ept with life,
can they ever be extirpated; but my compassion for the unfortunate,
whether friend or enemy, is equally lively and sincere.

I voted that Louis should be tried, because it was necessary to afford
proofs to the world of the perfidy, corruption, and abomination of the
monarchical system. The infinity of evidence that has been produced
exposes them in the most glaring and hideous colours; thence it results
that monarchy, whatever form it may assume, arbitrary or otherwise,
becomes necessarily a centre round which are united every species of
corruption, and the kingly trade is no less destructive of all morality
in the human breast, than the trade of an executioner is destructive
of its sensibility. I remember, during my residence in another country,
that I was exceedingly struck with a sentence of M. Autheine, at the
Jacobins [Club], which corresponds exactly with my own idea,--"Make me a
king to-day," said he, "and I shall be a robber to-morrow."

1 Printed in Paris (Hartley, Adlard & Son) and published in
London with the addition of D. I. Eaton's name, in 1796.
While Paine was in prison, he was accused in England and
America of having helped to bring Louis XVI. to the
scaffold. The English pamphlet has a brief preface in which
it is presented "as a burnt offering to Truth, in behalf of
the most zealous friend and advocate of the Rights of Man;
to protect him against the barbarous shafts of scandal and
delusion, and as a reply to all the horrors which despots of
every description have, with such unrelenting malice,
attempted to fix on his conduct. But truth in the end must
triumph: cease then such calumnies: all your efforts are
in vain --you bite a file."--_Editor._

Nevertheless, I am inclined to believe that if Louis Capet had been born
in obscure condition, had he lived within the circle of an amiable and
respectable neighbourhood, at liberty to practice the duties of domestic
life, had he been thus situated, I cannot believe that he would have
shewn himself destitute of social virtues: we are, in a moment of
fermentation like this, naturally little indulgent to his vices, or
rather to those of his government; we regard them with additional
horror and indignation; not that they are more heinous than those of
his predecessors, but because our eyes are now open, and the veil of
delusion at length withdrawn; yet the lamentable, degraded st