Of what strange influence is this word revolution, that it should thus, like a talisman of romance, keep inchained, as it were, the reasoning faculties of twenty millions of people!  France is at this moment looking for the decision of its fate in the quarrels of two miserable clubs, composed of individuals who are either despised or detested.  The municipality of Paris favours the Cordeliers, the Convention the Jacobins; and it is easy to perceive, that in this cafe the auxiliaries are principals, and must shortly come to such an open rupture, as will end in the destruction of either one or the other.  The world would be uninhabitable, could the combinations of the wicked be permanent; and it is fortunate for the tranquil and upright part of mankind, that the attainment of the purposes for which such combinations are formed, is usually the signal of their dissolution.

The municipality of Paris had been the iniquitous drudges of the Jacobin party in the legislative assembly—­they were made the instruments of massacring the prisoners,* of dethroning and executing the king,** and successively of destroying the Brissotine faction,*** filling the prisons with all who were obnoxious to the republicans,**** and of involving a repentant nation in the irremidiable guilt of the Queen’s death.—­*****

     * It is well known that the assassins were hired and paid by the
     municipality, and that some of the members presided at these horrors
     in their scarfs of office.

** The whole of what is called the revolution of the 10th of August may very justly be ascribed to the municipality of Paris—­I mean the active part of it.  The planning and political part has been so often disputed by different members of the Convention, that it is not easy to decide on any thing, except that the very terms of these disputes fully evince, that the people at large, and more particularly the departments, were both innocent, and, until it took place, ignorant of an event which has plunged the country into so many crimes and calamities.

*** A former imprisonment of Hebert formed a principal charge against the Brissotines, and, indeed, the one that was most insisted on at their trial, if we except that of having precipitated France into a war with England.—­It must be difficult for the English Jacobins to decide on this occasion between the virtues of their dead friends and those of their living ones.

     **** The famous definition of suspected persons originated with the
     municipality of Paris.

***** It is certain that those who, deceived by the calumnies of faction, permitted, if not assented to, the King’s death, at this time regretted it; and I believe I have before observed, that one of the reasons urged in support of the expediency of putting the Queen to death, was, that it would make the army and people decisive, by banishing all hope of peace or accommodation.