None of the
writings which have inflamed the Jacobin spirit to a savage fury ever
worked up a fiercer ferment through the whole mass of the republicans
in every part of France.
Under the thin veil of _prediction_, he strongly _recommends_ all the
abominable practices which afterwards followed. In particular, he
inflamed the minds of the populace against the respectable and
conscientious clergy, who became the chief objects of the massacre, and
who were to him the chief objects of a malignity and rancor that one
could hardly think to exist in an human heart.
We have the relics of his fanatical persecution here. We are in a
condition to judge of the merits of the persecutors and of the
persecuted: I do not say the accusers and accused; because, in all the
furious declamations of the atheistic faction against these men, not one
specific charge has been made upon any one person of those who suffered
in their massacre or by their decree of exile.
The king had declared that he would sooner perish under their axe (he
too well saw what was preparing for him) than give his sanction to the
iniquitous act of proscription under which those innocent people were to
be transported.
On this proscription of the clergy a principal part of the ostensible
quarrel between the king and those ministers had turned. From the time
of the authorized publication of this libel, some of the manoeuvres long
and uniformly pursued for the king's deposition became more and more
evident and declared.
Pages:
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85