security there is no free will, no expression of opinion,
no liberty; there will be only a predominant power,
a tyranny popular or otherwise, until you have separated
the constitution from the workings of the revolution.
Behold all these principles of justice, morality,
and liberty which you have laid down, hailed with
joy, and oaths renewed, but violated immediately with
unprecedented audacity and rage. It is at a moment
when the holiest or the freest of constitutions has
been proclaimed that the most infamous attempts against
liberty, against property,—nay, what do
I say?—against humanity and conscience,
are multiplied and perpetuated! Does not this
contrast alarm you? I will tell you wherefore.
Yourselves deceived as to the mechanism of political
society, you have sought its regeneration without
reflecting on its dissolution; you have considered
as an obstacle to your plans the discontent of some,
and as a means the enthusiasm of others. Only
desirous to overcome obstacles you have overturned
principles, and taught the people to brave every thing.
You have taken the passions of the people for auxiliaries.
It is to raise an edifice by sapping the foundations.
I repeat to you then, there is no free and durable
constitution out of despotism but that which terminates
a revolution, and which is proposed, accepted, and
executed, by forms, calm, free, and totally different
from the forms of the Revolution. All we do,
all we seek for with excitement before we reach this
point of repose, whether we obey the people or are
obeyed by them; whether we would flatter, deceive,
or serve them, is but the work of folly,—madness.
I demand, therefore, that the constitution be peaceably
and freely accepted by the majority of the nation and
by the king. (Violent murmurs.) I know we call
the national will, all that we know of proposed addresses,
of assent, of oaths, agitations, menaces, and violence.
(Loud expressions of angry dissent.) Yes, we must close
the Revolution by beginning to destroy every tendency
to violate it. Your committees of inquiry, laws
respecting emigrants, persecutions of priests, despotic
imprisonments, criminal proceedings against persons
accused without proofs, the fanaticism and domination
of clubs; but this is not all, licence has gone to
such unbounded extent,—the dregs of the
nation ferment so tumultuously:—(Loud burst
of indignation.) Do we then pretend to be the first
nation which has no dregs? The fearful insubordination
of troops, religious disturbances, the discontents
of the colonies, which already sound so ominously
in our ports,—if the Revolution does not
stop here and give place to the constitution;—if
order be not re-established at once, and on all points,
the shattered state will be long agitated by the convulsions
of anarchy. Do you remember the history of the
Greeks, where a first revolution not terminated produced
so many others during a period of only half a century?
Do you remember that Europe has her eyes fixed on your
weakness and agitations, and whilst she will respect
you if you are free within the limits of order, she
will surely profit by your disorders if you only know
how to weaken yourself and alarm her by your anarchy?”