The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and EnglandConway, Moncure Daniel
History
The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England
Conway, Moncure Daniel
Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809
It is to be hoped that Paine's letter to Marat may be discovered in
France; it is shown by the Cob-bett papers, printed in the Appendix,
that he kept a copy, which there is reason to fear perished with
General Bonneville's library in St. Louis. Whatever may be the letter's
contents, there is no indication that thereafter Marat troubled Paine.
Possibly Danton and Marat compared their letters, and the latter got it
into his head that hostility to this American, anxious only to cross the
ocean, could be of no advantage to him. Or perhaps he remembered that if
a hue and cry were raised against "foreigners" it could not stop short
of his own leaf-crowned Neufchatel head. He had shown some sensitiveness
about that at his trial. Samson-Pegnet had testified that, at
conversations in Paine's house, Marat had been reported as saying that
it was necessary to massacre all the foreigners, especially the English.
This Marat pronounced an "atrocious calumny, a device of the statesmen
[his epithet for Girondins] to render me odious." Whatever his motives,
there is reason to believe that Marat no longer included Paine in his
proscribed list. Had it been otherwise a fair opportunity of striking
down Paine presented itself on the occasion, already alluded to, when
Paine gave his testimony in favor of General Miranda. Miranda was tried
before the Revolutionary Tribunal on May 12th, and three days following.
He had served under Dumouriez, was defeated, and was suspected of
connivance with his treacherous commander. Paine was known to have been
friendly with Dumouriez, and his testimony in favor of Miranda might
naturally have been used against both men. Miranda was, however,
acquitted, and that did not make Marat better disposed towards that
adventurer's friends, all Girondins, or, like Paine, who belonged to no
party, hostile to Jacobinism. Yet when, on June 2d, the doomed Girondins
were arrested, there were surprising exceptions: Paine and his literary
collaborateur, Condorcet. Moreover, though the translator of Paine's
works, Lanthenas, was among the proscribed, his name was erased on
Marat's motion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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