It is impossible to calculate the vast number of private assassinations committed in the dead of the night, by order of this cannibal, on persons of every rank and description.
My task is now ended. Nothing remains for me but the reflections which these sad and shocking remembrances cannot fail to awaken in all minds, and especially in mine. Is it not astonishing that, in an age so refined, so free from the enormous and flagitious crimes which were the common stains of barbarous centuries, and at an epoch peculiarly enlightened by liberal views, the French nation, by all deemed the most polished since the Christian era, should have given an example of such wanton, brutal, and coarse depravity to the world, under pretences altogether chimerical, and, after unprecedented bloodshed and horror, ended at the point where it began!
The organized system of plunder and anarchy, exercised under different forms more or less sanguinary, produced no permanent result beyond an incontestible proof that the versatility of the French nation, and its puny suppleness of character, utterly incapacitate it for that energetic enterprise without which there can be no hope of permanent emancipation from national slavery. It is my unalterable conviction that the French will never know how to enjoy an independent and free Constitution.
The tree of liberty unavoidably in all nations has been sprinkled with human blood; but, when bathed by innocent victims, like the foul weed, though it spring up, it rots in its infancy, and becomes loathsome and infectious. Such has been the case in France; and the result justifies the Italian satire:
“Un albero senza fruta
Baretta senza testa
Governo che non resta.”
THE ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
A liar ought to have a good memory
Air of science calculated to deceive the vulgar
And scarcely a woman; for your answers are very short
Bad habit of talking very indiscreetly before others
Beaumarchais sent arms to the Americans
Because he is fat, he is thought dull and heavy
Can make a Duchess a beggar, but cannot make a beggar
a Duchess
Canvassing for a majority to set up D’Orleans
Clergy enjoyed one-third the national revenues
Clouds—you may see what you please in them
Danger of confiding the administration to noblemen
Dared to say to me, so he writes
Dead always in fault, and cannot be put out of sight
too soon
Declaring the Duke of Orleans the constitutional King
Do not repulse him in his fond moments
Educate his children as quietists in matters of religion
Embonpoint of the French Princesses
Fatal error of conscious rectitude
Feel themselves injured by the favour shown to others
Few individuals except Princesses do with parade and
publicity
Foolishly occupying themselves with petty matters
Frailty in the ambitious, through which the artful