History of the Girondists, Volume I: Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French RevolutionLamartine, Alphonse de
History
History of the Girondists, Volume I: Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution
Lamartine, Alphonse de
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799; Girondists
"Citizens," said he, "watch closely around this palace: the inviolable
asylum of all plots against the nation, there a perverse queen lords it
over an imbecile king and rears the cubs of tyranny. Lawless priests
there consecrate the arms of insurrection against the people. They
prepare the Saint Bartholomew of patriots. The genius of Austria is
there, hidden in the committees over which Antoinette presides; they
correspond with foreigners, and by concealed means forward to them the
gold and arms of France, so that the tyrants who are assembling in arms
on your frontier may find you famished and disarmed. The
emigrants--d'Artois and Conde--there receive instructions of the coming
vengeance of despotism. A guard of Swiss stipendiaries is not enough for
the liberticide schemes of the Capets. Every night the good citizens who
watch around this den see the ancient nobility entering stealthily and
concealing arms beneath their clothes. Can knights of the poignard be
any thing but the enrolled assassins of the people? What is La Fayette
doing,--is he a dupe or an accomplice? Why does he leave free the
avenues of the palace, which is only opened for vengeance or flight? Why
do we leave the Revolution incomplete, and also leave in the hands of
our crowned enemy, still in the midst of us, the time to overcome and
destroy it? Do you not see that specie is disappearing and assignats are
discredited? What means the assemblings on your frontier of emigrants
and armed bodies, who are advancing to enclose you in a circle of iron?
What are your ministers doing? Why is not the property of emigrants
confiscated, their houses burnt, their heads set at a price? In whose
hands are arms? In the hands of traitors. Who command your troops?
traitors! Who hold the keys of your strong places? traitors, traitors,
traitors, everywhere traitors; and in this palace of treason, the king
of traitors! the inviolable traitor, the king! They tell you that he
loves the constitution,--humbug! he comes to the Assembly,--humbug; the
better he conceals his flight. Watch! watch! a great blow is preparing,
is ready to burst; if you do not prevent it by a counter-blow more
sudden, more terrible, the people and liberty are annihilated."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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