XXIV. extenuation, now that the stream of prejudice flows BOOK strong, and the phantasm of a murdered king stalks before our affrighted imagination." 1793. of Louis The last eventful years of this unfortunate mo- Character narch brought his character into full and perfect XVL view. It was conspicuously marked by imbecility and duplicity—by inconstancy, with strange alternations of obstinacy-by temerity suddenly subsiding into fear-by a perpetual distrust of his own judgment, and a transient and limited confidence in that of others. So strongly was the idea impressed upon the public mind of the want of genius, and even of common understanding, in the king, that a general emotion of surprise was created by the calmness and propriety of the answers given by him to the interrogatories of the convention during his trial; and they have been unavailingly urged as proofs of capacity which the whole tenor of his conduct demonstrates that he did not possess. Good-nature bordering upon weakness, humanity allied to indolence, piety tinctured with superstition, and a desire feeble and inefficient to diffuse happiness, were the virtues which must be opposed to his moral and mental defects; and had not the unexampled malignity of his destiny forbidden, they would unquestionably have sufficed to have carried him through life with the reputation of a beneficent and virtuous monarch. His last moments were ennobled by the calmness of resignation, and an unaffected dis BOOK play of firmness and fortitude. XXIV. 1793. We are told of him, that he was highly offended at the freedom with which the famous work of the abbé Raynal was written. The republic of Geneva was solicit ́ed to prohibit the publication; the parliament of Paris received an injunction to fulminate their judicial, and the Sorbonne their theological, censures against it. Raynal's work nevertheless still exists to inform and enlighten the world; but the Genevan republic, the parliament, the Sorbonne, and Louis XVI. are no more! As, by an express, provision of the treaty of 1786, the dismission of an ambassador was in future to be regarded as a virtual declaration of war, it is almost superfluous to mention the inferior causes of offence given to France immediately prior to that event: 1. By the Alien Bill, empowering the king, in contravention of the treaty of 1786, which stipulates the peaceful and undisturbed residence of the subjects of each power in the dominions of the other, to order, at his discretion, all foreigners to depart the kingdom: 2. By the bill prohibiting the circulation of assignats or other paper securities, issued under the authority of the French government: 3. By a bill of a more serious nature, restraining the exportation of naval stores, arms, and ammunition, including, by a specific mention, the article of saltpetre, of which it was well known that the French were in great need: 4. Also, in direct and palpable violation of the com XXIV. 1793. mercial treaty, an act passed at the same time prо- BOOK hibiting the exportation to France, and to France exclusively, of corn imported from the continent -a grievous scarcity of all sorts of grain at this period prevailing in France. This M. Chauvelin,' in a memorial presented to lord Grenville expressly on the subject, scrupled not to style an act of perfidy and it recalled to the recollection of many the detestable measures formerly adopted to starve America into submission. Immediately on the departure of M. Chauvelin a memorial was presented by lord Auckland, ambassador at the Hague, to the States-General, in which his lordship affirms to their high mightinesses, in language which sets all ideas of decorum at defiance, "that not four years ago some WRETCHES, assuming the title of philosophers, had the presumption to think themselves capable of establishing a newsystem of civil society. In order to realize that dream of their vanity, they found it necessary to overthrow and destroy all received notions of subordination, manners, and religion, which have hitherto formed all the security, happiness, and consolation, of the human race. Their destructive projects have but too well succeeded. But the effects of the new system which they endeavoured to introduce served only to shew the imbecility and villany of its authors. The events which so rapidly followed each other since that epoch, surpass in atrocity all which have ever polluted the pages |