LETTER CCXVI.
TO THOMAS PAINE.
Dear Sir,
Since my last, which was of May the 19th, I have received yours of June the 17th and 18th. I am struck with the idea of the geometrical wheel-barrow, and will beg of you a farther account, if it can be obtained. I have no news yet of my congé.
Though you have doubtless heard most of the proceedings of the States General since my last, I will take up the narration where that left it, that you may be able to separate the true from the false accounts you have heard. A good part of what was conjecture in that letter, is now become true history.************The National Assembly, then, (for that is the name they take,) having shown through every stage of these transactions a coolness, wisdom, and resolution to set fire to the four corners of the kingdom, and to perish with it themselves, rather than to relinquish an iota from their plan of a total change of government, are now in complete and undisputed possession of the sovereignty. The executive and aristocracy are at their feet; the mass of the nation, the mass of the clergy, and the army are with them: they have prostrated the old government, and are now beginning to build one from the foundation. A committee, charged with the arrangement of their business, gave in, two days ago, the following order of proceedings.
'1. Every government should have for its only end, the preservation of the rights of man: whence it follows, that to recall constantly the government to the end proposed, the constitution should begin by a declaration of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.
'2. Monarchical government being proper to maintain those rights, it has been chosen by the French nation. It suits especially a great society; it is necessary for the happiness of France. The declaration of the principles of this government, then, should follow immediately the declaration of the rights of man.
'3. It results from the principles of monarchy, that the nation, to assure its own rights, has yielded particular rights to the monarch: the constitution, then, should declare, in a precise manner, the rights of both. It should begin by declaring the rights of the French nation, and then should declare the rights of the King.
