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
"Frenchmen," said the king in this address to his people, "so long as I
hoped to behold public happiness and tranquillity restored by the
measures concerted by myself and the Assembly, no sacrifice was too
great; calumnies, insult, injury, even the loss of liberty,--I have
suffered all without a murmur. But now that I behold the kingdom
destroyed, property violated, personal safety compromised, anarchy in
every part of my dominions, I feel it my duty to lay before my subjects
the motives of my conduct. In the month of July, 1789, I did not fear to
trust myself amongst the inhabitants of Paris. On the 5th and 6th of
October, although outraged in my own palace, and a witness of the
impunity with which all sorts of crimes were committed, I would not quit
France, lest I should be the cause of civil war. I came to reside in the
Tuileries, deprived of almost the necessaries of life; my body-guard was
torn from me, and many of these faithful gentlemen were massacred under
my very eyes. The most shameful calumnies have been heaped upon the
faithful and devoted wife, who participates in my affection for the
people, and who has generously taken her share of all the sacrifices I
have made for them. Convocation of the States-general, double
representation granted to the third estate (_le tiers etat_), reunion of
the orders, sacrifice of the 20th of June,--I have done all this for the
nation; and all these sacrifices have been lost, misinterpreted, turned
against me. I have been detained as a prisoner in my own palace; instead
of guards, jailers have been imposed on me. I have been rendered
responsible for a government that has been torn from my grasp. Though
charged to preserve the dignity of France in relation to foreign powers,
I have been deprived of the right of declaring peace or war. Your
constitution is a perpetual contradiction between the titles with which
it invests me, and the functions it denies me. I am only the responsible
chief of anarchy, and the seditious power of the clubs wrests from you
the power you have wrested from me. Frenchmen, was this the result you
looked for from your regeneration? Your attachment to your king was wont
to be reckoned amongst your virtues; this attachment is now changed into
hatred, and homage into insult. From M. Necker down to the lowest of the
rabble, every one has been king except the king himself. Threats have
been held out of depriving the king even of this empty title, and of
shutting up the queen in a convent. In the nights of October, when it
was proposed to the Assembly to go and protect the king by its presence,
they declared it was beneath their dignity to do so. The king's aunts
have been arrested, when from religious motives they wished to journey
to Rome. My conscience has been equally outraged; even my religious
principles have been constrained: when after my illness I wished to go
to St. Cloud, to complete my convalescence, it was feared that I was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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