object. It may enable us to form some judg ment how far it may be expedient in this country. to imitate the martial policy of France.

M. de la Tour du Pin, on the 4th of last June, comes to give an account of the state of his department, as it exists under the auspices of the national assembly. No man knows it so well; no man can express it better. Addressing himself to the National Assembly, he says, "His Majesty "has this day sent me to apprize you of the mul

tiplied disorders of which every day he receives "the most distressing intelligence. The army (le corps militaire) threatens to fall into the most "turbulent anarchy. Entire regiments have dared "to violate at once the respect due to the laws,

to the King, to the order established by your "decrees, and to the oaths which they have taken "with the most awful solemnity. Compelled by "my duty to give you information of these ex"cesses, my heart bleeds when I consider who they

are that have committed them. Those, against "whom it is not in my power to withhold the "most grievous complaints, are a part of that દ very soldiery which to this day have been so "full of honour and loyalty, and with whom, for fifty years, I have lived the comrade and the "friend.

"What incomprehensible spirit of delirium and ❝ delusion has all at once led them astray? Whilst you are indefatigable in establishing uniformity in "the empire, and moulding the whole into one co"herent and consistent body; whilst the French are "taught by you, at once the respect which the X

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"laws owe to the rights of man, and that which the citizens owe to the laws, the administration "of the army presents nothing but disturbance and "confusion. I see in more than One corps the "bonds of discipline relaxed or broken; the most "unheard of pretensions avowed directly and with❝out any disguise; the ordinances without force; "the chiefs without authority; the military chest "and the colours carried off; the authority of "the King himself [risum teneatis] proudly de◄fied; the officers despised, degraded, threatened, driven away, and some of them prisoners in the "midst of their corps, dragging on a precarious life in the bosom of disgust and humiliation. To fill "up the measure of all these horrors, the com"mandants of places have had their throats cut, under the eyes, and almost in the arms of their own soldiers.

"These evils are great; but they are not the "worst consequences which may be produced by such military insurrections. Sooner or later they

may menace the nation itself. The nature of a things requires, that the army should never act but as an instrument. The moment that, erecting itself into a deliberative body, it shall act according to its own resolutions, the government, be it what it may, will immediately degene rate into a military democracy; a species of political monster, which has always ended by devouring those who have produced itd 2000

&

After all this, who must not be alarmed at the irregular consultations, and turbulent committees, formed in some regiments by the

"common soldiers and non-commissioned of"ficers, without the knowledge, or even in

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contempt of the authority of their superi"ors; although the presence and concurrence of "those superiors could give no authority to such "monstrous democratic assemblies [comices.]"

It is not necessary to add much to this finished picture: finished as far as its canvas admits; but, as I apprehend, not taking in the whole of the nature and complexity of the disorders of this military democracy, which, the minister at war truly and wisely observes, wherever it exists, must be the true constitution of the state, by whatever formal appellation it may pass. For, though he informs the assembly, that the more considerable part of the army have not cast off their obedience, but are still attached to their duty, yet those travellers who have seen the corps whose conduct is the best, rather observe in them the absence of mutiny than the existence of discipline.

I cannot help pausing here for a moment, to reflect upon the expressions of surprise which this Minister has let fall, relative to the excesses he relates. To him the departure of the troops from their antient principles of loyalty and honour seems quite inconceivable. Surely those to whom he addresses himself know the causes of it but too well. They know the doctrines which they have preached, the decrees which they have passed, the practices which they have countenanced. The soldiers remember the 6th of October, They recollect the French guards. They have not forgot the taking of the King's castles in Paris, and

at Marseilles. That they murdered, with impunity, the governors in both places, has not passed out of their minds. They do not abandon the principles laid down so ostentatiously and laboriously of the equality of men. They cannot shut their eyes to the degradation of the whole noblesse of France; and the suppression of the very idea of a gentle, man. The total abolition of titles and distinctions is not lost upon them. But Mr. du Pin is asto-nished at their disloyalty, when the doctors of the assembly have taught them at the same time the respect due to laws. It is easy to judge which of the two sorts of lessons men with arms in their hands are likely to learn. As to the authority of the King, we may collect from the minister himself (if any argument on that head were not quite superfluous) that it is not of more consideration with these troops, than it is with every body else. "The King," says he," has over and over again repeated his orders to put a stop to these excesses: but, in so terrible a crisis your [the assembly's] concurrence is become indispensably necessary to prevent the evils which menace the state. You unite to the force of the legislative power, that of opinion still more important." To be sure the army can have no opinion of the power or authority of the king. Perhaps the soldier has by this time learned, that the assembly itself does not enjoy a much greater degree of liberty than that royal figure.

It is now to be seen what has been proposed in this exigency, one of the greatest that can happen na state. The Minister requests the assembly

to

to array itself in all its terrors, and to call forth all its majesty. He desires that the grave and severe principles announced by them may give vigour to the King's proclamation. After this we should have looked for courts civil and martial; breaking of some corps, decimating others, and all the terrible means which necessity has employed in such cases to arrest the progress of the most terrible of all evils; particularly, one might expect, that a serious inquiry would be made into the murder of commandants in the view of their soldiers. Not one word of all this, or of any thing like it. After they had been told that the soldiery trampled upon the decrees of the assembly promulgated by the King, the assembly pass new decrees; and they authorise the King to make new proclamations. After the Secretary at War had stated that the regiments had paid no regard to oaths prêtés avec la plus impoJante solemnité—they propose—what? More oaths. They renew decrees and proclamations as they experience their insufficiency, and they multiply oaths in proportion as they weaken, in the minds of men, the sanctions of religion. I hope that handy abridgments of the excellent sermons of Voltaire, d'Alembert, Diderot, and Helvetius, on the Immortality of the Soul, on a particular superintending Providence, and on a Future State of Rewards and Punishments, are sent down to the soldiers along with their civic oaths. Of this I have no doubt;' as I understand, that a certain description of reading makes no inconsiderable part of their mili-. tary exercises, and that they are full as well supplied with the ammunition of pamphlets as of cartridges.

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