National Gazette

PARIS, Dec. 16

When the king appeared in the national assembly, to announce the measures he had pursued to the purpose of dispersing the French emigrants assembled in some of the German electorates, he was received in a manner much more agreeable to his feelings, than when he last appeared in the same place. The president was not seated whilst his majesty was present, neither did he address him in the style of an equal, much less of an inferior, as was the case on the former occasion. He stood all the time, and uncovered, as did all the members; so that this visit to the assembly was not attended with any mortifying circumstance to the king.

The speech which his majesty made, was as follows:

"Gentlemen,

"I HAVE taken your message of the 29th of last month into mature consideration. In a case that involves the honor of the French people, and the safety of the empire, I thought it my duty to be myself the bearer of my answer. The nation cannot but applaud these communications between its elected and its hereditary representative.

"You have invited me to take decisive measures, in order to effect a cessation of those external assemblages which keep up a hateful disquietude and fermentation in the bosom of France—which render an oppressive augmentation of expense necessary—and expose liberty to greater danger than an open and declared war. You desire me to cause declarations to be made to the neighboring princes, who contrary to the rules of good neighborhood, and the principles of the law of nations, protect these assemblages; that the nation can no longer suffer this want of respect, and these sources of hostility. Finally, you have given me to understand, that one general emotion is felt by the nation, and that the cry of the French is for WAR, in preference to a ruinous and degrading patience.

"Gentlemen, I have long thought that our circumstances required great circumspection in our measures; that having scarcely yet weathered the agitations and the storms of a revolution, and the first essays of an infant constitution, no means ought to be neglected that could preserve France from the incalculable evils of war; these means I have always employed. On the one hand, I have done every thing to recall the French emigrants to the bosom of their country, and induce them to submit to the new laws which a great majority of the nation has adopted; on the other, I have employed amicable intimations—I have caused formal and precise requisitions to be made, to divert the neighboring princes from giving them a support calculated to flatter their hopes and encourage them in their rash design.

"The emperor has done all that was to be expected from a faithful ally, by forbidding and dispersing all assemblages within his states.

"My measures at the courts of other princes, have not been equally successful. Unaccommodating answers have been given to my requisitions.

"These unjust refusals call for resolutions of another kind. The nation has manifested its wishes. You have collected them—you have weighed the consequences—you have expressed them to me by your message. Gentlemen, you have not anticipated me. As the representative of the people, I felt the people's injuries; and I am now to inform you of the resolution I have taken to pursue reparation.

I have caused a declaration to be made to the Elector of Treves, that if, before the 15th day of January, he do not put a stop within his states to all collecting of troops, and all hostile dispositions on the part of the French, who have taken refuge in them, I shall no longer consider him but as the enemy of France. I shall cause similar declarations to be made to all who favor assemblages contrary to the tranquility of the kingdom; and by securing to foreigners all the protection which they ought to expect from our laws, I shall have a right to demand a speedy and complete reparation of all the injuries which Frenchmen may have received.

"I have written to the emperor to engage him to continue his good offices, and if necessary to exert his authority as head of the empire to avert the evils which the obstinacy of certain members of the Germanic body, if longer persisted in, cannot fail to occasion—Much may undoubtedly be expected from his interposition, supported by the powerful influence of his example; but I am, at the same time, making the most proper military arrangements to render these declarations respected.

"And if they shall not be attended to, then, gentlemen, it will only remain for me to propose war; war, which a people who has solemnly renounced conquest never makes without necessity; but which a nation, happy and free, knows how to undertake, when its own safety, or when honor commands.

"But in courageously abandoning ourselves to this resolution, let us hasten to employ the only means that can assure its success. Turn your attention, gentlemen, to the state of the finances—confirm the national credit—watch over the public fortune. Let your deliberations, always governed by constitutional principles, take a grand, high spirited and authoritative course, the only one that befits the legislators of a great empire. Let the constituted powers respect themselves, in order to be respected; let them give mutual aid instead of mutual impediment; and finally, let it appear that they are distinct, but not enemies. It is time to shew to foreign nations that the French people, their representatives, and their king are but one."
"It is to this union. and also, let us never forget it, to the respect we pay to the government of other states, that the safety, the consideration, and the glory of the empire are attached.

"For me, gentlemen, it would be in vain to endeavor to surround with disgusts the exercise of the authority which is confided to me. In the face of all France I declare that nothing shall weary my perseverance, or relax my efforts. It shall not be owing to me that the law does not become the protection of the citizen, and the terror of the disturber. I shall faithfully preserve the deposit of the constitution, and no consideration shall determine me to suffer it to be infringed,

"If men, who wish only for disorder and trouble, take occasion from this firmness, to calumniate my intentions, I will not stoop to repel by words the injurious suspicions they may choose to circulate. Those who watch the progress of government with an attentive, but unprejudiced eye, must see that I never depart from the constitutional line, and that I feel profoundly how glorious it is to be the king of a free people."

This conclusion was followed by long continued shouts of Bravo! Long live the King of the French!

The President immediately made the following reply to the king:

"SIRE,

"The National Assembly will take into consideration the propositions which you have just made to it, and will by message communicate to you the result of its deliberations."

The President was laid under the necessity of being thus concise, by an order of the Assembly; for the king having sent a note to apprise the President of his intention to appear in the Assembly, M. Lacroix moved, that it was not known to what subject his Majesty was going to direct their attention, it would be improper that the President should say any thing which might be construed to pledge the Assembly to any measure upon which it should not have previously had time to deliberate. He then read the words in which the President afterwards addressed the King; and moved that the President should be directed to adopt them, as his answer to the King's speech.

After his Majesty had left the house, the President resigned the chair to a member who had filled it before, and retired for the purpose of drawing up an address to the King, in the name of the Assembly. When he returned, he read it to the house. The first sentence produced a long debate-It was as follows:

"Sire,

The National Assembly comes to relieve itself from the weight of that silence, which the desire of rendering the expressions of its sentiments more striking, and more lasting, had condemned it to observe."

M. Couthon said this sentence seemed to imply, that the Assembly was sorry it had not departed from the respect which was at all times due to the King.

After some time spent in debating, it was resolved, that the whole of this sentence should be omitted.

Other parts of the address underwent discussion; and at last it was reduced to the following form:

"Sire,

"By the language which your Majesty has held, the National Assembly, with transport, recognizes the King of the French. Those cordial and mutual communications which are the wish, and will prove the safety of the empire, have made it feel more than ever the value of a good understanding between the legislative and the executive powers. The Assembly will attend, with its whole strength, to the decisive measures which you have communicated to it: and should the order of events at length make it necessary that they should take effect, the National Assembly promises you a more ample harvest of glory, than ever was reaped by any of your ancestors. It promises to hold out to Europe the novel sight of what a great people, whose every hand is seconded by every heart, and who earnestly wishing for only peace and justice, will, by themselves, and for themselves, meet their enemies in the field, can do, when their exertions are called forth by insult and outrage.

Powerful interests, and sweet enjoyments await you, From the Rhine to the Pyrenees, from the Alps to the Ocean, all will be under the eye of a good king, and secured by a rampart of men equally free and faithful. These. Sire, are your family-they are your friends who have never deserted you. All the representatives of the people, all true Frenchmen, have sworn to devote their lives in defence of the national dignity, of the constitution, which they are bound by their oath to maintain, of the King, whose throne stands upon the unshaken basis of that constitution."

That we might not interrupt what related to the King's speech, and to the address in reply to it, we reserved for this place an account of what the minister of war said to the Assembly after his Majesty's departure.

He said, that the King's first wish was for peace; that all his negotiations had peace for their object, but that he had not in the mean time neglected to put himself in a condition to be prepared for war, if it should be forced upon him. He observed that the king had sworn to maintain the constitution, and would therefore avail himself of every means for defending it. -He informed the Assembly that his Majesty had given him orders to assemble 150,000 men on the frontiers in the course of a month; and he was of opinion, that the collecting of so great and formidable a force in so short a time, would not be impossible; and therefore he flattered himself that he should be successful in the enterprize. He said it would be necessary to destroy that spirit of despondency, which would represent France as borne down and dejected when she had to defend her liberty against a coalition of some few despots; as if she was no longer that same France, which, when fighting for the glory of one man, had nobly withstood the most powerful confederacies.

He said he was well aware there would not be wanting persons who would say that even among the king's ministers there were some who were enemies to the measures which his majesty had just proposed: but he trusted this spirit of distrust would not find its way into the National Assembly. He said he was going to set out for the frontiers, that he might be able to judge in person of the state of the fortifications and of the army; and endeavour to make the officers and soldiers mutually place confidence in each other: to the former he would say, that treachery was a crime for which men of rank were not to be suspected; to the latter he would say, that the officers were bound by their oath, and by their honor, to defend the constitution established by the revolution, and that the safety of the empire must ultimately depend upon the discipline of the army. The national guards, he observed, who had saved France, would not fail to defend her, and wanted nothing but experience to make them the bulwark of the nation. In his absence the minister of the home department, he said, would transact the business of the war-office; and he took upon himself the responsibility for every act which this minister should do in the War Department.

Three armies were thought necessary, and they were to be put under the command of Generals Rochambeau, Luckner, and La Fayette, three officers, in whose patriotism and abilities the nation has the most unbounded confidence: the king wishes that the laws for the organizing the army had left it in his power to raise each of the two former to the rank of Marshal of France; and as the safety of the empire ought to be considered as the supreme law, he trusted that the National Assembly would be glad to see that eminent military dignity bestowed upon two such men as Generals Rochambeau and Luckner.

An increase in the public expenditure would be a necessary consequence of the measures already taken, but France would not stand higgling when its liberty was at stake: and the public creditors have less reason to be alarmed at an increase of expense for such an object, than at the continuance of alarms and disturbances, which would perpetuate the reign of anarchy, destroy credit, and thus cause what remained of specie in circulation to disappear. The signal for war, he said would be the signal for the return of public order.

He observed that, in the immense and perhaps bold undertaking in which he was about to embark, he might have omitted to communicate to the Assembly minute details but he certainly had stated all the great measures which he meant to carry into execution. He concluded by expressing his hopes, that the sacrifice which the king had made to the public of the dearest affections of his heart, would more strongly attach to his majesty's person all those who, like himself, had indissolubly connected their destiny with the liberty of France.

Manifesto of the Emperor against France.

Prince Kaunitz Reitberg, to the French ambassador at Vienna.

Office of the Chancellor of the Court and State.

Prince Kaunitz Reitberg, the chancellor of the court and state, having presented to the emperor the official communication made by the French ambassador, ' of an ostensible dispatch from Mr. de Lessart, dated the 11th of Nov. last, he has been authorized to express, in return to the said ambassador, an answer to the said dispatch, with that entire freedom which his imperial majesty thinks it his duty to observe on all objects relative to the important crisis in which the kingdom of France is.

The chancellor has, in consequence, the honor to communicate on his side, that the elector of Treves, has also sent to the emperor a note, which the minister of France was charged to present him at Coblentz; as likewise the answer which the elector gave to said note; that this prince at the same time, had made known to his imperial majesty, that he had adopted, respecting the assemblage and arming of the French refugees and emigrants, with regard to the furnishing them with arms and warlike ammunition, the same principles and regulations as had been put in force in the Austrian Low Countries.

But that discontent began to spread between his subjects and those in the environs; that the tranquility of his frontiers and states were likely to be troubled by incursions and violence, notwithstanding those wise measures, and that the elector claimed the assistance of the emperor, in case the event realized his fears.

That the emperor is perfectly tranquil on the justice and moderate intentions of the Most Christian King. and not less convinced of the great interest which the French government has in preventing foreign sovereign princes from being provoked to act against them by force of arms .--but daily experience shews, that there does not appear principles of stability and moderation enough in France, in the subordination of her powers, and especially in the provinces and municipalities, to prevent the apprehension that the force of arms must be exercised in spite of the king's intentions, and in spite of the dangers of the consequences.

His Imperial Majesty, necessitated as well by his friendship for the Elector of Treves as by the consideration he owes to the interests in Germany as a co-estate, and to his own interest as a neighbour, has enjoined Marshal de Bender, Commandant-General of the troops in the Pays Bas, to march to the States of his Electoral Highness speedy and efficacious succours. should he be attacked with hostile incursions, or even imminently menaced with such.

The Emperor is too sincerely attached to his Christian Majesty; and takes too great a part in the well being of France, and the general repose not to desire ardently the prevention of this extremity, and the infallible consequences which it will produce, as well on the part of the Chief and the States of the German empire, as of other sovereigns, who have united in concert to maintain the public tranquility, and for the safety and honour of crowns: and it is in consequence of this latter that the Chancellor Prince Kaunitz is ordered to be open and unreserved to the Ambassador of France, to whom he has the honour of repeating his assurances of having the most distinguished consideration.

Vienna, December 21, 1791.

(A true Copy)

DE LESSART.

Paris, January 2, 1792.