PUBLISHED WEDNESDAYS AND SATURDAYS BY JOHN FENNO, No. 69, HIGH.STREET, BETWEEN SECOND AND THIRD STREETS, PHII.ADFI PHI
[No. 77, of Vol. lII.]
LONDON, November I.
The following paper has been circulated at Paris,and
Ilands pre rifely on the fame authority as the ether
publications »/ the fame nature.
The Prorefl of tile Princes of the Koufe of Bour-
bon, agaiuft the acceptance of the CoiiUitucion.
" I T is in vain that an unfortunate monarch,
A always captive, though free in appearance,
has consented to the ruin of his faithful fubjeifts
—to the ruin of the Monarchy—by accepting a
prerended Constitution of the Empire ; it is in
vain that he h>s signed his own degradation ;
this fanciion which the King has given in fait
to a monstrous code, is really no (auction in right.
And who can be persuaded of the legality of
fiich an aflent, while every thing proclaims the
contrary ?
" Can a Prince, left alone amidst usurpers,
farrounded with the wrecks of his own throne,
encempafled by fears and menaces, beset by in
trigue, have freedom of choice ? And without
freedom of choice, is not every consent null ?
" Freedom consists in beingable to chufe with
out danger, and without fear ; it cannot exilt
without this condition, and consent is null,when
refulal .would hazard the ftifety and property of
him who gives it. If the King had refilled to
accept the conflitution, he would have been de
prived of the crown ; so had the ufnrping Ai
fembly decreed. And in rejecting with difdaili
a degraded crown,when presented by a seditious
Aflembly, was the King master of the choice of
his asylum ? and would he not have exposed his
person, and all that was Hill more dear to him,
ta ouirage, and his faithful fubjecfls to proscrip
tion, to murder, and to conflagration j
" Without doubt, had Louis XVI. entertain
ed the hope of dying at least with glory, if his
blood could have saved France, the inheritor of
the virtues of Henry IV. would have displayed
his courage. Forced to obtain his inheritance
by conquest, he would, like him, have been the
victor and the father of his fubjeifts ; and, like
him, would have compelled them to become hap
py. But what can courage do without support !
Henry had an army ; while Louis, alone,betray
ed, abandoned, captive in the hands of his ene
mies, without troops, without auxiliaries, forced
even to regret the happy obfeuriry of the tnean
eft of his fubjeifts, in the midlt of an importunate
crowd, who served rather to besiege than defend
him, found not even one friend to share his sor
rows, and wipe away his tears..
" The King Then could form no other deter
mination than that which he adopted, without
hazarding the loss of his crown, and perhaps of
his life. His degradation, and even his death,
would have been an useless facrifice to honor ;
it would have caused France long and fruitlefs
remorse, but could not have saved it.
" The King then was not free ; bis famlion
is therefore null : and in this cafe to disobey il
lusory orders, is t-o give the llrongeft and mod
cpnrageous proof of obedience and fidelity ; it
is to serve the real Monarch, it is to lerve God
and our country
" Scarcely could this pretended afTent be ere
lited, if the King had proclaimed it ainidlV his
amilv, furroiinded with his ancient and faithful
ervants, with all his military houfhold, in fine,
vith all the splendor of his former power. Then
:he royal aflenr, though the occasion of so much
rwirt, would nevertheless have been recognized
as just, at lealt reputed free ; then we might
h;ive condemned the error of the Prince, but
should not have wept over his ch;iins ; then the
fact would have been inconteftible, we could on
ly have disputed the right.
" In even if the King had enjoyed full
pofleffion of his liberty, would he have had the
right to famftion laws contrary to the fundamen
tal laws of the kingdom ? Could he, from a niif
raken generoiity, and in the expectation of a de
ceitful calm, have facrificed, alon-g v.ith himfelf,
his family, his fucceflors, the true happiness of
the people, generations present and to come ?
Could he give a valid approbation ro the pre
tended Conftitmion, which had occasioned so
many misfortunes? Poflefior for life of the throne
which he received from his ancestors, could the
King, in .alienating his primordial rights, destroy
the constitutive bafig on which it is founded?
Born Defender of the Peligion of the State,
■could he consent to what tends to its ruin, and
abandon its ministers to wretchedness and dif
Saturday, January 21, 175) 2.
grace ? Bound to adininifter juflice to his fub
could he renounce the function, efleutially
royal, of caufiug it to be administered by tribu
nals legally conltituted, and of superintending
himfelf the administration ? Protector of the
rights of all the orders, and of the pofl'eflions of
individuals ; could he sanction the invasion of
the one, and the violation of the other ? Father
of the People, could he abandon them to disorder
and anarchy ! In fine, could he highly approve
what reason and jultice condemn, and eternize
the misfortunes of France ?
" And what is this Conrticntion, which they
pretend to give us, except a nionfter deftrurtive
of laws human and divine ; a work of offence
and iniquity ; null, from the vice of the convo
cation of the members of the/Ufembly, (tiling
theinfelves Constitutive ; null from ihe combi
nation of the Deliberating Body, a combination
f'ubverfive of the firlt basis of the State, the dif
tintftion of orders ; null from the principles
which it eltabli(hes,lince they overturn the throne
and the altar, and tend to replunge men into
barbarism by appearing to bring them back to
nature; null from its consequences, dreadful
confeqwences, of which experience already pre
sents a too fsmhtol catalogue in the disorder of
the finances, in the scarcity of money, in the
stagnation of commerce, in the want of disci
pline among the troops, in the inactivity of the
tribunals, the silence of the laws, thetyrannyof
the factious, and the oppreflion of the rich ; in
one word, the triumph of licentiousness over true
liberty ?
" It would be nfelefs to accumulate Veafoning ;
truth is roo striking ; and faifis already speak so
loudly, that the cortfeqtience cannot be denied,
without a species of felf-deception. The King
then had no right to fan<fiion such a Constitu
tion, ot which his faneflion, already null by the
defeat of freedom, is null likewise by the defect
of right.
" Ah ! when victorious overthe Gauls the firft
Franks adeuibled in the Champ-de-Mars, raised
Pharnmond on the ftie!d ; when their warlike
voices exclaimed—" Reign over us, and let your
descendants reign over our children," they
were far from forefeeing, that at the end of
fourteen ages a generation would come, whose
madnef's would deltroy the work of wisdom and
of valour! When Philip the Fair, reviving the
rights of the people, that had been disregarded
under indolent Monarchs, fuminoned to the
States General the Deputies of the Third Eflate,
and placed them along with the Peers of his
realm, he did not fufpetft that one day this un
grateful order would overturn the two ethers,
would deck ambitious Tribunes with the spoils
of Supreme Power, and leave only the phantom
of a King on the throne of Charlemagne.
" No, it fliall not be so : no, the French Mo
narchy shall not perish. And since motives
it is impossible for us to perceive, but which can
originate only from the violence and constraint
which, by being disguised, are only more cruel,
force Louis XVI. to subscribe an acceptance
which his heart rejedts, which his own interelt
and that of his people condemn, and which his
duty as King expressly prohibits ;
"We protest in the face of the whole world,
and in the most solemn manner, against this illu
sive atfi, and all that may follow from it. We
have (hewn that it is null of itfelf, null by defed't
of liberty, null from the radical vice of all the
operations of the usurping Assembly, which not
being an Assembly of the States General, is no
thing. We are supported by the rights of the
whole nation, in rejecting decrees diametrically
opposite to their wiJhes, expressed by the unani
mous tenor of inflrucftions to their Representa
tives ; and we disavow, on behalf of the nation,
those treacherous mandatories, who,in violating
their orders, and departing from the milfoil en
trulled to them, ceased to be its Representatives.
We will maintain what is evident, that having
acfted contrary to their title, they have atfed
without power, and what they could hot legally
do 'cannot be. validly accepted.
" We protest for rhe King, and in his name,
againll only what can bear its falfe iinpreflion.
His voice beiug ftifled by oppression, we will be
its neceilary organs ; and we express his real
fentimenis as they exilt in the oath of hi» ac
ceillon to the throne, as they have appeared in
the adiions of his whole life, as rtrey have been
difpl3jed in the Declaration which he made at
305
Hks .
[Whole No. 28/5.]
the fir ft moment that he believed himfelf free.
He neither can nor ought to have any other, and
hit will exillsonly in thofeac'ts where it breathes
free!v.
We protest for the People, who, in their
delirium, cannot perceive haw deitruiftive this
phantom of a new Conftitution,which is made to
dazzle their eyes, and before which they are
vainly made to fvvear, mult become to them.
When thef'e people neither knowing their law
ful Chief, nor their dearelt interelts, fuller them
ielves 10 be misguided to their definition ; when
blinded by deceitful proiniies, they fee nocthofe
who excite them to deltroy the pledges of their
own security, the fnpporters of their repose, the
principles of their fubfillence, and all the ties of
their civil aflociatiou ; it becomes neceflary to
claim for them the i e-eftabliflunent of all'thefe ;
it becomes neceflary to lave them from their
own frenzy.
We protest for rhe religion of our fathers,
which is attacked in its dogmas and worftiip, as
well as its Ministers ; and in order to fnpply the
Monarch's want of power at present to dii'charge
in his own person his ddties as-eldest Ton of the
Church, we a Hume in his name thedefence of its
rights ; vveoppoi'e those invasions of its proper
ty which tend to degrade it ; we rife with in
dignation againlt arts which menace the king
dom with the horrors of fchifin ; and we loudly
profefs our unalterable attachment to the Eccle
siastical Rules admitted in the States, the obser
vance of which he has fwornto maintain.
" We piotefV for the fundamental maxims of
the Monarchy, from which the King is not per
mitted to depart ; which the nation itfelf has de
clared to be inviolable ; and which would be to
tally reversed by the decrees which abolish Roy
alty itfelf; by suppressing ail the intermediate
ranks ; by those which deprive Monarchy of the
functions molt eilential to Monarchical govern
ment.
" In fine, we prorefl: in the pretence of the
Supreme Being, and in the name of Eternal Jus
tice, for all Orders of the State, and for all
Frenchmen.
" This Protest, signed along with us by all the
Princes of the Blood who are connected with us,
is common to all the Houfeofßourbon, on whom
their eventual rights to the crown impose the
duty of defending the anguft deposit. >
(Signed) Louis^Stanijlaus-Xavier,
Charies-Philippe,
L. Joseph de Bourbon,
Louis-Henri Jos. de Bourbon,
L. A. H. de Bourbon.'"
Coblintz, Oflober 8, I 791.
A meflenger arrived in town on Wednesday
with dispatches from Conflantinople, Warsaw,
Vienna and Berlin, containing the treaty of peace
with the Turks, signed by all the powers con
cerned.
Letters from Stockholm mention, that in con
sequence of the report becoming public th?re,
that the King intended to aflitl the French refu
gee princes, in re-establishing them and their ar
bitrary power in France, several of the Swedi(k
regiments have declared they will not act, and
it is thought such will become the general decla
ration of the army.
The Kingof Sweden's acquiescence to his Most
Chriltian Majesty's acceptance of the Crown,wiih
the limitations prescribed by the National A flem
bly, takes off one of the most atftive enemies to
the new Constitution.
The Court of Saxony likewise, reckoned a
mongst tJie most inveterate foes to the Revolu
tionists, according to the lad accounts from the
Continent, has acknowledged the nev# Constitu
tion, and accepted of the sent with
it. i
With regard to Great-Britain, little remarka
ble has occurred during the present vacation of
parliament, either to arouse the attention of the
people, or excite the curiosity of'the politician.
The late armament, like the baseless fabric of a
vision, has now almost vaniihed ; the greater part
of the (hips are paid cff; and the seamen being
discharged, such of them as prefer vice and idle
ness to industry and labour, will seek a liveli
hood by rapine and plunder. The expences of
this armament, which niuil be considerable, will
no doubt form a topic of discussion in course
of next session ; the abolition of the slave-trade
will, in all probability, be also revived; but