with infinite satisfaction that I recollect the humane and excellent
oration pronounced by Robespierre on that subject in the Constituent
Assembly. This cause must find its advocates in every corner where
enlightened politicians and lovers of humanity exist, and it ought above
all to find them in this assembly.

Monarchical governments have trained the human race, and inured it to
the sanguinary arts and refinements of punishment; and it is exactly the
same punishment which has so long shocked the sight and tormented
the patience of the people, that now, in their turn, they practice in
revenge upon their oppressors. But it becomes us to be strictly on our
guard against the abomination and perversity of monarchical examples:
as France has been the first of European nations to abolish royalty, let
her also be the first to abolish the punishment of death, and to find
out a milder and more effectual substitute.

In the particular case now under consideration, I submit the following
propositions: 1st, That the National Convention shall pronounce sentence
of banishment on Louis and his family. 2d, That Louis Capet shall
be detained in prison till the end of the war, and at that epoch the
sentence of banishment to be executed.

XV. SHALL LOUIS XVI. HAVE RESPITE?

SPEECH IN THE CONVENTION, JANUARY 19, 1793.(1)

(Read in French by Deputy Bancal,)

Very sincerely do I regret the Convention's vote of yesterday for death.

Marat [_interrupting_]: I submit that Thomas Paine is incompetent to
vote on this question; being a Quaker his religious principles are
opposed to capital punishment. [_Much confusion, quieted by cries for
"freedom of speech" on which Bancal proceeds with Paine's speech_.]

1 Not included in any previous edition of Paine's "Works."
It is here printed from contemporary French reports,
modified only by Paine's own quotations of a few sentences
in his Memorial to Monroe (xxi.).--_Editor._

I have the advantage of some experience; it is near twenty years that I
have been engaged in the cause of liberty, having contributed something
to it in the revolution of the United States of America, My language has
always been that of liberty _and_ humanity, and I know that nothing
so exalts a nation as the union of these two principles, under all
circumstances. I know that the public mind of France, and particularly
that of Paris, has been heated and irritated by the dangers to which
they ha