lready been exciting the
whole quarter of the Poisonnerie in favour of the Jacobins, but I
shall have him laid siege to.--Petion is to come to-morrow for
fifteen thousand livres, [This sum was probably only to propitiate
the Mayor; and if Chambonas, as he proposed, refused farther
payment, we may account for Petion's subsequent conduct.] on account
of thirty thousand per month which he received under the
administration of Dumouriez, for the secret service of the police.--
I know not in virtue of what law this was done, and it will be the
last he shall receive from me. Your Majesty will, I doubt not,
understand me, and approve of what I suggest.

(Signed) "Chambonas."
Extract from the Papers found at the Thuilleries.

It is impossible to warrant the authenticity of these Papers; on
their credibility, however, rests the whole proof of the most
weighty charges brought against the King. So that it must be
admitted, that either all the first patriots of the revolution, and
many of those still in repute, are corrupt, or that the King was
condemned on forged evidence.

The King might also be solicitous to purchase safety and peace at any
rate; and it is unfortunate for himself and the country that he had not
recourse to the only effectual means till it was too late. But all this
rests on no better evidence than the papers found at the Thuilleries; and
as something of this kind was necessary to nourish the exhausted fury of
the populace, I can easily conceive that it was thought more prudent to
sacrifice the dead, than the living; and the fame of Mirabeau being less
valuable than the safety of those who survived him, there would be no
great harm in attributing to him what he was very likely to have done.--
The corruption of a notorious courtier would have made no impression: the
King had already been overwhelmed with such accusations, and they had
lost their effect: but to have seduced the virtuous Mirabeau, the very
Confucius of the revolution, was a kind of profanation of the holy fire,
well calculated to revive the languid rage, and extinguish the small
remains of humanity yet left among the people.

It is sufficiently remarkable, that notwithstanding the court must have
seen the necessity of gaining over the party now in power, no vestige of
any attempt of this kind has been discovered; and every criminating
negotiation is ascr