the French empire fall down before the arms of their slaves. Thus every thing announced a civil and religious war, of which a foreign war would soon increase the danger. The National Assembly thought it their duty to repress the emigrants, and to restrain the factious priests by severe decrees; and the King employed against these decrees' the suspensive refusal of sanction, which the constitution granted him. In the mean time, those emigrants and those priests were busily acting in the name of the King; it was to re-establish him in what they called his lawful authority that the former had taken up arms; and the latter were preaching assassination and treason. These emigrants were the brothers of the King, his relations, his former body-guards. And while the correspondence of these facts with the conduct of the King authorized, nay, enjoined distrust, this refusal of the sanction applied to decrees that could not be suspended without being annihilated,shewed clearly how the veto, suspensive according to the law, rendered definitive by the manner of employing it, gave to the King the unlimited and arbitrary power of rendering null all the measures which the legislative body might think necessary for maintaining liberty. From that moment, from one end of the kingdom to the other, the people shewed those gloomy discontents that announced storms; and the suspicions which accused the executive power displayed themselves with energy. The National Assembly were not discouraged. Princes who professed themselves the allies of France, had given to the emigrants not an asylum, but the liberty of arming, of forming themselves into military bodies, of levying soldiers, of providing warlike stores, and the King was invited, by a solemn message, to break, on this violation of the rights of nations, a silence that had been kept but too long. He seemed to yield to the national wish; preparations for war were ordered; but it was soon perceived, that the negotiations conducted by a ministry weak or treacherous, were confined to obtaining vain promises, which,remaining unexecuted, could not be regarded but as a snare or an insult. The league of kings assumed, in the mean time, a new activity; and at the head of this league appeared the Emperor, brother-inlaw to the King of the French, united to the nation by a treaty useful to himself alone, which the constituting assembly, deceived by the ministry, had maintained, by sacrificing, to preserve it, the hope, at that time well founded, of an alliance with the house of Brandenburgh. The National Assembly thought that it was necessary for the safety of France, to oblige the Emperor to declare whether he would be her ally or her enemy, and to pronounce between two contradictory treaties, of which the one bound him to give succours to France, and the other engaged him to attack her; treaties which he could not reconcile, without avowing the intention of |