But all this
rests on no better evidence than the papers found at the Thuilleries; and
as something of this kind was necessary to nourish the exhausted fury of
the populace, I can easily conceive that it was thought more prudent to
sacrifice the dead, than the living; and the fame of Mirabeau being less
valuable than the safety of those who survived him, there would be no
great harm in attributing to him what he was very likely to have done.--
The corruption of a notorious courtier would have made no impression: the
King had already been overwhelmed with such accusations, and they had
lost their effect: but to have seduced the virtuous Mirabeau, the very
Confucius of the revolution, was a kind of profanation of the holy fire,
well calculated to revive the languid rage, and extinguish the small
remains of humanity yet left among the people.

It is sufficiently remarkable, that notwithstanding the court must have
seen the necessity of gaining over the party now in power, no vestige of
any attempt of this kind has been discovered; and every criminating
negotiation is ascribed to the dead, the absent, or the insignificant. I
do not, however, presume to decide in a case so very delicate; their
panegyrists in England may adjust the claims of Mirabeau's integrity, and
that of his accusers, at their leisure.

Another patriot of "distinguished note," and more peculiarly interesting
to our countrymen, because he has laboured much for their conversion, is
Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun.--He was in England some time as
Plenipotentiary from the Jacobins, charged with establishing treaties
between the clubs, publishing seditious manifestoes, contracting friendly
alliances with discontented scribblers, and gaining over neutral or
hostile newspapers.--But, besides his political and ecclesiastical
occupations, and that of writing letters to the Constitutional Society,
it seems this industrious Prelate had likewise a correspondence with the
Agents of the Court, which, though he was too modest to surcharge his
fame by publishing it, was, nevertheless, very profitable.

I am sorry his friends in England are mostly averse from episcopacy,
otherwise they might have provided for him, as I imagine he will have no
objection to relinquish his claims on the see of Autun. He is not under
accusation, and, were he to return, he would not find the laws quite so
ceremonious here as in England. After labouring with impunity for months
together to