The New Hampshire Gazette

of a summer fallowing; for the crop
produced appears not only to be so
much clear gain in respect to such
practice, but also affords a considerable
quantity of straw for fodder and
manure; besides that a summer fal-
lowing is far from being so advanta-
geous a preparation for a succeeding
crop.

Further extracts from the papers
brought by Capt. Williams, arrived
at Salem.
FRANCE.
Council of Five Hundred.
Message from the Executive Directory
to the Councils of Ancients and Five
Hundred, on the 16th Floreal (May 5)
respecting the Assassination of the Am-
bassadors, Bonnier and Roberjot.
"Citizens Representatives,
"THE Executive Directory tran-
mit to you the recital of a new
crime by the court of Vienna. For a
long time they refused to give credit
to it; but it is too true that the Mini-
sters of the French Republic, at the
Congress at Rastadt, have been
assassinated: two perished, one only
escaped by a kind of miracle.
"The details of this execrable cata-
trophe are contained in a letter from
Jean Debry, which the Directory an-
nex to this Message. Were they to
recapitulate them, they would be fear-
ful of weakening the afflicting impre-
sion, and the deep horror which the
perusal of that letter will make upon
your minds.
"Already, it is true, by the arrest of
several of our civil or diplomatic
agents, by their long and cruel cap-
tivity, had the Court of Vienna open-
ly infringed the sacred rules of the
rights of nations. They had recently
transgressed them in a more signal
manner by causing it to be announced
that the presence of a Congress
at Rastadt would be no protection to
that city against the events of war:
but between those outrages to that
which has succeeded them, the space
was still immense: it seemed that
that court might be resolved to be
guilty of all sorts of perfidy and treache-
ry towards their allies as well as their
enemies without however determining
to disgrace their own soldiers by
transforming them into public as-
sassins, and by directing their blows a-
gainst the sacred agents of treaties,
the organs of the peace of nations,
and the members of an assembly of
European negotiators. The French
Plenipotentiaries, far from entertain-
ing any such apprehensions, repelled
all that were attempted to be infused
into them respecting their personal
safety: penetrated with the maxims
of loyalty and public faith which their
nation professes, they were persuaded
that those maxims could not fail of
serving as a safeguard to them, after
having so constantly served as their
rule in the course of a laborious mis-
sion.
"Citizens Representatives, when we
are seeking for the motives, and above
all, for the hopes which might have
led the Austrian Government to this
last excess of fury, it is impossible not
to feel how they reckoned upon the
two efficacious manoeuvres by which
they labour to perpetuate, in the bosom
of the French Republic, agitation,
penury and discord. Would they
thus hold themselves up to the execra-
tion of all people and of all ages,
if they did not flatter themselves with
soon seeing the horror of their crimes
covered and concealed by their suc-
cess? And upon what could Austria
found this hope, but upon the progre-
sive diminution of our pecuniary
means; and, since it must be said,
upon the errors of the French whom
he misleads, upon the criminal con-
currence of those who wish to serve
her upon the unfortunate dissensions
of those who desire to combat her?
"Certainly, whatever may have been
within a few days, the military ad-
vantages which she has just crowned
by so cowardly an outrage, experience
has too well learnt her that such re-
verses would be for us but the pre-
cursors of triumphs, if the restoration of
our finances were fully to second the
valour and attachment of our Repub-
lican phalanxes.
"It is because the Austrian knows,
or rather because he exaggerates, the
momentary distress of our finances, that
he thinks he is strong enough to show
himself ferocious, and that he cele-
brates his ephemeral victories by sol-
emn assassinations.
"After so fatal a recital, one feels.
Citizens Representatives, the necessity
of directing our thoughts to acts of
loyalty and virtue. You will see by
the letter from Jean Debry, that that
Minister owed his safety to the gene-
rous care of the Members of the Di-
plomatic Body, that they transmitted
to the Austrian Colonel a formal act,
signed by all of them. to declare him,
in the name of their constituents, re-
ponsible for the crime and all its con-
sequences: and that the inhabitants of
Rastadt, after having loaded it with
all the execration it merits, have almost
unanimously announced the first opin-
ion of Europe and posterity, by ac-
cusing the Austrian Government of
having conceived, directed, and ac-
complished it.
"Citizens Representatives, the names
of our Plenipotentiaries, the indigna-
tion of the armies, the menacing voice
of the French people, the unanimous
voice of all people, of your allies, of
your enemies themselves, the cry of
all nations who wish for or will have
peace, the common interest of Go-
vernments, whatever they may be.
every thing calls out, every thing
commands vengeance! The Execu-
tive Directory, in order to make it
prompt and tremendous, will make
use of all the means you have placed,
of all that you shall place in their pow-
er. They cannot dissemble that cir-
cumstances require all the energy, as
well as all the wisdom of Republican
patriotism, the severe repression of
robberies of all kinds, harmony be-
tween the Constituted Powers, con-
cord between Citizens, and, above
all, the restoration of public credit,
by an equilibrium between the receipt
and expenditure.
"Citizens Representatives, when
by a. sublime impulse the French
people rose in a mass against the en-
emies of the Republic, then scarcely
proclaimed, Austria had not yet run
her career of perfidy and crime: she
had not violated the most holy en-
gagements, and the most sacred laws
of nature; she had not massacred the
negotiators of peace. Let then, this
new impulse of the people be formi-
dable; let their efforts and their sacri-
fices be generous, since they are to a-
venge at the same time the liberty of
France, and the morality of all civil-
ized nations.
(Signed) BARRAS, President."
The Minister Plenipotentiary of the
French Republic to the Congress, to
Citizen Talleyrand, Minister for For-
eign Affairs.
Strasburgh, 12th Floreal, (May 1.)
"Citizen Minister,
"I endeavour to recollect myself,
in order to dictate the details of the
dreadful events of which the French
Legation were the victims, on the 9th
Floreal (April 28,) and from which,
wounded and mutilated, I have es-
caped by a miracle, of which I can-
not give an account.
"Long before the 30th Germinal
(19th April) three French legations per-
ceived that means. of all kinds were
employed by the enemies of peace to
produce the dissolution of the Congress;
and we reckoned upon seeing it ex-
pire insensibly, by the successive retreat
of. those who composed it: but on
that day (30th Germinal) the carry-
ing off of the ferry men who served
to transmit our correspondence by
way of Seltz, informed us that our
enemies would not undoubtedly have
the patience which the French govern-
ment shewed. We exclaimed against
this violation of the rights of nations;
the Deputation exclaimed on their
side i and the result of these steps was
a military letter, which announced to
us that no tranquillizing declaration
for the safety of the members of the
Congress could be made. The de-
putation assembled anew, declared
that they were no longer free; that,
besides, the recall of several members
rendered them, according to the terms
of their instructions, unable to adopt
any deliberation whatever. It was up-
on this conclusion, officially, transmit-
ted to us by the Directorial Minister,
himself recalled, that we founded our
note of the 6th Floreal (25th April,)
protesting against the violence exer-
cised, and declaring that we should re-
pair within three days to the com-
mune of Strasburgh, to continue the
negotiations there. The next day, the
7th, (I gave you all these details from
memory, because our papers were
carried off, as you shall hear; but I
do not think I am mistaken respecting
the dates) citizen Lemaire, courier of
the legation, was seized at Pitterdorff
by an Austrian patrole, and sent to
Gernbach, the Colonel's head quar-
ters. Informed of this outrage, un-
heard of till then, but which was soon
to be surpassed, all the members of the
diplomatic body, especially the minif-
ter of Baden, the Prussian legation,
and the directorial minister, applied to
the Colonel for reparation; they
demanded from him particularly the
assurance that we should be respected
in returning to France. No answer
was given. On the 9th (27th April)
preparations were made for our de-
parture: we might have gone without
doubt with safety, had we stolen away
on the 8th (26th April) when there
were no Austrian patroles on the
Rhine: but having once introduced
the question of the right we had to re-
turn in safety, we should have thought
ourselves wanting to the dignity of
our character had we not required
some solution; and perhaps this enti-
rement facilitated the execution of the
crime upon which I am about to enter.
"On the 9th Floreal (April 28) at
half past seven in the evening, a Cap-
tain of Hussars of Szeklers stationed
at Gegenbach, came on the part of
his Colonel to declare verbally to
Baron d' Albini, that we might quit
Rastadt in safety; and afterwards
came to signify to us an order to leave
that city in 24 hours. Already had
the hussars of Szekler taken possession
of it, and occupied all the avenues:
at eight o'clock we got into our
carriages: when we arrived at the
gate of Rastadt, we found a general
prohibition to let no one enter or go
out. . An hour was spent in parleys.
It appears that they stood in need of
this delay, in order to, organize the
execrable execution that followed, and
of which, I say it with conviction, all
the details had been commanded and
combined beforehand. At length the
Austrian Commandant gave an order
for the departure of the French lega-
tion only. We demanded an escort:
it was refused, and the Commandant
declared that we should be as safe as
in our own rooms. In consequence
of this we began our journey. We
were not fifty paces from Rastadt,
ourselves and the Ligurian legation,
who did not quit us, and who partici-
pated our dangers with unequalled
devotion, when a detachment of near-
ly 60 hussars of Szeckler, in ambush
upon the canal of la Murg, fell upon
our carriages, and made them stop.
Mine was the first of them. Six men
armed with drawn sabres, tear me
out with violence--I am searched and
robbed of all that I had. Another.
who appeared to command this ex-
pedition, arrives on horseback, and
asks for the minister Jean Debry; I
thought he came to save me. It is I,
I said, who am Jean Debry, Minister
of France. Scarcely had I said so.
when two cuts from a sabre stretched
me upon the ground. I was imme-
diately assailed on all sides by fresh
blows. Tumbling into a ditch, I
feigned to be dead: the banditti then
quitted me to go to the other car-
riages. I availed myself of this instant,
and escaped-wounded in different
places, losing blood on all sides, and
indebted for my life, perhaps, only to
the thickness of my clothes. Bonnier
was killed in the same manner I was
to have been, and Roberjot massacred
almost in the arms of his wife.
"The same question was put to my
ill-fated colleagues as to me: "Are
you Bonnier? Are you Roberjot!"
Our carriages were pillaged, every
thing became the prey of the brigands;
the papers of the legation were carri-
ed off, conveyed to the Austrian com-
mandant, and claimed in vain. The
Secretary of the Legation threw him-
self into a ditch, and by favour of the
night escaped the blows of the as-
sassins. I crawled to an adjacent wood,
hearing the yells of the cannibals, the
screams of the victims, and particu-
larly of their companions, of the wife
of Roberjot, of my wife even months
gone with child, and of my two daugh-
ters calling out for their father; my
private secretary, Citizen Belin, was
held by six men, to be witness to all
these scenes of horror. My Valet was
thrown into the river.
"I know that all the Members of
the Diplomatic Corps made the great-
est efforts to break through the line
of the assassins, and to come to the
assistance of those to whom' assistance
might yet be administered. But it
was not till one in the morning that
the wife of Roberjot could get to
M. de Jacobi's, the Prussian Minister;
and my wife and daughters to M. de
Redon, Minister for Bremen and Han-
over. I wandered about the wood
during the whole of that dreadful
night, fearful of the day, which might
expose me to the Austrian patroles.
About six in the morning, hearing
them go about, and seeing that I could
not avoid them, penetrated besides by
the rain and the cold, and growing
more and more enfeebled by the blood
I lost, I took the desperate resolution
of returning to Rastadt. I saw on
the road the naked bodies of my two
colleagues. The dreadful weather,
and perhaps the weariness of the as-
sassins, after the commission of such
crimes, facilitated my journey, and I
arrived at length, out of breath, and
covered with blood, at the Count de
Gortz's, the King of Prussia's Mini-
ster.
"It is out of my power to depict to
you the torment, and relate to you
the recitals of all the persons attached
to the Legation, who were the wit-
nesses of the objects of these execrable
scenes: I will collect them when I
have strength. Notwithstanding her
virtuous courage, the wife of Roberjot
is like a mad person with grief. I
implore for her all the interest of the
government. Fatigued with the re-
cital which I have just made at two
different times, I confine myself now
to express to you how much gratitude
each of the persons saved owes to the
generous devotion of the Members of
the Diplomatic Corps. I name none
of them, because it would be neces-
sary to name them all. Besides ge-
nerous attentions and sweet consola-
tions, we are indebted to them for
our return here: a formal act, signed
by them, was conveyed to the Aus-
trian Colonel, declaring to him that
their constituents made him respon-
sible both for the crime and all its con-
sequences. The Minister of the Mar-
ggrave gave us an escort of his troops
for our return. It was necessary to
suffer it to be joined by the hussars of
Szeckler, who appeared to see that I
had escaped with regret. The Prus-
sian legation, prevented by them
from accompanying us, charged their
secretary, M. de Jordan not to quit
us till we had embarked, My God!
why was it that so much care could
not prevent the fatal catastrophe of my
two ill-fated colleagues!
"I should also add, that almost the
whole of the inhabitants of Rastadt,
shedding tears at the outrage, loaded
it with merited execration, and did
not dissemble, the opinion which at-
tributes the atrocious conception, and
all the direction of it to Austria; to
Austria, whose minister, Lehrbach.
now Commissary with the army of the
Archduke,obtained, without the small-
est difficulty, at his departure from
Rastadt, all the passports he demand-
ed from the French legation: to Aus-
tria, who dared to signify to us by the
Count de Metternich, that that Im-
perial Commissioner could no longer
remain at Rastadt, in consequence of
the want of safety for his correspon-
dence; to Austria, in short, who, ac-
cording to every probability, gave the
order for massacring three Ministers
carrying off their papers, and prom-
isng the plunder as the reward.
"There are many other approxima-
tions that might be made, but they
will be felt. Pardon the disorder of
my ideas; the horrible images which
I have incessantly before my eyes do
not leave me free reflection, and op-
press me more than the pain I feel.
My wounds are in a good state, and
hitherto announce nothing danger-
ous.
"Health and respect.
Jean Debry."