ful body of troops were fent for, which brought them to fubmiffion. The legion was difbanded, and difperfed into the communes to which the men belonged.

This proved a measure of the most fortunate policy. Incensed at the preceedings of government against them, the jacobins had formed one of the moft daring and deeply-planned confpiracies that had yet taken place among the many, which had marked this eventful revolution. It was conducted with the profoundest fecrecy. The confpirators never met twice in the fame place; and it was hardly potible to trace their motions, though their leaders conftantly affembled every day, and government was apprifed of the existence of a plot.

The minifter of police, Merlin, of Douay, a name well known, being either inactive or lukewarm in this affair, another man was placed in his office, of more activity and zeal. This was Cochon, who exerted himfelf with fo much care and diligence, that the haunts of the confpirators were at length covered, and most of the principal ones arrefted.

The confpiracy was to have been carried into execution upon the eleventh of May, and the difcovery of this defign was not made till the ninth. On the morning of the tenth, the directory informed the two councils of the particulars of this confpiracy, which was in every refpect a moff dreadful and dangerous one. Two men were at the head of it, equally noted for their boldness and refolution. The one was Babeuf, from whom it took its name. This man, conformably to the custom prevailing among the

rigid democrats at this time, had aflamed the name of a famous republican of old, Gracchus, thereby to denote his inflexible adherence to the popular caufe. He was a man of parts, in the exercise of which nothing was able to daunt him. The other chief actor in this confpiracy was the celebrated Drouet, the poft-mafter of Varennes, who ftopped the unfortunate Lewis XVI. in his flight; ard, as a reward of his fidelity to the nation, was elected a member of the convention. Having fallen into the hands of the Auftrians, and suffered a long and fevere imprisonment in Germany, he had acquired a popu larity which recommended him fo ftrongly to the people of his own diftrict, that they elected him a deputy to the legislative body, when the new conftitution was formed. The other principal authors of this confpiracy were general Roffignol, notorious for his cruelties in La Vendée; Julian, a confidential agent of Roberfpierre; Amar, a noted affociate of that tyrant; Laignelot, a man of abilities and a member of the late convention.

The plan of the confpirators, as laid by the directory before the two councils, was to maffacre these three bodies, the field-officers of the Parifian military, and the constituted authorities of Paris, and to give up the citizens to plunder and flaughter. From the papers that were feized, it appeared that they had formed a complete fcheme of government. The legislature was to have confifted of about feventy of thofe members of the late convention, whe had not been re-elected; of a deputy from each of the provincial depart ments; and of fome of the deputies

·to

from his confinement through the connivance, it was fu pected, of the government. But his affociate, Babeuf, was not fo fortunate. He was tried by the high criminal court at Vendome, which condemned him to death.

Great and unfeigned was the fatisfaction of the public at the difcovery and fuppreffion of this fanguinary plot. The jacobins became more than ever the objects of general execration. The extermination of all who rejected their principles feemed a fundamental maxim of that inexorable faction. Their inflexible refolution and perfeverance in their projects, which, had they been attended with humanity, might have rendered them refpectable, only tended to excite a dread and abhorrence of them. Thus, they were viewed by the generality as the pefts of the community; and a fpeedy riddance of them became the wifh of all but those who were involved in the criminal intrigues.

It was not with the fame facility that goverment was able to crush the advocates of the perfecuted royalifts. A feizure of thofe eftates, which were to devolve to emigrants on the demife of the actual poffeffor, had been decreed by the council of five hundred, and reject ed by that of elders. The decree excepted only that portion which by law was to remain with the prefent poffeffor. It was warmly oppofed, as too rigoroutly intrenching upon the rights of private property; but, after long and violent debates, it was decreed that, inftead of a direct feizure, that moiety fhould be levied for the ufe of the ftate which the legiflature had already appropriated to that purpofe. This, how

ever, it was plain, afforded no relief to the poffeffor.

The cheif obftacle to these and to the other pecuniary arrangements, respecting the eftates of emigrants, was the difficulty of finding purchafers for the lands that had been declared national property. Many individuals, though warmly adher ing to the republic, reprobated the confifcation of property on any pretext, while no mifdemeanor was im putable to the proprietor; who, while obedient to the laws, could not, without manifeft injustice, be punished for the mildeeds of others. The fale of confiscated estates, met allowith perpetual obftructions from the fcruples infufed into the minds of numbers by the nonjuring clergy; who explicitly denounced damnation to those who purchased them. Hence a large proportion of national lands remained unfold, to the great inconvenience of the government, in its want of those fums that would have been produced by the difpofal of them.

This interference of the nonjur ing clergy, in a matter of so much importance to the ruling powers, could not fail to encrease their hatred to that order of men. They accufed them of contributing more to the detriment of the state, by their bigotry, than its foreign enemies had done by their arms. They perverted the difpofitions of the weak and the ignorant, by intimidating them with arguments founded upon falfehoods and abfurdities. The unhappy propenfity of unenlightened minds to fuperftition gave ecclefiaftics fo decided an afcendancy over them, that, unless they were checked by the moft effectual reftaints, they would progreffively become the ab

folute

This

folute diftators of fociety. was undeniably an evil of fuch enormity, that all reasonable men would concur in the neceffity of obviating it by every means that appeared indifpenfibly requifite. The only expedient that feemed to promile efficacy was to interdict every individual of that profeffion from interfering in political matters, either directly or indirectly, under the feveret penalties. Such was the language of the ftaunch friends to the republican fy fiem, and to that freedom of thought upon all fubjects, which now characterifed fo numerous a part of the French na

tion.

While the French government and its adherents were complaining of the undue influence of the refractory clergy, thefe retorted the reprefentations made to their difadvantage, by appealing to the people, on the little juftice they had to expect from men, fo many of whom dilregarded those principles on which alone the morality of mankind, and their integrity in the most ellential tranfactions of fociety, are ufually founded. These principles were thofe of religion, without which little confidence could be placed in each other by the generality of men, who had neither abilities nor leifure to argue themselves into virtue and honefty by philofophical reafonings, and were much more eafily kept in good order by thofe precepts and doctrines that had been established and refpected during fo many ages, than by the maxims and opinions lately introduced. The clear and visible confequence of thefe had been the embroilment of the public in continual feuds, and the overturning of a government, under which, with all its im

perfections, the nation had enjoyed much more tranquillity and fatiffaction, than it had known fince the introduction of the prefent fyftem.

The principal allegation againft the foundness of the principles, on which the fucceffive rulers of the republic had conducted themselves, was the fhameful negligence of which they had all in their turn been guilty, in deferring upwards of three years the inquiry into the murders committed in September, 1792. Thele were univerfally reprobated by all parties: they had covered the French nation with difgrace, and expofed it to the abhorrence of all Europe; and they ftill remained unpunished and uninveftigated. Of thofe who had been the reputed authors and abettors; fome indeed were no more, but others remained, who were happily divetted of the power of oppofing the courfe of juffice.

Thefe reproaches bore hard upon government, and it found itfeld unable to ftem the torrent of com-plaint against the long and fcandalous neglect of executing that juftice upon the criminals, which they fo fully delerved. A tribunal was erected, in May, before which their trials began upon the twentyfixth. Several of thofe arrained before it were fentenced to die, and others to be imprifoned: but as it appeared, that the generality had been the mere tools of others, and had been impelled to the commiffion of thofe enormities, through miftaken zeal, and an erroneous perfuafion that they were avenging their country, in compallion to their ignorance, they were acquitted of evil intentions, and pardoned.

Thefe acquittals were fo many, and the punishments to few, com

paratively

paratively to what had been expected, and loudly demanded, that the public was entirely difappointed: the more indeed, that fome, who were deemed the principal promoters of thofe criminal tranfactions, found means to escape the vengeance of the law.

Before this tribunal were alfo brought thofe citizens of Paris, who had taken up arms to oppofe that decree of the convention, by which two-thirds of its members were to be returned deputies to the new legiflature. Lenity being now, to use a very common phrafe, become the order of the day, they were acquitted, to the great joy of their fellow citizens, who now fincerely repented the violent measures they had been perfuaded to adopt upon that occafion, through the intrigues of men who had much more in view, the attainment of their private ends, than the public objects which they pretended to have to much at heart. Thefe, the people of Paris were at prefent convinced, would have been much more effe tually accomplished by the fready and perfevering ftrength of argument and remonftrance, in which they would have probably been gradually joined by mult.tudes in all the departments. But had they failed in thefe endeavours, fill ould not have been the dupes and victims of private ambition, and fhed their blood for men who, like moft afpiring characters, would, if fuccefsful, have forgotten their fervices, and repaid them with ingratitude.

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After having thus, in fome degree, fatisfied the demands of the nation, the directory now turned its attention to a bufinefs which required more than ever the cares

and exertions of government: this was the department of the finances, which having, fince the foundation of the republic, been fupported by the moft extraordinary and unprece dented means, were now beginning to totter, and to threaten infant ruin.

The credit, at firft given to the affignats, had long been gradually falling, and they were now become of no value. It was therefore indifpenfible to replace them by a currency of more eftimation. The fpecie of the nation was either hid den by thofe who would not part with their hoards, or in thofe avaricious hands that had accumulated it for the purpose of fwelling its value in pecuniary tranfactions with thofe who wanted it. The means

of bringing it forth, in the ordinary occurrences of fociety, were studioufly fought, but could not be found, while thofe terrors and uncertainties continued, that made every man tremble for his property. The establifhment of the new conftitution was beginning to remove thefe apprehenfions: but they ftill retained much of their influence, and the fcarcity of hard money was still an univerfal complaint.

In order to remedy the depreciation, and indeed the inutility of affignats, government procured the paffing of a decree, on the 25th of March, which it hoped might tend to expedite the fale of the national property in lands. Twenty-two years purchale was the price at. which they had been fixed fince the year 1790, when the national affembly firft had recourse to this method of fupplying the wants of the ftate. By the decree now pafied, a new fabrication of paper money was flued, to the amount of two thoufand four hundred millions

of