The very selection, which he praises as a _sort of justice_
tempering their fury, proves beyond a doubt the foresight, deliberation,
and method with which this massacre was made. He knew that circumstance
on the very day of the commencement of the massacres, when, in all
probability, he had begun this letter,--for he presented it to the
Assembly on the very next.
Whilst, however, he defends these acts, he is conscious that they will
appear in another light to the world. He therefore acquits the executive
power, that is, he acquits himself, (but only by his own assertion,) of
those acts of "_vengeance mixed with a sort of justice_," as an
"_excess_ which he could neither foresee nor prevent." He could not, he
says, foresee these acts, when he tells us the people of Paris had
sagacity so well to foresee the designs of the court on the 10th of
August,--to foresee them so well as to mark the precise epoch on which
they were to be executed, and to contrive to anticipate them on the very
day: he could not foresee these events, though he declares in this very
letter that victory _must_ bring with it some _excess_,--that "the sea
roars _long_ after the tempest." So far as to his foresight. As to his
disposition to prevent, if he had foreseen, the massacres of that
day,--this will be judged by his care in putting a stop to the massacre
then going on. This was no matter of foresight: he was in the very midst
of it.
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