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fhakes the ftate to its foundation. All our evils arife from our diffen fions, from the fpirit of rapacity, the neglect of labour, from refufal to pay the contributions, from the depreciation of the national mo

ney.

Thefe evils cannot be cured but by a contrary regime, by the reciprocal edeem of citizens, by their eagerness to acquit themfelves to the public treafury, by the reftoration of industry, by the rigorous fupport of the integral value, and without the leaft alteration, of the money eftablished by the legifla

ture.

The executive directory will know how to display, on this important occafion, the whole extent of the power depofited in their hands; they will make the national will, expreffed by the reprefentatives of the people, be refpe&ted.

It is to you, good citizens, friends of wifdom and liberty; immenfe majority of Frenchmen! it is to you that it belongs to fecond the efforts of the government; form a facred league to defend the conftitutional edifice, which refts now upon the fuccefs of the mandats; repel those who flatter you to draw you into a frightful abyfs. You can only fave yourselves by auftere truths. What have these operated for your good, who have laboured hitherto to render you immortal; who have only irritated alternately and cherished your paffions; who have sharpened hatred, among you, and formed parties? What else have they done but favoured your external enemies, who long ago would have demanded peace of you, if they had not been enabled to fet you against each other, and

to make you tear out your entrails with your own hands?

It is against thefe external enemies that we mnt wake the vengeance of the ftate. Cover with indignation and contempt their eternal advocates; thofe cowardly writers who connect themselves with traitors; who have nothing to prefent but frightful portraits; who avail themfelves of an object only to make the citizens miferable, and divide to defame them. It is time that each of us fhould be proud of being Frenchmen! What are the crimes of fome miferable men to the national glory, men whom nature has caft upon the territory of freemen? view the revolution with the fame eyes that pofterity will view it; with the fame eyes which the foreigners whom you combat view it. Refume that proud energy that produced victory; recollect your triumphs, and let them be the pledge of new triumphs.

Frenchmen, be affured of this great truth; it is, that the fafety of all and each of you is in the rigid execution of the law relative to mandats. Already have the happy effects of their creation been felt by the bearers of affignats, which increase in value rapidly, although it has been pretended that it would complete their depreciation.

Let no infringement be made upon this law, and foon a beneficent dew will vivify the happy foil. that nature has adjudged to us. France will rife from that deplorable langour, a devouring flock-jobbing will cease her ravages, activity in arts and commerce will fucceed, the roads and canals will no longer be in ruins, the public functionaries of the ftate will be indemni

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ROYALISM, at length despair. ing of being able to feduce you in its own colours, now takes to bring you under its odious yoke, a way, perhaps, more winding, but far more perfidious and lefs dangerous. For feveral days incendiary papers and placards have been profufely diftributed. Seditious propofitions and menacing difcourfes are heard, and groups are formed in the public fquares. The heads of the party no longer conceal their object; they audaciously declare it. They with to overturn the republican conftitution, to destroy the national representation and the government; to put in force the atrocious and impracticable code of 1793; and to effect the pretended equal divifion of all property, even in the moft inconfiderable nature, fuch as little hops, &c. They are defirous of plunder.

They are, in a word, defirous to re-elect icaffolds, and to bathe as formerly in your blood, gorging themfelves with your riches and the finallest produce of your labours. The foreigner who pays

them knows very well that the prefent government being once deftroyed, the multitude wearied at length with various agitations, which muft tend to augment their fufferings, will throw themselves into the arms of a king. The miferable agitators, whom he makes his inftruments, muft themselves defire this, to place their plunders under the fafeguard of an authority which would be their work, and to secure the means of committing freth ones with impunity, by fharing in all employments. Who can indeed doubt but that they are in agreement with foreigners to roy. alife France, or to reduce it to a ftate of debility and confufion, the inevitable confequence of which would be its difmemberment. Do our moft declared enemies hold another language and another conduct? They fay openly that they will carry revenge and fire every where, rather than allow peace to be made; and at the fame time they circulate a thousand lying reports to difcredit the national money, and thus deprive the government of the means of fecuring to our armies the faculty of haftening, by new trials, a glorious and durable peace, which is the conftant object of the views of the directory, and the aim of all its labours. To thefe odious manoeuvres they add atrocious calumnies, to deprive the government of the force it needs; they even affert that the executive directory has done nothing towards the confolidation of the Republic. Wellintentioned men! go back to the moment of the inftallation of the directory, and judge whether in a few months it could have done more. La Vandée has been dif

armed.

armed, and its chiefs either killed or taken.

The revolt in l'Indre and le Cher was extinguished at the very moment when it broke out; and the war against the Chouans is carried on with activity and fuccefs. The armies which were in a complete ftate of diffolution are now re-organized, and are in a condition to cope with the enemy, and to fix victory on the ftandard of liberty. Severe meafures against the refractory priests and the emigrants have been called for, and thofe which exifted have been executed with vigour. Adminiftrators, whofe patriotifm was fufpeéted, have been replaced by energetic republicans; and, finally, fubfillencies have been procured, and their circulation, which was impeded on all fides, re-eftablished. Thefe emitfaries of foreigners dare to add, that the directory does not cherith the patriots, but abandons them to perfecution. Certainly it does not ceafe to cherish them; it has not defifted, and will not defift to support and defend the patriots, and will never fuffer the errors into which they may have been led, by an ardent zeal for liberty, to be confounded with guilt. It has an affectionate regard for thofe pure and fincere patriots, who unite wifdom to the ardour of a burning civiẩm; who, impatient of every yoke but that of the laws, are equally averfe to the establishment of their own nomination. It will always know how to diftinguish these from the difguifed partizans of royalifm, from the brigands who ufurp the glorious title of patriots, merely to difhonour it. The directory is the warmest friend to patriots; and is not the fate of the patriots and VOL. XXXVIII.

that of the directory intimately connected? Are not their deftinies common? Citizens, and you generous defenders of the country, inftructed by a long experience, you have repulfed, with contempt, thefe daftardly and atrocious mifcreants. You are not ignorant, brave warriors, that if the government is deftroyed, the Republic is loft. You will know how to preferve, by the wisdom and energy of your conduct, a liberty fecured by your triumphs. You, citizens, who live by the fruit of your labours, will not forget the magnificent promifes which the tyrants, coverel with a cloak of popularity, have fo often made to you, and which have never had any other refult than their own fortune, and the public mifery. You will conftantly perceive that a regular government, folidly established, can alone fecure good order and trauquillity, which on their fide can alone procure the refources neceffary for the fupport of your families. You who are apprehenfive for your property, judge what you have to expect from the fyftem now on foot, if inftead of rallying round the republican confiitution, you favour by your neglect the diffolution of the government. As to us, faithful to our duty, we will maintain the republic.and the conftitution with an unthaken firmnefs; we will caufe public order to be refpected; we will keep a watch on those who attempted to difturb it, and will reprefs them with all the force of the laws, the execution of which is confided to us. Incapable of being the accomplices or the inftruments of any faction, we will return with honour to the private life which awaits us, or will T perish

perish with glory at the poft to public. If they could have for which we have been called.

(Signed)

LETOURNEUR, Prefident.

Addrefs of the Executive Directory to the French Armies, April, 1796.

DEFENDERS of the country, the moment approaches when you are again to take up your victorious arms; the moment approaches, when you are to quit a repofe to which you confented, in the hope alone that it would lead to an honourable peace; but the feas of blood which have flowed have not yet fatiated the rage of your enemies. They unquestionably imagine, that we are about to abandon the fruits of our victories, at the very moment when fuccefs is ready to crown them. They imagine that we are about to demand of them as cowards a peace which we have offered them as generous enemies. Let them conceive thefe unworthy expectations: we will not be furprized; they have never combated for liberty-but what they cannot be ignorant of, is, that the brave armies with which they with again to try their ftrength, are the fame by which they have been so often fubdued. No; they have not forgotten the prodigies of French valour; they fill recollect with terror, both the redoubts of Gemappe, and the plains of Fleurus, and the frozen rivers of Holland: they recollect that the Alps and Pyrenees have oppofed to you but feeble barriers, and that the peninfula of Quiberon became the tomb of all the parricidal flaves, who in the hope of fubjecting you to the yoke of a mafter, dared to fet their feet on the foil of the re

gotten all this, you will bring it to their recollections by blows ftill more terrible; you will teach them finally, that nothing can refift the efforts of a great nation which de termines to be free.

Brave warriors, you have afforded the example of a difinterestedness which cannot exift unless among republicans. Oftentimes, in the midft of the greateft fcarcity of provifions, of an almoft abfolute want of the most indifpenfable objects, you have difplayed that heroical patience, which joined to your impetuous valour, fo eminently diftinguishes you, and will fignalize you to all nations, and to the eyes of pofterity. Republican foldiers, you will preserve this great character; and at the moment when your fituation has been ameliorated, when with an unanimous voice the representatives of the nation have taken measures to provide efficacioufly for your wants, you will redouble alío your vigour and courage, to put an end to a war which can be terminated by new victories alone.

In vain has the French govern ment manifefted to all the powers which wage war against France, a fincere with to reftore at length the repofe of exhaufted Europe; it has in vain made to them the most juft and moderate propofitions; nothing has been capable of remov ing their deplorable blindness. Yes, brave warriors, we must still have victories; and it is your energy alone that can put a stop to this devaftating fcourge. Prepare, therefore, for a laft effort, and let it be decifive; let every thing yield to, let every thing be diffipated by your phalanxes; let the new flags

of

of your enemies, carried off by your triumphant hands, form, with the preceding ones, the trophy with which, in the name of France, always great in her misfortunes, always juft in her profperity, the equitable peace you will give to the world will be proclaimed.

And you, generous defenders, who fhall have cemented that peace with your blood, you will foon return to the bofom of your families among your fellow citizens, to enjoy your glory-terrible ftill in your repole, to all the enemies of the republic.

LETOURNEUR, Prefident.

Proclamation iued by Scepeaux, in

the Western Department.

COMPANIONS in arms-as long as we thought it poflible to attain our defired end, the free exercife of the religion of our fathers, and the establishment of the legitimate heir of the French monarchy, we have not ceafed to combat at your head, and to excite that courage and perfeverance which you have difplayed to the eyes of all Europe; but at prefent, convinced that fresh efforts will only draw new misfortunes on our already devastated country, informed that the most violent meafures of terror would be exercised against our relations, who would be imprisoned, and their property entirely ravaged, we have not thought we could continue a war which was become the fcourge of the country we had hoped to defend, and did not think ourfelves permitted any longer to rifk the lives of those brave men who had confided to us the charge of conducting them to the field of ho

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nour. However painful the facrifice may be to our opinion, we invite you to give up, into the hands. propofed for that purpose, the arms that we cannot any longer engage you to preferve, without becoming the executioners of your rela❤ tions and friends. This claufe fulfilled, your perfons and property will be under the fafeguard of the laws: you will remain quiet at home: nor will you in any respect be troubled for the paft. This affurance concerning your fate has alone induced us to confent to a conduct contrary to the wishes of our heart, but dictated by the neceffity of the circumftance.

Decreed 15th May, 1796. (Signed) LE VICOMTE DE SCE PEAUX, general in chief.

COUNT DE CHATILLON,
Lieut. gen. of the army of
St. Scepeaux.

LE CHEVALIER DE TURPIN,
Inspector general.

Message to the Council of Five Hundred from the Directory relative tq La Vendée.

28 Meffidor, (16 July.) FOR this long time an inteftine war, foftered by fanaticifm, has defolated one of the finest regions of the republic; we had even to dread, left it fhould make progress, and expofe France to the brink of her ruin; gold and provifions have been furnished by the English, But thanks to the brave army of the ocean and its general, all is returned to good order. The inhabitants have delivered up their arms, and were they even difin clined to preferve the tranquillity which has been restored to them, T 2

they

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