the world, had taken an entire poffeffion of their minds, and rendered their whole converfation, which otherwife would have been pleafing and inftructive, perfectly difgufting. A fpirit of cabal, intrigue, and profelytism, pervaded all their thoughts, words, and actions. And, as controverfial zeal foon turns its thoughts on force, they began to infinuate themselves into a correfpondence with foreign princes; in hopes, through their authority, which at first they flattered, they might bring about the changes they had in view. To them it was indifferent whether thefe changes were to be accomplished by the thunderbolt of defpotifm, or by the earthquake of popular commotion. The correfpondence between this cabal, and the late king of Pruffia, will throw no fmall light upon the spirit of all their proceedings. For the fame purpose for which they intrigued with princes, they cultivated, in a diftinguished manner, the monied interest of France; and partly through the means furnished by those whofe peculiar offices gave them the moft extenfive and certain means of communication, they carefully occupied all the avenues to opinion.

Writers, efpecially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind; the alliance therefore of thefe writers with the monied intereft had no fmall effect in removing the popular odium and envy which attended that fpecies of wealth. These writers, like the propagators of all novelties, pretended to a great zeal for the poor, and the lower orders, whilft in their fatires they rendered hateful, by every exaggeration, the faults of courts,

of nobility, and of priesthood. They became a fort of demagogues. They ferved as a link to unite, in favour of one object, obnoxious wealth to restless and defperate poverty.

'As these two kinds of men appear principal leaders in all the late transactions, their junction and politics will ferve to account, not upon any principles of law or of policy, but as a caufe, for the general fury with which all the landed property of ecclefiaftical corporations has been attacked; and the great care which, contrary to their pretended principles, has been taken, of a monied intereft originating from the authority of the crown. All the envy against wealth and power, was artificially directed against other defcriptions of riches. On what other principles than that which I have stated can we account for an appearance fo extraordinary and unnatural as that of the ecclefiaftical poffeffions, which had stood fo many fucceffions of ages and fhocks of civil violences, and were guarded at once by justice, and by prejudice, being applied to the payment of debts, comparatively recent, invidious, and contracted by a decried and fubverted government?

Was the public eftate a fufficient stake for the public debts? Affume that it was not, and that a lofs must be incurred fomewhere-When the only eftate lawfully poffeffed, and which the contracting parties had in contemplation at the time in, which their bargain was made, happens to fail, who, according to the principles of natural and legal equity, ought to be the fufferer? Certainly. it ought to be either the party who trufted; or the party who perfuaded him to truft; or both;

and

and not third parties who had no concern with the tranfaction. Upon any infolvency they ought to fuffer who were weak enough to lend upon bad fecurity, or they who fraudently held out a fecurity that was not valid. Laws are acquainted with no other rules of decifion. But by the new institute of the rights of men, the only perfons, who in equity ought to fuffer, are the only perfons who are to be faved harmless: those are to anfwer the debt who neither were lenders or borrowers, mortgagers or mortgagees.

What had the clergy to do with thefe tranfactions? What had they to do with any public engagement further than the extent of their own debt? To that, to be fure, their eftates were bound to the laft acre. Nothing can lead more to the true spirit of the affembly which fits for public confifcation, with its new equity and its new morality, than an attention to their proceeding with regard to this debt of the clergy. The body of confifcators, true to that monied interest for which they were falfe to every other, have found the clergy competent to incur a legal debt. Of courfe they declared them legally entitled to the property which their power of incurring the debt and mortgaging the estate implied; recognizing the rights of those perfecuted citizens, in the very act in which they were thus grofsly violated.

If, as I faid, any perfons are to make good deficiencies to the public creditor, befides the public at large, they must be those who managed the agreement. Why therefore are not the eftates of all the comptrollers general confifcated? Why

Why not thofe of the long fucceffion of minifters, financiers, and bankers who have been enriched whilft the nation was impoverished by their deal→ ings and their counfels? Why is not the estate of Mr. Laborde declared forfeited rather than of the archbishop of Paris, who has had nothing to do in the creation or in the jobbing of the public funds. Or, if you must confifcate old landed eftates in favour of the money-jobbers, why is the penalty confined to one defcription? I do not know whether the expences of the duke de Choifeul have left any thing of the infinite fums which he had derived from the bounty of his mafter, during the tranfactions of a reign which contributed largely, by every fpecies of prodigality in war and peace, to the prefent debt of France. If any fuch remains, why is not this confifcated? I remember to have been in Paris during the time of the old government. I was there juft after the duke d'Aiguillon had been fnatched (as it was generally thought) from the block by the hand of a protecting defpotifm. He was a minister, and had fome concern in the affairs of that prodigal period. Why do I not fee his eftate delivered to the municipalities in which it is fituated? The noble family of Noailles have long been fervants, (meritorious fervants I admit) to the crown of France, and have had of courfe fome fhare in its bounties. Why do I hear nothing of the application of their eftates to the public debt? Why is the eftate of the duke de Rochefoucault more facred than that of the cardinal de Rochefoucault? The former is, I doubt not, a worthy

up

perfon;

person; and (if it were not a fort of profaneness. to talk of the ufe, as affecting the title to pro-. perty) he makes a good use of his revenues; but it is no disrespect to him to fay, what authentic information well warrants me in faying, that the ufe made of a property equally valid, by his brother the cardinal archbishop of Rouen, was far more laudable and far more public-spirited. Can one hear of the profcription of such persons, and the confiscation of their effects, without indignation and horror? He is not a man who does not feel fuch emotions on fuch occafions. He does not deserve the name of a free man who will not express them.

amount.

Few barbarous conquerors have ever made fo terrible a revolution in property. None of the heads of the Roman factions, when they eftablished "crudelem illam Haftam" in all their auctions of rapine, have ever fet up to fale the goods of the conquered citizen to fuch an enormous It must be allowed in favour of those tyrants of antiquity, that what was done by them could hardly be faid to be done in cold blood. Their paffions were inflamed, their tempers foured, their understandings confused, with the spirit of revenge, with the innumerable reciprocated and recent inflictions and retaliations of blood and rapine. They were driven beyond all bounds of moderation by the apprehenfion of the return of power with the return of property to the families of those they had injured beyond all hope of forgiveness.

These Roman confifcators, who were yet only

in