Time, however, has produced a sort of intelligence
between news-writers and their readers--and rejoicings, lamentations,
praise, or censure, are, on particular occasions, understood to convey
the reverse of what they express.
The affected moderation of the government, and the ascendency which some
of the Brissotin party are beginning to take in it, seem to flatter the
public with the hope of peace. They forget that these men were the
authors of the war, and that a few months imprisonment has neither
expiated their crimes, nor subdued their ambition. It is the great
advantage of the Brissotins, that the revolutionary tyranny which they
had contributed to establish, was wrested from them before it had taken
its full effect; but those who appreciate their original claims, without
regard to their sufferings under the persecution of a party, are disposed
to expect they will not be less tenacious of power, nor less arbitrary in
the exercise of it than any of the intervening factions. The present
government is composed of such discordant elements, that their very union
betrays that they are in fact actuated by no principle, except the
general one of retaining their authority. Lanjuinais, Louvet, Saladin,
Danou, &c. are now leagued with Tallien, Freron, Dubois de Crance, and
even Carnot.
At the head of this motley assemblage of Brissotins, Orleanists, and
Robespierrians, is Sieyes--who, with perhaps less honesty, though more
cunning, than either, despises and dupes them all.
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