alty, we will make ftipulations for thofe of the republic. The royalifts have caufe to tremble: their accomplices, too, dread, left they fhould drive us to the neceffity of taking extraordinary measures. Yes, thofe men, who were vomited from the legiflature, perfevere in their confpirations ftill! An infurrec. tion, as terrible as it is unexpected, attefts the refult of their plots. What is the expedient propofed to you at fuch a crifis? To fend the confpirators out of the country? No: but that they fhall be treated as emigrants. What is our legiflative power good for, if a criminal, condemned to exile, fhall be fuffered contumaciously to refufe certificates of his refidence! I vote for the amendment propofed by Chabert. [A great number of voices joined in a general confent and acclamation.]

Rouchon. I have not demanded a hearing, for the purpose of replying to perfonalities. I am wearied of making fuch replies. I only mean to propofe a new clause to the bill. There is no article in the bill, for fixing the condition and civil fituation of the wives and children of perfons giving themfelves up to deportation. Many, of thofe condemned to exile, will voluntarily yield to their fate, rather than to devote their unhappy families to mifery and ruin. I demand, that their generous facrifice of health and life fhall not be loft to their wives and children, but that, from the moment they furrender themselves prifoners, the fequeftrations fhall be taken off from their eftates. In the bill before you, it is propofed, indeed, that fome relief fhould be granted to the families of exiles, at the ex

penfe of the legiflature: but, before you be generous, you ought to be- juft: and, if you are fo, you will not withhold from wives what they could claim, nor from innocent and helpless children their natural inheritance. With regard to the accufations brought against me, of being a confpirator, I declare that nothing fhall prevent me from obeying the dictates of my confcience. But I will anfwer my accufers. What do I gain, by flanding up for the unfortunate and wretched? While I difcharge a facred duty to others, do I ftipulate any thing for my own private interefts? Will my appearances for thofe unhappy men contribute to the improvement of my own fortune? Will they beflow on me embaffies, confulfhips, or any place. under government? No! I demand only liberty, which implies juftice: and this is the amount of my confpiracy!

Poulaine-Grandpré answered to Rouchon, that, of the two cafes, he had fuppofed the one was already provided for by a law already paffed, and that the other was to be provided for by a fubfequent law. He therefore propofed, that the council fhould pafs from the prefent converfation to the order of the day.

Chat-Zot Latour invoked the juftice of the council in favour of the wives and children of exiles, and feconded the motion that had been made by Rouchon. Several members having demanded that the refolution, moved by Chabert, fhould be put to the vote, it was put accordingly and carried, and a committee appointed for digefting it into a proper form. On the day thereafter, the fixth of November,

the bill, newly modelled by the refolution of Chabert, for treating refractory exiles, in every respect, as emigrants, paffed the council of five hundred, and, on the eighth, was fent up to the council of ancients, where it was taken into confideration, on the ninth of November.

Maillant was aftonished that, after a committee had formerly been appointed by the council for revifing and reconfidering the proceeding of the eighteenth of Fructidor, there fhould be any objection or hefitation of appointing one for the fame purpose, now, in circumftances lefs urgent. If the council fhould not agree to the appointment of a committee, he defired permiffion to deliver his fentiments on the general fubject.

Dentzel. Speak, speak, we shall fee!

Goupil called to mind, as Maillant had done, that, on the occa. fion of the eighteenth of Fructidor, a committee of the whole house had been appointed, and a difcuffion taken place on the bufinefs of that day in the courfe of which, two of their colleagues, he faid, had made efforts, ineffectual indeed, but which had not leffened them in the public esteem. We appoint committees, faid he, for examining the proceedings of the fmalleft primary aflemblies, and fhall we not appoint one for the examination of a refolution that has coft a difcuffion of five days in the council of five hundred, and fince there can be no danger from leifurely deliberation? The difcuffion wifhed for is the more defirable, that it may produce a fatisfactory explanation of past tranfactions.

Moreau, (one of the members

for Yonne). What! do you talk of a committee, at the moment when your country points out the men who are her murderers, and this hall still re-echoes the tranfactions of the abominable aflaffins employed by royalty? They come for the purpose of feconding the defigns of the perfidious Albion, for the deftruction of the republic. The debates that have taken place, in the council of five hundred, have rendered all farther difcuffion on the prefent refolution, in this place, unneceffary. The eyes of Europe are upon us; and the fafety of the Great Nation imperionly demands the meafure before you. I demand that the bill may be paffed immediately.

Lecoulteux approved the propo❤ fal for referring the bill to a com◄ mittee. It might produce expla nations that might be followed by a more entire acquiefcence and fubmiffion to the law propofed. One article in the bill mentions a future and ulterior deftination for exiles. If, from any fair construction of these words, it should appear, that there were any grounds for hope that they were to be fent elfewhere than to Guiana, where, it feemed, that there was at present, dreadful mortality, he doubted not but they would fubmit to the law.

Gouthier faid, that, if Guiana was really fatal to the exiles, it was to be prefumed that the huma nity of the directory would change their deftination.

Dubuiffon obferved, that there was no occafion for an adjournment, as Maillant was ready to fpeak to the general question.

Maillant oppofed the bill. The measure propofed was not urged by any neceflity; for as much as there

were

were none of the exiles who, fince the eighteenth of Fructidor, had claimed either their efiates or their liberty. That it was a grofs aft of injuftice; as those who had returned from transportation were not more culpable than they had been before the eighteenth of Fructidor. Farther, that it was unreasonable that men thould be punifhed twice for the fame crime; both by tranfportation and by fequeftration of their fortunes. The meafure propofed, he observed, was impolitic. Repeated strokes of vengeance tended to loofen confidence in governments. Never, even under the revolutionary tyranny, had perfons, efcaping from prifon, been forced to undergo the punishment of death. Both Barrere and Droust had efcaped from prifon before receiving judgement. No one ever dreamt of putting their names on the lift of exigrants, as was propofed to be done with the returned exiles, who fhould not prefent themselves for receiving their defined punishment. Maillant finally conjured the council to abftain from the exercife of a rigour that was not neceflary, and that might fubject them to the imputation of perfecution-which never made profelytes.

At the demand of Perrin the bill was read a fecond time and palled into a law, with only feven or eight diffentient voices.

Fructidor, ann. 5, was erected in the hall of the council of five hundred; and a law was pafied, for relebrating the annivelary of that day as a feftival.

By a decree, paffed on the eleventh of November, former laws against priests were enforced; and it was farther enacted, that, if they did not, within a month after the date of the decree, prefent themselves to the central adminiftration of the department where they fojourned, they fhould be judged and punished as emigrants, if found on the territory of the republic. If they had been banished by the eighteenth of Fructidor, or fhould be banished by any fubfeqnent law, two months were allowed to them for making their appearance. Infirm pricfts and all who had paffed their fixtieth year were exempted from deportation, but to be confined together in a habitation to be deftined, in each department, for the purpofe, and on no account to be perimitted to go at large in their refpective communes or municipalities.

Thole who were without the means of fupport were to be maintained at the expenfe of the republic. Perfons, giving an afylum, in their houses, to priefts returned from deportation, were to be punified by confifcation of the houfe that had offered the afylum, if it were the property of the perfon who lent it for that purpofe; or, if only a tenant, by a peculiary fine equal to its value. They were, bolides, to undergo not Pfs than fix months and not more than two years imprisonment.

refting,

refting, condemning, and executing, lurking pricfts and emigrants, and other perfons convicted, or there is too much reafon to believe, as was loudly afferted, only fufpected of the new crime of royalifm. The commiffioners for Paris,being accufed, by the common exaggerations of fame, of great feverity, exculpated themselves by the publication of a lift of no more than twenty perfons, in all, that had been tried, in the space of ten months; whereof twelve only were condemned to death, five acquitted, one fent to the directory, one to the central department, and one banifhed. That even twelve perfons fhould have fuffered death, in Paris, for a dutiful attachment to the church and the king, was matter of deep and juft concern. But what was a more dreadful engine of tyranny and oppreffion, in the hands of the

directory, than even the laws againft emigrants and ecclefiaftics, was that which was pafled for inquiring into all the attacks that had been made against perfons and property, public and private, from motives of enmity to the public and its friends. This opened fo wide a door for the gratification of revenge or avarice. that there was scarcely any perfon of note who might not be harassed by charges of this kind; which, if they fhould not be fubftantiated or followed by punishment, might yet prove extremely vexatious and troublefome. Exemptions from fuch fuits were frequently purchafed by bribes to the agents of government, in all its various departments. On a furvey of the internal government of France, at this time, we are ftruck, on every fubject, with a fpirit of profufion, plunder, profligacy, venality, and corruption.

CHAP.