rtified towns, if Louis XVIII. be rejected. Is not
this equivalent to a formal declaration, that the allies are resolved,
to retain that sovereign on the throne? Let us voluntarily rally round
him, therefore, while we still can. His ministers led him astray, but
his intentions were always pure: he knows the faults he has committed;
he will be eager to repair them, and to give us the institutions yet
necessary, to consolidate the rights and liberties of the people on
bases not to be shaken."

"This reasoning may be just," answered their opponents; "but
experience, of more weight than any reasoning, has convinced us, that
we must not rely on empty promises. The hopes you have conceived rest
on conjecture, or on the word of the agents of the Bourbons. Before we
surrender ourselves into the hands of the King, he must make known to
us the guarantees, by which we are to be secured. If they be agreeable
to us, then we may deliberate but if we open our gates without
conditions, and previous to the arrival of Alexander, Wellington and
the Bourbons will make a jest of their promises, and oblige us to
submit to the will of the conqueror without pity. Besides, why should
we despair of the safety of France? Is the loss of a single battle,
then, to decide the fate of a great nation? Have we not still immense
resources, to oppose to the enemy? Have the federates, the national
guard, and all true Frenchmen, refused to shed their blood in defence
of the glory, the honour, and the independence of their country? While
we are fighting under the walls of the capital, the levy in mass of
the patriots will be arranged in the departments: and when our enemies
see, that we are determined to defend our independence, they will
rather respect it, than expose themselves to a patriotic and national
war for interests not their own. We must refuse, therefore, to
surrender; and place ourselves in a situation, by a vigorous defence,
to give the law, instead of receiving it."

"You maintain," it was replied, "that we may raise in mass the
federates and the patriots. But how will you arm them? we have no
muskets. Besides, can a levy in mass be organised on a sudden? Before
you could have a single battalion at your disposal, Paris would have
under its feeble ramparts sixty thousand Bavarians, and a hundred and
forty thousand Austrians more to fight. What will you do then? You
must ultimately surrender: and the blood you will have shed will be
lost withou