Memoirs of General Lafayette: With an Account of His Visit to America and His Reception By the People of the United States; From His Arrival, August 15th, to the Celebration at Yorktown, October 19th, 1824.Knapp, Samuel L. (Samuel Lorenzo)
History
Memoirs of General Lafayette: With an Account of His Visit to America and His Reception By the People of the United States; From His Arrival, August 15th, to the Celebration at Yorktown, October 19th, 1824.
Knapp, Samuel L. (Samuel Lorenzo)
France -- History -- 1789-1900; Lafayette, Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, marquis de, 1757-1834; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
"Persist, Sire, supported by the authority delegated to you by the
national will, in the noble resolution of defending constitutional
principles against all their enemies. Let this resolution, maintained by
all the actions of your private life, as well as by a firm and complete
exercise of the royal power; become the pledge of the harmony, which,
particularly, at this critical juncture, cannot fail to be established
between the _elected_ representatives of the people and their
_hereditary_ representative. It is in this resolution, Sire, that glory
and safety will be found for the country and for yourself. With this
you will find the friends of liberty, all _good_ Frenchmen ranged
around your throne, to defend it against the plots of rebels and the
enterprizes of the factious; and I, Sire, who in their honorable hatred
have found the reward of my persevering opposition; I will always
deserve it, by my zeal in the cause to which my whole life has been
devoted, and by my fidelity to the oath I have taken to the nation, to
the law and to the King. Such, Sire, are the unalterable sentiments I
present to your Majesty, with my respect.
"LAFAYETTE"
Letter of Lafayette on leaving Paris to join his army, after having
appeared at the bar of the National Assembly, and protested against
their proceedings, the last of June.
"Gentlemen--In returning to the post where brave soldiers are ready to
die for the constitution, but ought not and will not lavish their blood
except for that, I go with great and deep regret in not being able to
inform the army, that the National Assembly have yet deigned to come to
any determination on my petition. [Alluding to the request in his letter
to the assembly a short time before, to suppress the Jacobin clubs.]
The voice of all the good citizens of the kingdom, which some factious
clamours strive to stifle, daily call to the elected representatives of
the people, that while there exists near them a sect who fetter all the
authorities, and menace their independence; and who, after provoking
war, are endeavoring, by changing the nature of our cause, to make
it impossible to defend it; that while there is cause to blush at the
impunity of an act of treason against the nation, which has raised
just and great alarms in the minds of all the French, and universal
indignation; our liberty, laws and honor are in danger. Truths like
these, free and generous souls are not afraid of speaking. Hostile to
the factious of every kind, indignant at cowards that can sink so low
as to look for foreign interposition, and impressed with the principle,
which I glory in being the first to declare to France, _that all illegal
power is oppression, against which resistance becomes a duty_, we are
anxious to make known our fears to the legislative body. We hope that
the prudence of the representatives of the people will relieve our
minds of them. As for me, gentlemen, who will never alter my principles,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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