[History of the Girondists, Volume I by Alphonse de Lamartine]@TWC D-Link book
History of the Girondists, Volume I

BOOK II
18/117

a month.

He then revealed to him the plan of his counter-revolutionary conspiracy, the first act of which was to be an address to Paris and the Departments demanding the liberty of the king.

Every thing in this scheme depended upon the rhetoric of Mirabeau.

Carried away by his own eloquence, the salaried orator was ignorant that words, though all-powerful to excite, are yet impotent to appease; they urge nations forward, but nothing but the bayonet can arrest them.

M.de Bouille, a veteran soldier, smiled at these chimerical projects of the citizen orator; but he did not, however, discourage him in his plans, and promised him his assistance: he wrote to the king to repay largely the desertion of Mirabeau; "A clever scoundrel," said he, "who perhaps has it in his power to repair through cupidity the mischief he has done through revenge;" and to mistrust La Fayette, "A chimerical enthusiast, intoxicated with popularity, who might become the chief of a party, but never the support of a monarchy." After the death of Mirabeau, the king adhered to the project with some modification; he wrote in cypher to the Marquis de Bouille at the end of April, to inform him that he should leave Paris almost immediately with his family in one carriage, which he had ordered to be built secretly and expressly for this purpose; and he also desired him to establish a line of posts from Chalons to Montmedy, the frontier town he had fixed upon.


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