crimes, and they would be grateful. Were I such, the kings we have vanquished,

far from denouncing Robespierre, would lend me their guilty support; there would

be a covenant between them and me. Tyranny must have tools. But the enemies of

tyranny,--whither does their path tend? To the tomb, and to immortality! What

tyrant is my protector? To what faction do I belong? Yourselves! What faction,

since the beginning of the Revolution, has crushed and annihilated so many

detected traitors? You, the people,--our principles--are that faction--a faction

to which I am devoted, and against which all the scoundrelism of the day is

banded!

 

The confirmation of the Republic has been my object; and I know that the

Republic can be established only on the eternal basis of morality. Against me,

and against those who hold kindred principles, the league is formed. My life?

Oh! my life I abandon without a regret! I have seen the past; and I foresee the

future. What friend of this country would wish to survive the moment when he

could no longer serve it,--when he could no longer defend innocence against

oppression? Wherefore should I continue in an order of things, where intrigue

eternally triumphs over truth; where justice is mocked; where passions the most

abject, or fears the most absurd, over-ride the sacred interests of humanity? In

witnessing the multitude of vices which the torrent of the Revolution has rolled

in turbid communion with its civic virtues, I confess that I have sometimes

feared that I should be sullied, in the eyes of posterity, by the impure

neighborhood of unprincipled men, who had thrust themselves into association

with the sincere friends of humanity; and I rejoice that these conspirators

against my country have now, by their reckless rage, traced deep the line of