"He had learned in England that killing a monarch does not kill monarchs." This grand revolutionary proposal to raise the inevitable trial from the low plane of popular wrath against a prisoner to the dignity of a process against European monarchy, would have secured delay and calmer counsels. If the reader, considering the newly discovered papers, and the whole situation, will examine critically Paine's words just quoted, he will find them meriting a judgment the reverse of Lamartine's. With consummate art, the hourly imperilled king is shielded from vindictive wrath by the considerations that he is _non compos_, not responsible for his bringing up, was put back on the throne by the Assembly, after he had left it, acknowledging his unfitness, and that compassion for him would be becoming to the magnanimity of France. A plea for the King's immunity from trial, for his innocence or his virtues, would at that juncture have been fatal. As it was, this ingenious document made an impression on the Convention, which ordered it to be printed. * * "Convention Nationale. Opinion de Thomas Payne, Depute" du Departement de la Somme, concern ant le jugement de Louis XVI. Precede" de sa lettre d'envoi au President de la Convention. Imprime" par ordre de la Convention Nationale. A Paris. De rimprimerie Nationale." It is very remarkable that, in a State paper, Paine should be described as deputy for the Somme. His votes in the Convention are all entered under Calais. Dr. John Moore, who saw much of Paine at this time, says, in his work on the French Revolution, that his (Paine's) writings for the Convention were usually translated into French by the Marchioness of Condorcet. The delay which Paine's proposal would involve was, as Louis Blanc remarks, fatal to it. It remains now only to work among the members of the Convention, and secure if possible a majority that will be content, having killed the king, to save the man; and, in saving him, to preserve him as an imprisoned hostage for the good behavior of Europe. This is now Paine's idea, and never did man toil more faithfully for another than he did for that discrowned Louis Capet. CHAPTER XXIV. OUTLAWED IN ENGLAND While Paine was thus, towards the close of 1792, doing the work of a humane Englishman in France, his works were causing a revolution in England--a revolution the more effectual because bloodless.