ether the king fled voluntarily, of his own act,
or if from the extremity of the frontiers a citizen carried him off by
his advice: I will not inquire either, whether this flight is a
conspiracy against the public liberty. I shall speak of the king as of
an imaginary sovereign, and of inviolability as a principle." After
having combated the principle of inviolability by the same arguments
which Girey Dupre and Brissot had applied, Robespierre thus concluded.
"The measures you propose cannot but dishonour you; if you adopt them, I
demand to declare myself the advocate of all the accused. I will be the
defender of the three _gardes du corps_, the dauphine's governess, even
of Monsieur de Bouille. By the principles of your committees, there is
no crime; yet, invariably, where there is no crime there can be no
accomplices. Gentlemen, if it be a weakness to spare a culprit,
to visit the weaker culprit when the greater one escapes, is
cowardice--injustice. You must pass sentence on all the guilty alike, or
pronounce a general pardon."

Gregoire supported the accusation party. Salles defended the
recommendation of the committee.

Barnave at length spoke, and in support of Salles' opinion. He said:
"The French nation has just undergone a violent shock; but if we are to
believe all the auguries which are delivered, this recent event, like
all others which have preceded it, will only serve to advance the
period, to confirm the solidity of the revolution we have effected. I
will not dilate on the advantages of monarchical government: you have
proved your conviction by establishing it in your country: I will only
say that every government, to be good, should comprise within itself the
principles of its stability: for otherwise, instead of prosperity there
would be before us only the perspective of a series of changes. Some
men, whose motives I shall not impugn, seeking for examples to adduce,
have found, in America, a people occupying a vast territory with a
scanty population, nowhere surrounded by very powerful neighbours,
having forests for their boundaries, and having for customs the feelings
of a new race, and who are wholly ignorant of those factitious passions
and impulses which effect revolutions of government. They have seen a
republican government established in that land, and have thence drawn
the conclusion that a similar government was suitable for us. These men
are the same who at this moment are contesting the inviol