ORATION DELIVERED AT PARIS BY CITIZEN CARNot, PRESIDENT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORY, AT THE FESTIVAL OF GRATITUDE AND VICTORY, CELEBRATED AT THE CHAMP-DE-MARS, MAY 29, 1796.

T is at the moment when nature is renovated, when the earth, adorned with flowers and dressed in green, promises new harvests; when all beings proclaim in their own language, the beneficent Intelligence which renovates the universe, that the French people assemble, on this great festival, to render a distinguished homage to those talents and virtues of the friends of the country and humanity. What day can better unite all hearts! What citizen, what man can be a stranger to the influence of gratitude! We exist only through an uninterrupted course of beneficence, and our life is but a continual exchange of services.

As soon as born, our eyes, fixed on the heavens, appear already to acknowledge a primary Benefactor. Weak, without support, the love of our parents watches over our infancy, and provides for wants continually renewed. They direct our first steps; their patient solicitude assists in developing our organs; we receive from them our first ideas of what we are ourselves, and of surrounding objects. Additional care models our hearts to affection, our minds to knowledge, and our bodies to useful labor. It is for our happiness, that the wise have reflected on the duties of man; that the learned have diven into the secrets of nature; that the magistrate watches, and that the legislator prepares in deliberation protecting laws.

Be

Soon we are enabled to be useful. Good children, we strew flowers over the age of our parents, and their trembling voice blesses us in their last moments. come parents in our turn, we prepare, in the education of our children, the felicity of our declining years;

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and we thus continue in a new generation the chain of benevolence and gratitude. Sensibility is not restricted within the family circle; the indigent is searched for under the thatch; succours and consolation are lavished; and the donor, at first paid for the good action by the pleasure of having performed it, is doubly rewarded by the gratitude of the object. Benevolence! how happy are thy votaries, and how much to be pitied, the soul that knows thee not!

He who is a good son and a good father is also a good citizen. He loves his country; renders with alacrity the tribute of services; he delights in returning to his brothers the protection he has received from them. Either magistrate or warrior, manufacturer or farmer; in the temple of the arts; in the Senate; in the fields of glory, or the workshops of industry, he shows himself ambitious of contributing towards the prosperity of his country, and to deserve one day its gratitude. For there is a national gratitude for individuals. At this moment a people are all assembled to express their gratitude to the virtuous citizens who have deserved it. How agreeable is the task! How we delight in paying you that homage; you to whom the country owes its safety, its glory, and the foundation of its prosperity!

You, to whom France owes its political regeneration; courageous philosophers, whose writings have planted the seeds of the revolution, corroded the fetters of slavery, and blunted by degrees the ravings of fanaticism. You, citizens, whose dauntless courage effected this happy revolution; founded the republic, and contended these seven years against crime and ambition, royalism and anarchy. You all, in a word, who labor to render France happy and flourishing; who render it illustrious by your talents, and enrich it by your discoveries; receive the solemn testimony of national gratitude.

Receive that testimony particularly, republican armies; you, whose glory and successes are fresh in the

recollection

recollection of all. It is you who have defended us against ten combined kings; who have driven them from our territory; have transferred to their dominions the scourge of war. You have not only conquered men; you have overcome the obstacle thrown in your way by nature. You have triumphed over fatigue, hunger, and winter. What a spectacle for the people! what a dreadful lesson to the enemies of liberty!

A new-born republic arms its children to defend its independence; nothing can restrain their impetuosity; traversing rivers, carrying entrenchments, climbing rocks. Here, after a series of victories, they pushed back our limits to those barriers that nature intended for us, and pursuing over ice the remains of three armies, transformed an oppressed and hostile nation into a free and allied people. There they fly to exterminate the hordes of traitors and villains, subsidized by England; punish their thieves, and restore to the republic brothers too long misled. Here, surmounting the Pyrenees, and precipitating themselves from their summit; overthrowing whatever opposes their progress, and checked only by an honorable peace; there ascending the Alps and Appenines, they fly across the Po and Adige.

The ardor of the soldier is seconded by the genius and boldness of the chiefs. They plan with science, and execute with energy; now displaying their forces with calmness; then courting danger at the head of their brothers in arms. Oh that I could here display the immense and glorious picture of their victories! that I could name our most intrepid defenders! What a crowd of sublime images and beloved names press upon my recollection! Immortal warriors, posterity will not believe the multitude of your triumphs; but to us history loses all its improbabilities..

But do we not see, even on this spot, a portion of those brave defenders? Victors over the exterior enemies of the state, they have come to repress our internal enemies; and preserve at home the republic

which they have caused to be respected abroad. Do we not also see those venerable warriors who have grown grey in the service; those whom honorable wounds have obliged to seek premature repose, and whose asylum is in sight? With what pleasure our eyes feed on this interesting reunion! With what agreeable emotions we contemplate those victorious brows!

Heroes who have perished for liberty, why does there remain to us nothing but a recollection of your serv.ces? You will, however, live forever in our hearts; your children will be dear to us; the republic will repay to them the debt they owe to you; and we discharge here the first, by proclaiming your glory and our gratitude. Republican armies, represented here, by warriors from your ranks; invincible phalanxes, whose trophies I observe on all sides, whose fresh successes I foresee, come forward and receive the triumphal crowns which the French people command me to attach to your colours.

ADDRESS OF MR. ADET, FRENCH AMBASSADOR, ON PRESENTING THE COLOURS OF FRANCE, TO THE UNITED STATES, 1796.

MR. PRESIDENT,

COME to acquit myself of a duty very dear to my heart. I come to deposit in your hands, and in the midst of a people justly renowned for their courage, and their love of liberty, the symbol of the triumph and the enfranchisement of my nation.

When she broke her chain; when she proclaimed the imprescriptible rights of man; when, in a terrible war, she sealed with her blood the covenant made with liberty, her own happiness was not alone the object of her glorious efforts; her views extended also to all free people; she saw their interests blended with her

own, and doubly rejoiced in her victories, which, in assuring to her the enjoyments of her rights, became to them new guarantees of their independence.

These sentiments, which animated the French nation, from the dawn of their revolution, have acquired new strength since the foundation of the republic. France, at that time, by the form of its government, assimilated to, or rather identified with free people, saw in them only friends and brothers. Long accustomed to regard the American people as their most faithful allies, she has sought to draw closer the ties already formed in the fields of America, under the auspices of victory over the ruins of tyranny.

The National Convention, the organs of the will of the French Nation, have more than once expressed their sentiments to the American people; but above all, these burst forth on that august day, when the Minister of the United States presented to the National Representation, the colours of his country, desiring never to lose recollections as dear to Frenchmen as they must be to Americans. The Convention ordered that these colours should be placed in the hall of their sittings. They had experienced sensations too agreeable not to cause them to be partaken of by their allies, and decreed that to them the national colours should be presented.

Mr. President, I do not doubt their expectations will be fulfilled; and I am convinced, that every citizen will receive, with a pleasing emotion, this flag, elsewhere the terror of the enemies of liberty; here the certain pledge of faithful friendship.; especially when they recollect that it guides to combat, men who have shared their toils, and who were prepared for liberty,. by aiding them to acquire their own.

PRESIDENT