er one or the other. The world would be
uninhabitable, could the combinations of the wicked be permanent; and it
is fortunate for the tranquil and upright part of mankind, that the
attainment of the purposes for which such combinations are formed, is
usually the signal of their dissolution.

The municipality of Paris had been the iniquitous drudges of the Jacobin
party in the legislative assembly--they were made the instruments of
massacring the prisoners,* of dethroning and executing the king,** and
successively of destroying the Brissotine faction,*** filling the prisons
with all who were obnoxious to the republicans,**** and of involving a
repentant nation in the irremidiable guilt of the Queen's death.--*****

* It is well known that the assassins were hired and paid by the
municipality, and that some of the members presided at these horrors
in their scarfs of office.

** The whole of what is called the revolution of the 10th of August
may very justly be ascribed to the municipality of Paris--I mean the
active part of it. The planning and political part has been so
often disputed by different members of the Convention, that it is
not easy to decide on any thing, except that the very terms of these
disputes fully evince, that the people at large, and more
particularly the departments, were both innocent, and, until it took
place, ignorant of an event which has plunged the country into so
many crimes and calamities.

*** A former imprisonment of Hebert formed a principal charge
against the Brissotines, and, indeed, the one that was most insisted
on at their trial, if we except that of having precipitated France
into a war with England.--It must be difficult for the English
Jacobins to decide on this occasion between the virtues of their
dead friends and those of their living ones.

**** The famous definition of suspected persons originated with the
municipality of Paris.

***** It is certain that those who, deceived by the calumnies of
faction, permitted, if not assented to, the King's death, at this
time regretted it; and I believe I have before observed, that one of
the reasons urged in support of the expediency of putting the Queen
to death, was, that it would make the army and people decisive, by
banishing all hope of peace or accommodation. See the _Moniteur_ of
that time