3 the confent repeatedly expreffed by his majefty to remain among the citizens of Paris; a confent that was due to their patriotifm, even to their fears, but above all to their love. Thofe calumnies, however, have reached foreign courts; they have been repeated there by Frenchmen, who are voluntary exiles from their country, instead of sharing its glory, and whe, if they were not enemies, have deferted their station as citizens. The king, fir, charges you to defeat their intrigues and their projects. The fame calumnies, while they fpread the falfeft ideas refpecting the French revolution, have rendered the intentions of French travellers fufpected by feveral nations; and the king exprefsly orders you to protect and defend them. Reprefent the French conftitution in the fame light as that in which the king views it; and leave no doubt of his intention to maintain it to the utmoft of his power. By fecuring the liberty and the equality of the citizens, that conftitution founds the national profperity on the most immoveable bafis; it confirms the royal authority by the law; it prevents, by a glorious revolution, the revolution which the abuses of the old government would probably foon have effected by a diffolution of the empire; and finally, it will conftitute the happiness of the king. To juftify it, to defend it, and to confider it as the rule of your conduct, ought to be your first and most important duty. I have frequently before communicated to you his majesty's fentiments on this head; but, after the information he has received of the opinion endeavoured to be established in foreign courts refpecting what is paffing in France, he has ordered me to make known the contents of The King's Proclamation on his Depar ture from Paris, June 20. While the king could hope to fee order and happiness restored by the means employed by the national af fembly, and by his own refidence. near that affembly, he fubmitted to every facrifice; he was even content to bear the lofs of his liberty, of which he has been deprived fince the month of October 1789; but now, when the refult of all these obfervations is found to be the de ftruction of royalty, the violation of property, the invafion of perfo. nal fecurity, the establishment of a complete anarchy in every part of the empire, without any appearance of an authority fufficient to reftrain it; the king, after protesting against all the acts extorted from him during his captivity, thinks proper to fub mit to the eyes of Frenchmen an account of his conduct. In the month of July, 1789, the king, relying on his own integrity, came, without any apprehenfion, a mong the Parifians. In the month of October of the fame year, fully informed of the intentions of the fac tious, he dreaded left a handle should be made of this departure, in order to foment a civil war. It is univers fally known with what impunity crimes were then committed. The king yielded to the wish ex, preffed by the army of Parifians came, with his family, to refide in the palace of the Thuilleries; no thing was prepared for his recep (E 4) tion; tion; and the king, far from meet- common conveniencies. ved the plots of the factious in feveral provinces; they revived those attempts that had been made to reverfe the instructions of their con. enacted in concert with the king. ftituents, which appointed laws to be The affembly have removed the king from the conftitution, by denying him the privilege of fanétioning conftitutional acts; in which clafs they ranked whatever acts they thought proper, reftricting to the third legiflative body the privilege of refufing its fanction. They have given him twenty-five millions, which are entirely abforbed by the neceflary expences of his household. They have left him the profits only of certain domains, faddled with opprefiive forms; and have deprived him of the patrimony of his anceftors; they took care not to comprehend, in the article of expence, thofe fervices done to the king, as if they were not infeparable from those of the state. of the adminiftration be examined, Let the different parts it will be found that the king has no longer a fhare; he has no part in enacting laws; he can only intreat the affembly to direct their attention to fuch and fuch fubjects. In the adminiftration of juftice, nothing is left for him, but to dispatch to name the commiffaries of the the commiffions of the judges, and king whofe functions are much less confiderable than those of the ancient procurators general. The pub. lic part has been committed to new officers; and one perogative ftill remaining, the most valuable of all, that of pardoning and remitting punishments, has been taken away from the king, and is now vefted in juries, in confequence of their privilege of explaining, according to their pleasure, the fenfe of the law. Thus the royal majefty is impaired, to which the people formerly had of every constraint, he thought proper, the day after his arrival, to give the provinces affurance of his refidence at Paris. A more painful facrifice was ftill exacted; he was obliged to remove his Gardes du Corps, of whofe fidelity he was affured; two of them were maffacred, and feveral wounded in executing the orders, which they had received, not to fire. All the art of the factious was employed to reprefent, in the worst light, a faithful queen, whofe conduct had been uniformly unexceptionable; it is even evident that all these machinations were directed against the king himself. It is to the foldiers of the French guards, and the Parifian national guard, that the care of the king's perfon has been committed under command of the municipality of Paris, from whom the commandergeneral derives his authority. The king has thus found himself a prifoner in his own ftate; for what other name can be given to him, who is forcibly furrounded by perfons whom he fufpects? It is not in order to criminate the Parisian national guard that he repeats this detail, but in order to ftate the real facts; on the contrary, he is ready to do juftice to their attachment, when not under the influence of the factious. The king ordered the convocation of the ftates-general; to the third eftate, he granted the privilege of a double reprefentation. The union of the orders, the facrifices of the 23d of June, all have been his work; but his efforts have been flighted and perverted. When the ftates-general affumed the name of the national assembly, they revi recourfe, recourfe, as to the common centre of goodness and beneficence. The internal adminiftration of the departments is embarraffed by wheels which obftruct the motion of the machine; and the fuperintendance of minifters is reduced to nothing. The focieties of friends of the conftitution are much more powerful, and engrofs every part of the active administration. The king has been declared fupreme head of the army; however, every thing has been done by the committees of the national affembly, without his participation; they have granted to the king the nomination of fome places, yet the choice which he has made, has experienced contradictions; he has been obliged to revife the operations of the general officers of the army. because their choice difpleafed clubs; to them only are to be attributed the greater number of the revolts of the regiments: when an army no longer refpects its officers, it becomes the terror and firebrand of the ftate; the king has always been of opinion that officers ought to be punished as foldiers, and that the road to promotion ought no lefs to be open to the latter, according to their defert. As to the foreign affairs, they have granted to the king the nomination of ambaffadors, and the conduct of negotiations; but they have taken from him the right of making war; they ought not however to have fufpected that he would ever declare war without fpecial reafon. The right of making peace is of a different fort. The king wifhes only to act in concert with the nation; but what power will enter into negociations, when the right of revifing them fhall belong to the national affembly? Independently of the neceffary fecrecy, which it is impoffible to preferve in an affembly whose deliberations are public, who would choose to ftipulate engagements, except the perfons with whom they were formed had the power of ratifying them? With respect to fi nances, the king has recognized before the ftates-general the right which the nation has of granting fubfides, and in this refpect he complied, on the 23d of June, with every thing that had been demanded. On the 4th of February, the king requested the affembly to take into confideration the ftate of the fi nances; they deferred it too long; they have not yet a just statement of the receipt and expenditure; they allowed themselves to go into hypothetical calculations; the ordinary taxes are in arrear, and the resource which has been employed of the twelve hundred millions of affignats is almoft exhausted; they have left to the king nothing upon this occafion but a barren nomination; he knew the difficulty of this part of the adminiftration; and if it were poffible that this machine could have been put in motion without his direct fuperintendance, his majesty would only have regretted that there was no diminution of the imposts; an object which he defired, and in which, had it not been for the American war, he should most certainly have fucceeded. The king has been declared fupreme head of the administration of the kingdom, and he has been able to change nothing without the decifion of the affembly. The chiefs of the prevailing party have thrown out fuch defiance against the agents of the king, and the penalties denounced against prevarications have occafioned fo much alarm, that these agents have remained without force. The form of government is in two refpects particularly faulty; the af fembly i fembly exceeds the limits of its power in interfering in juftice and the internal adminiftration: by its committee of researches it exercises the most barbarous of all defpo tifms. It has established affociations, known by the name of friends of the conftitution, which prefent corporations infinitely more dangerous than the ancient; they deliberate on every part of the government, and exercife a power of fuch preponderance, that all the bodies, and even the affembly itself, can do nothing except by their order. The king does not think it poffible to preferve fuch a government. In proportion as the period of the labours of the affembly approaches, the fages of whom it is compofed lofe their credit. The new regulations, inftead of pouring balm upon the wounds, on the contrary inflame their malignity; a thousand journals and libellous pamphlets perpetuate the diforder, which the affembly is unable to remedy: their labours tend only to a government, metaphyfical in its principles, and impracticable in its execution. Frenchmen is it this which you intended by fending your reprefentatives? Did you defire that the defpotifm of clubs fhould replace the monarchy under which the kingdom ha profpered during fourteen hundred years? The attachment of Frenchmen to their monarch is ranked among the number of their virtues. He has received marks of it too affecting to be ever forgotten. The king would not bring forward the following, were it not to reprefent to his faithful fubjects the difpofition of the factions. The people kept in pay for the triumph of M. Necker, affected not to pronounce the name of king; they, at this period, perfecuted the archbishop of Faris; a cou rier of the king was ftopped, fearched, and the letters which he carried broke open; at this time the af fembly feem to infult the king; it was determined to carry to Paris the words of peace; during his journey, they ftopped, in order to fupprefs any cry of Vive le Roi. They even made a motion to carry off, and to put the queen in a convent; this motion was applauded. On the nights of the 4th and 5th, when it was proposed to the affembly to repair to the king, it was replied that, confiftently with its dignity, it could not remove: from this moment the fcenes of horror were renewed. On the arrival of the king at Paris, an innocent person was maffacred almost within his fight, in the garden of the Thuilleries; all those who had declared against religion and the throne, received the honours of a triumph. At the Foederation, upon the 14th of July, the national affembly declared, that the king was the chief, by which it was implied, that they had a right to name another. His family was placed in a fituation apart from himself, but that was, notwithstanding, one of the happiest moments they have paffed fince their stay in Paris. Afterward, when, on account of their religion, Mefdames, the king's aunts, wished to go to Rome, their journey was oppofed, in contradiction to the declaration of rights; and both at Bellevue and Arnay le Duc, the orders of the affembly were neceffary to release them, thofe of the king being defpifed. In the tumult factioufly excited at Vincennes, the perfons who remained fabout the king were ill treated, and they carried their audacity fo far as to break the arms of thefe perfons in the prefence of his majefty. Upon the king's recovery from his illness, he intended to go to St. Cloud, and was detained. In vain did M. de la Fayette endeavour to protect his departure; the faithful fervants who furrounded his majefty were torn away from him, and he was taken back to his prifon. Afterward he was obliged to difmifs his confeffor, to approve the letter of the minifter to the foreign powers, and to attend mafs performed by the new rector of St. Germain Auxerrois. Thus, perceiving the impoffibility of averting any public evil, by his influence, it is natural that he fhould feek of place a fafety for himself. Frenchmen and you the good inhabitants of Paris, diftruft the fuggeftions of the factious; return to your king, who will always be your friend; your holy religion hall be refpected; your government placed upon a permanent footing; and liberty established upon a fe cure bafis. 2cft inft. But your reprefentatives will triumph over all these obftacles, They eftimate calmly the extent of the duties impofed upon them, The public liberty fhall be maintained; confpirators and flaves fhall understand the intrepidity of the French nation, and we make, in the name of the nation, a folemn engagement to avenge the law, or to die. France would be free, and fhe fhall be fo. It is intended to make the revolution recede, but it recedes not. It is the effect of your will, and nothing can retard its progress. It is neceffary to accommodate the law to the ftate of the kingdom, The king, in the conftitution, exer cifes the power of the royal fanction over the decrees of the legiflative body; he is the head of the execu tive power, an, in that capacity, caufes the laws to be executed by his minifter. If he quits his poft, although carried off against his will, the reprefentatives of the nation have the right to fupply his place. The narional affembly has in confequence decreed, that the feal of state, and the fignature of the minifters of juftice, fhall be added to all its decrees to give them the character of laws. As no order of the king would have been executed, without being counterfigned by the refponfible minifter, nothing was neceflary but a fimple delegation by the affembly to authorife him to fign the orders, and thofe only iffued by them. In this circumstance they have been directed by the conftitu tional law relative to a regency, which authorifes them to perform the functions of the executive power, until the nomination of a regent. By thefe meafures your reprefentatives have enfured order to the interior part of the kingdom; and, to |