e acquired by words, but by acts. Give
unquestionable proofs of your sincerity. For instance, two important
decrees have been passed, both deeply important for the security of the
state, and the delay of your sanction excites distrust. Be on your
guard: distrust is not very wide from hatred, and hatred does not
hesitate at crime. If you do not give satisfaction to the Revolution,
it will be cemented by blood. Desperate measures, which you may be
advised to adopt to intimidate Paris, to control the Assembly, would
only cause the development of that sullen energy, the mother of great
devotions and great attempts (this was meant indirectly for Dumouriez,
who had advised firm measures). You are deceived, Sire, when the nation
is represented to you as hostile to the throne, and to yourself. Love,
serve the Revolution, and the people will love it in you. Deposed
priests are agitating the provinces: ratify the measures requisite to
put down their fanaticism. Paris is uneasy as to its security: sanction
the measures which summon a camp of citizens beneath its walls. Still
more delays, and you will be considered as a conspirator and an
accomplice. Just heaven! hast thou stricken kings with blindness? I know
that the language of truth is rarely welcomed at the foot of thrones: I
know, too, that it is the withholding the truth from the councils of
kings which renders revolutions so often necessary. As a citizen, and as
a minister, I owe the truth to the king, and nothing shall prevent my
making it reach his ear. I demand that we should have here a secretary
of council to register our deliberations. Responsible ministers should
have a witness of their opinions. If this witness existed, I should not
now address your majesty in writing."

The threat was no less evident than the treachery of this letter; and
the last sentence indicated, in equivocal terms, the odious use which
Roland meant one day to make of it. The magnanimity of Vergniaud was
excited against this step of the powerful Girondist minister:
Dumouriez's military loyalty was roused by it: the king listened to the
reading of it with the calmness of a man accustomed to put up with
insult. The Girondists were informed of it in the secret councils at
Madame Roland's, and Roland kept a copy to cover himself at the hour of
his fall.

XVII.

At this moment secret understandings, unknown to Roland himself, were
formed by the three Girondist chiefs, Vergniaud, Guadet, and Gen