e," vol. ii., pp. 79, 81. Also, the
historical introduction to XXI., p. 330, of this volume.
Robespierre never wrote an idle word. This Paine well knew,
as Mirabeau, who said of Robespierre: "That man will go far
he believes every word he says."--_Editor._

There must have been a coalition in sentiment, if not in fact, between
the Terrorists of America and the Terrorists of France, and Robespierre
must have known it, or he could not have had the idea of putting America
into the bill of accusation against me. Yet these men, these Terrorists
of the new world, who were waiting in the devotion of their hearts for
the joyful news of my destruction, are the same banditti who are now
bellowing in all the hacknied language of hacknied hypocrisy, about
humanity, and piety, and often about something they call infidelity, and
they finish with the chorus of _Crucify him, crucify him_. I am become
so famous among them, they cannot eat or drink without me. I serve them
as a standing dish, and they cannot make up a bill of fare if I am not
in it.

But there is one dish, and that the choicest of all, that they have not
presented on the table, and it is time they should. They have not yet
_accused Providence of Infidelity_. Yet according to their outrageous
piety, she(1) must be as bad as Thomas Paine; she has protected him in
all his dangers, patronized him in all his undertakings, encouraged him
in all his ways, and rewarded him at last by bringing him in safety and
in health to the Promised Land. This is more than she did by the Jews,
the chosen people, that they tell us she brought out of the land
of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage; for they all died in the
wilderness, and Moses too.

I was one of the nine members that composed the first Committee of
Constitution. Six of them have been destroyed. Sieyes and myself have
survived--he by bending with the times, and I by not bending. The other
survivor joined Robespierre, he was seized and imprisoned in his turn,
and sentenced to transportation. He has since apologized to me for
having signed the warrant, by saying he felt himself in danger and was
obliged to do it.(2)

1 Is this a "survival" of the goddess Fortuna?--_Editor._

2 Barere. His apology to Paine proves that a death-
warrant had been issued, for Barere did not sign the order
for Paine's arrest or imprisonment.--_Editor._

Herault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr. Jeffe