ulsed
and shattered this globe of ours. My Lords, it has pleased Providence to
place us in such a state that we appear every moment to be upon the
verge of some great mutations. There is one thing, and one thing only,
which defies all mutation,--that which existed before the world, and
will survive the fabric of the world itself: I mean justice,--that
justice which, emanating from the Divinity, has a place in the breast of
every one of us, given us for our guide with regard to ourselves and
with regard to others, and which will stand, after this globe is burned
to ashes, our advocate or our accuser before the great Judge, when He
comes to call upon us for the tenor of a well-spent life.

My Lords, the Commons will share in every fate with your Lordships;
there is nothing sinister which can happen to you, in which we shall not
be involved: and if it should so happen that we shall be subjected to
some of those frightful changes which we have seen,--if it should happen
that your Lordships, stripped of all the decorous distinctions of human
society, should, by hands at once base and cruel, be led to those
scaffolds and machines of murder upon which great kings and glorious
queens have shed their blood, amidst the prelates, amidst the nobles,
amidst the magistrates who supported their thrones, may you in those
moments feel that consolation which I am persuaded they felt in the
critical moments of their dreadful agony!

My Lords, there is a consolation, and a great consolation it is, which
often happens to oppressed virtue and fallen dignity. It often happens
that the very oppressors and persecutors themselves are forced to bear
testimony in its favor. I do not like to go for instances a great way
back into antiquity. I know very well that length of time operates so as
to give an air of the fabulous to remote events, which lessens the
interest and weakens the application of examples. I wish to come nearer
to the present time. Your Lordships know and have heard (for which of us
has not known and heard?) of the Parliament of Paris. The Parliament of
Paris had an origin very, very similar to that of the great court before
which I stand; the Parliament of Paris continued to have a great
resemblance to it in its constitution, even to its fall: the Parliament
of Paris, my Lords, WAS; it is gone! It has passed away; it has
vanished like a dream! It fell, pierced by the sword of the Comte de
Mirabeau. And yet I will say, that that m