1792.] THE ALIEN BILL-CORRESPONDENCE WITH CHAUVELIN.]

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exclaiming, "What's this? hæ, hæ! what's that? what's this? what's that?" or, as hunting with " Parson Young," and when a fatal accident occurred to his reverend friend, ejaculating, "What, what? Young dead? Take him up, and put him home to bed;" or learning from the widow of Salthill the way to catch a mouse in a trap baited with toasted cheese; or taking shelter in a farm-kitchen, and making the discovery how the apple got into the dumpling. These were not the things to abate one jot of the king's popularity-perhaps they increased it. The sneer of Paine at the " capacity of Mr. Guelph" fell harmless. The king had courage and common sense -qualities perhaps more important to a constitutional sovereign than great intellectual refinement. The nation clung to him as representing the principles most antagonistic to French philosophy.

The Alien Bill, which had been read a third time in the House of Lords, was read a second time in the House of Commons on the 28th of December. On that occasion, Burke "mentioned the circumstance of three thousand daggers having been bespoke at Birmingham by an Englishman, of which seventy had been delivered. It was not ascertained how many of these were to be exported, and how many were intended for home consumption." The Parliamentary History then adds, "here Mr. Burke drew out a dagger which he had kept concealed, and with much vehemence of action threw it on the floor." The orator, pointing to the dagger, said, "This is what you are to gain with an alliance with France; wherever their principles are introduced their practice must follow." The Alien Bill, after much debate, was passed on the 4th of January. On the 7th of that month, M. Chauvelin, styling himself "minister plenipotentiary from the French Republic," addressed a Note to lord Grenville, remonstrating against this Bill as a violation of the Treaty of Commerce, by which the subjects of the two nations had liberty. to come and go freely and securely without licence or passport. He says, "It is thus that the British government has first chosen to break a treaty to which England owes a great part of its actual prosperity, burthensome to France." Lord Grenville returned the Note, stating that M. Chauvelin had therein assumed a character which is not acknowledged; he being in "no otherwise accredited to the king than in the name of his most Christian Majesty." In a letter of the 9th of January, lord Grenville stated, as he had stated in a private conversation of the 29th of November, that "he would not decline receiving non-official communications, which, without deciding the question either of the acknowledgment of the new government in France, or of receiving a minister accredited by her, might offer the means of removing the misunderstanding which already manifested itself between the two countries." On the 13th M. Chauvelin informed lord Grenville' that the Executive Council, "to discard every reproach of having stopped, by the mere want of formality, a negotiation on the success of which the tranquillity of two great nations is depending, have taken the resolution of sending letters of credence to citizen Chauvelin, which would furnish him the means of treating in all the severity of diplomatic forms." He then enters into the various points of difference, and thus concludes: "If the explana-tions of France appear insufficient, and if we are still obliged to hear a

VOL. VII.

• "Parliamentary History," vol. xxx. col. 189. See Note to this Chapter.

S

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TRIAL OF THE KING OF FRANCE.

[1792. haughty language; if hostile preparations are continued in the English ports; after having exhausted every means to preserve peace, we will prepare for war." Lord Grenville, still protesting against the unofficial form of the notifications, answers that "a threat of declaring war against England, because she thinks proper to augment her forces, as well as a declaration of breaking a solemn treaty, because England has adopted, for her own security, precautions of the same nature as those which are already established in France,* could neither of them be considered in any other light than that of new offences, which, while they subsisted, would preclude all negotiation." On the 17th of January, M. Chauvelin required to be informed whether his Britannic majesty would receive his letters of credence; and on the 20th lord Grenville replied, "I am to inform you, that his majesty does not think fit, under the present circumstances, to receive those letters ;" and he added that, "after what has just passed in France," M. Chauvelin must return, as a private person, to the general mass of foreigners in England. On the 17th of January a majority of the National Convention had pronounced for the death of the king of France. "What had just passed" in France was followed up on the 21st by the execution of Louis; and on the 24th M. Chauvelin was ordered, by direction of the king in council, to retire from this country within eight days.

We have to take up the thread of a painful narrative, from the time when the king went back to the Temple, after having appeared at the bar of the Convention on the 11th of December. He named two persons as his counsel -Target, and Tronchet. Target had a cowardly dread of accepting the offer, and his place was taken by the venerable Malesherbes, who volunteered his services to the President of the Convention, saying, that he had been twice called to the councils of Louis, when to serve him was an object of ambition; and that he owed him the same service when it might be considered dangerous. With Malesherbes and Tronchet, Desèze was associated. There was no impediment offered to their free consultations with the king; and a fortnight was spent in preparations for the defence. On the 26th of December, the king again appeared at the bar of the Convention. Desèze conducted the defence. His arguments were logical, but he was unequal to the task of moving an assembly that was swayed more by passion and sentiment than by reason. He said, "History will sit in judgment on your judgment, and the judgment of history will be the judgment of ages." His Will, which the suffering king made before this conclusion of a pretended trial the issue of which was pre-determined, is sufficient to fix the judgment of History as to the personal character of this kind-hearted king. In this solemn document, written on the 25th of December, he says, "I recommend my son, if he has the misfortune to become king, to remember that he owes himself to the happiness of his fellow-citizens; to forget all hatred and resentment, and especially that which relates to the misfortunes and sorrows I now undergo." It was with perfect consistency that Louis declared, in the few words that he addressed to the Convention after his counsel had spoken, that his greatest grief was that he should have been accused of wishing to

*The system of passports, introduced during the Revolution, was rigidly applied to British subjects, in contravention of the treaty of commerce.

1793.]

VOTES OF THE CONVENTION.

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shed the blood of his people-" I, who have exposed myself in order to avert the shedding of one drop of their blood." For many days there were stormy discussions in the Convention, on propositions made by those who were afraid to declare Louis not guilty, but who wished to save him without compromising themselves. One proposed that the Convention should decide on the guilt of Louis, but refer to the primary assemblies the question of his death or his exile. The principal Girondins, speaking through their great orator, Vergniaud, proposed that the judgment which should be pronounced upon Louis, whether that of Guilty or Not Guilty, should be submitted to the ratification of the people. It was at length decided that three questions should be determined by the vote at the tribune of each member, on the appel nominal,-the call by name. Upon the first question, put on the 15th of January, "Is Louis Capet guilty of conspiracy against the liberty of the

nation, and of attempts against the general security of the state," six hundred and eighty-three members replied, "Yes, Louis is guilty." On the second question, "Shall the decision of the Convention be submitted to the ratification of the people," two hundred and eighty-one voted for the appeal; four hundred and twenty-three against it. The third question, "What shall be the sentence," was to be decided on the morrow. The Convention during the whole of that day had been occupied with various preliminary discussions, especially upon a proposition that two-thirds of the votes should be necessary to constitute a majority. This proposition was rejected. It was eight o'clock in the evening before the voting commenced. The fearful ceremony which every member had to go through in the presence of a blood-thirsty audience in the galleries, and a furious mob without doors, was continued through the night, and was renewed the next day. The greater number of the Girondins, including Vergniaud, joined the Mountain, in voting for the sentence of Death. The one Prince of the blood, who had laid down his title to become a member of the Convention, voted for Death.* The one

There are some interesting details of this crowning infamy of Egalité, in the Journal of her Life during the Revolution, by Mrs. Elliott, who had the misfortune of being the mistress of two

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EXECUTION OF THE KING.

[1793.

Englishman who had been elected a Deputy, Thomas Paine, voted for imprisonment, and banishment at the peace. It was late at night before the votes were counted. Three hundred and eighty-seven were for death without any condition; three hundred and thirty-four were for imprisonment on conditional death. Vergniaud, as President, declared the sentence. On the 19th the question was put, "Shall the execution of the sentence of Louis Capet be deferred?" For the suspension of the sentence there were three hundred and ten members; for its immediate execution there were three hundred and eighty. On the 20th of January, the decision of the Convention was officially communicated to Louis. He requested a delay of three days to prepare himself to appear before his Maker; he requested that he should have a priest, whose name he wrote down; he requested to see his family without witnesses, and that they might be allowed to leave France. The Convention refused the respite. They granted the priest, and the permission to see his family, which permission the brutal Commune refused to have carried out, causing them to be watched through a glass-door. They "authorized the Executive Council to reply to Louis, that the nation, always magnanimous and always just, would consider the situation of his family." We spare our readers the heart-rending details of the parting of the king with his wife, his son and daughter, and his sister. The priest that Louis had chosen was the Abbé Edgeworth. He attended the king to the scaffold; and as the knife of the guillotine was about to fall, exclaimed, "Son of St. Louis, ascend to heaven." This tragedy was completed at ten o'clock of the morning of the 21st of January.

On the 28th of January a message was delivered to parliament, in which the king stated the indispensable necessity of a further augmentation of forces by sea and land, the correspondence between lord Grenville and M. Chauvelin having been at the same time presented. Mr. Pitt moved an Address of thanks, of which the following passages appear to have shut the door to any further negotiation with the existing government of France:

"To offer to his Majesty our heartfelt condolence on the atrocious act lately perpetrated at Paris, which must be viewed by every nation in Europe as an outrage on religion, justice, and humanity; and as a striking and dreadful example of the effect of principles which lead to the violation of the most sacred duties, and are utterly subversive of the peace and order of all civil society.

"To assure his Majesty, that it is impossible for us not to be sensible of the views of aggrandizement and ambition, which, in violation of repeated and solemn professions, have been openly manifested on the part of France,

of the most profligate men of Europe, the prince of Wales and the duke of Orleans. When this lady urged the duke to vote for the deliverance of his cousin, the king, he said sneeringly, Certainly, and for my own death." He subsequently said, "he thought the king had been guilty by forfeiting his word to the nation, yet nothing should induce him to vote against him' on the final question of his sentence. After the execution of Louis, Mrs. Elliott said to the duke, "You, monseigneur, will die, like the poor king, on the scaffold." The duke replied, "The king has been tried, and he is no more. I could not prevent his death. I could not avoid doing what I have done. I am, perhaps, more to be pitied than you can form an idea of. I am more a slave of faction than anybody in France. But from this instant let us drop the subject."-pp. 117-118-127.

1793.]

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT.

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and which are connected with the propagation of principles incompatible with the existence of all just and regular government: that, under the present circumstances, we consider a vigorous and effectual opposition to these views as essential to the security of everything which is most dear and valuable to us as a nation, and to the future tranquillity and safety of all other countries."

Execution of Louis XVI. From Tableaux Historiques de la Révolution Française.