Correspondence with the municipality of Saint-Firmin (Oise).

Letter of Roland, Dec.

3: "I have read the letter addressed to me on the 25th of the past month, and I cannot conceal from you the pain it gives me to find in it principles so destructive of all the ties of subordination existing between constituted authorities, principles so erroneous that should the communes adopt them every form of government would be impossible and all society broken up.

Can the commune of Saint-Firmin, indeed, have persuaded itself that it is sovereign, as the letter states?
and have the citizens composing it forgotten that the sovereign is the entire nation, and not the forty-four thousandth part of it?
that Saint-Firmin is simply a fraction of it, contributing its share to endowing the deputies of the National Convention, the administrators of departments and districts with the power of acting for the greatest advantage of the commune, but which, the moment it elects its own administrators and agents, can no longer revoke the powers it has bestowed, without a total subversion of order?
etc."-- All the documents belonging to this affair ought to be quoted; there is nothing more instructive or ludicrous, and especially the style of the secretary-clerk of Saint-Firmin: "We conjure you to remember that the administrators of the district of Senlis strive to play the part of the sirens who sought to enchant Ulysses."] [Footnote 32110: Letter of the central bureau of the Rouen sections, Aug.

30.] [Footnote 32111: "Archives Nationales," F7, 3195.