icture of
the convention was published at Paris, signed REAL. "The convention," he
said, "has terminated its sittings. Where is the Tacitus who shall write
the history of its glorious actions and its abominable excesses? Obscure
men, sent to devise laws, have during a dictation of three years
displayed an energy, a greatness, and a ferocity, which no longer allow
us to envy either the virtues of ancient Rome or the wild atrocities of
the first Cesars. Physicians, lawyers, and attorneys' clerks, became
suddenly professed legislators, and warriors full of boldness. They have
overturned all Europe, and changed its system.

"With a daring hand they have signed the death-warrant of the successor
of an hundred kings, and in one day broken the sceptre for which an
existence of fourteen centuries had procured a religious and fanatical
veneration. On that day they threw down the gauntlet before astonished
Europe; and William the Conqueror, when he burnt his fleet, did not
place himself with more audaciousness between victory and death. Without
money, without credit, without arms, artillery, saltpetre, and armies;
betrayed by Dumorier; Valenciennes being taken by the Austrians; Toulon
in the hands of the English; the king of Prussia under the walls of
Landau, and a country of ninety leagues extent devoured by one hundred
and fifty thousand Vendeans, they published a decree, and on a sudden
all France became a vast manufactory of arms and saltpetre; one million,
four hundred thousand men sprang up ready armed; the king of Prussia was
defeated near Landau, the Austrians repulsed near Maubenge, the English
routed near Hondschoote, the Vendeans annihilated at Lavenay, and the
tri-colored flag was hoisted on the walls of Toulon.

"Their folly disconcerted the wisdom of ancient politics; songs and the
charging step defeated the celebrated tactics of the Germans; generals
just left the ranks--obscure generals, who but a few months before were
simple sergeants--conceived and executed the plan of the campaign of
1795 which will always remain the admiration of military men, and
defeated the most celebrated generals, the pupils and companions of the
great Frederick. Holland was conquered in January by the inexperienced
troops; and what Louis XIV, in the zenith of his glory, did not dare to
conceive, the French, by founding a republic, have carried into effect,
and planted the tri-colored standard on the banks of the Rhine.

"It is amidst