A complete history of the Marquis de Lafayette, major-general in the American army in the war of the revolution. Embracing an account of his tour through the United States, to the time of his departure, September, 1825. By an officer in the late army.

264 HISTORY OF THE
common, and that public order, of which he had never ceased to speak on all suitable occasions, no longer existed.He felt that, under these circumstances, his silence would
be an abandonment of the principles to the support of which
he had devoted his life: and, with a courage which few men
in any age have been able to show, and with a temperance,
which has always kept his conduct on one even line, hle
wrote the far-famed letter to the convention, dated from the
entrenched camp of Maubeuge, sixteenth June, 1792, in
which he drew a very formidable picture of the dangerous
situation in which the nation was placed by the attempts of
ils enemies, both foreign and domestic, and plainly and without reserve, denounced the growing faction of the Jacobins,
and called on tihe constituted authorities to put a stop to the
atrocities which they were openly promoting: " Can you
dissemble even to yourselves," said he, " that a faction, (and
to avoid all vague denunciations,) the Jacobinfaction, have
caused all these disorders? It is that society which I boldly
denounce: organized like a separate empire in the metropolis, and in its affiliated societies, and blindly governed- by
some ambitious leaders, this society forms a totally distinct
corporation in the midst of the French nation, whose powers
it usurps, by tyrannising over its representatives, and constituted authorities.': In the course of this letter, he dared
to say, " Let the royal authority be untouched for it is guaranteed by the constitution; let it be independent, for its independence is one of the springs of our liberty; let the king
be revered, for he is invested with the majesty of the nation;
let him choose a ministry which wears the chains of no faction; and if traitors exist, let them perish under the sword
of the law." He, at the same time, addressed a letter to
tile king, expressive of similar sentiments.'
There was not another man in France who would have
dared to take such a step, at such a time; and it required
* Toulong. Hist. ii. 148-159, Ap. 121.-Hlist. French Rev. ii. 22
North Am..Rev. January, 1825, p. 162-3.