Fargeau. Si Je
ne l'eusse pas rencontre sous ma main, Je purgeois la France du
regicide, du parricide, du patricide D'Orleans. Qu'on n'inquiete
personne. Tous les Francois sont des laches auxquelles Je dis--
"Peuple, dont les forfaits jettent partout l'effroi,
"Avec calme et plaisir J'abandonne la vie
"Ce n'est que par la mort qu'on peut fuir l'infamie,
"Qu'imprime sur nos fronts le sang de notre Roi."_
"Let no man be molested on my account: I had no accomplice in the
fortunate death of the miscreant St. Fargeau. If he had not fallen
in my way, I should have purged France of the regicide, parricide,
patricide D'Orleans. Let no man be molested. All the French are
cowards, to whom I say--'People, whose crimes inspire universal
horror, I quit life with tranquility and pleasure. By death alone
can we fly from that infamy which the blood of our King has marked
upon our foreheads!'"--This paper was entitled "My Brevet of
Honour."
It will ever be so where the people are not left to consult their own
feelings. The mandate that orders them to assemble may be obeyed, but
"that which passeth show" is not to be enforced. It is a limit
prescribed by Nature herself to authority, and such is the aversion of
the human mind from dictature and restraint, that here an official
rejoicing is often more serious than these political exactions of regret
levied in favour of the dead.
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