at Louis is a Prisoner of War; and cannot be put to death
without injustice, solecism, peril? Speak such conviction; and lose
utterly your footing with the decided Patriot? Nay properly it is
not even a conviction, but a conjecture and dim puzzle. How many poor
Girondins are sure of but one thing: That a man and Girondin ought to
have footing somewhere, and to stand firmly on it; keeping well with the
Respectable Classes! This is what conviction and assurance of faith
they have. They must wriggle painfully between their dilemma-horns. (See
Extracts from their Newspapers, in Hist. Parl. xxi. 1-38, &c.)

Nor is France idle, nor Europe. It is a Heart this Convention, as we
said, which sends out influences, and receives them. A King's Execution,
call it Martyrdom, call it Punishment, were an influence! Two notable
influences this Convention has already sent forth, over all Nations;
much to its own detriment. On the 19th of November, it emitted a Decree,
and has since confirmed and unfolded the details of it. That any Nation
which might see good to shake off the fetters of Despotism was thereby,
so to speak, the Sister of France, and should have help and countenance.
A Decree much noised of by Diplomatists, Editors, International Lawyers;
such a Decree as no living Fetter of Despotism, nor Person in Authority
anywhere, can approve of! It was Deputy Chambon the Girondin who
propounded this Decree;--at bottom perhaps as a flourish of rhetoric.

The second influence we speak of had a still poorer origin: in the
restless loud-rattling slightly-furnished head of one Jacob Dupont from
the Loire country. The Convention is speculating on a plan of National
Education: Deputy Dupont in his speech says, "I am free to avow, M. le
President, that I for my part am an Atheist," (Moniteur, Seance du 14
Decembre 1792.)--thinking the world might like to know that. The French
world received it without commentary; or with no audible commentary,
so loud was France otherwise. The Foreign world received it with
confutation, with horror and astonishment; (Mrs. Hannah More, Letter to
Jacob Dupont (London, 1793); &c. &c.) a most miserable influence this!
And now if to these two were added a third influence, and sent pulsing
abroad over all the Earth: that of Regicide?

Foreign Courts interfere in this Trial of Louis; Spain, England: not to
be listened to; though they come, as it were, at least Spain comes,
with the olive-branch in one hand, and the