ion of Nancy during the
latter period of the existence of the Constituent Assembly. An army
under M. de Bouille had been necessary to repress the armed revolt of
several regiments that threatened all France with the rule of the
tyrannical soldiery. M. de Bouille, at the head of a body of troops from
Metz, and the battalions of the national guard, had surrounded Nancy,
and after a desperate contest at the gates, and in the streets of the
town, forced the rebels to lay down their arms. These vigorous measures
for the restoration of order were applauded by all parties, and
reflected equal glory on M. de Bouille and disgrace on the soldiers.
Switzerland, by virtue of her treaties with France, preserved her right
of federal justice over the regiments of her nation, and this
essentially military country had tried by court-martial the regiment of
Chateauvieux. Twenty-four of the ringleaders had been condemned and
executed in expiation of the blood they had shed, and the fidelity they
had violated, the remainder had been decimated, and forty-one soldiers
now were undergoing their sentence on board the galleys at Brest. The
amnesty proclaimed by the king for the crimes committed during the civil
troubles, when he accepted the constitution, could not be applied to
these foreign soldiers, for the right to pardon belongs alone to those
who have the right to punish.

Sentenced by the judgment of the Helvetian jurisdiction, neither the
king nor the Assembly could invalidate the judgment, or annul its
effects. The king had, at the entreaty of the Constituent Assembly, in
vain attempted to obtain the pardon of these soldiers from the Swiss
confederation.

These fruitless negotiations served the Jacobins and the National
Assembly as food for accusation against M. de Montmorin. In vain did he
justify himself by alleging the impossibility of obtaining such an
amnesty from Switzerland, at a moment when this country, who had
suffered from civil commotions, sought to restore order by the laws of
Draco. "We shall be then the compulsory gaolers of this ferocious
people," cried Guadet and Collot d'Herbois. "France must then degrade
herself so far as to punish in her very ports those heroes who have
gained the people a triumph over the aristocratic officers, and shed
their blood for the nation instead of pouring it out in the cause of
despotism."

Pastoret, an influential member of the moderate party, and who was said
to concert all his meas