United States or Netherlands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They were twenty-one in number: Brissot, Vergniaud, Gensonne, Fonfrede, Ducos, Valaze, Lasource, Sillery, Gardien, Carra, Duperret, Duprat, Fauchet, Beauvais, Duchatel, Mainvielle, Lacaze, Boileau, Lehardy, Antiboul, and Vigee. Seventy-three of their colleagues, who had protested against their arrest, were also imprisoned, but the committee did not venture to inflict death upon them.
A message from Randolph reached Fauchet before he was ready to embark, and the minister wrote to the late secretary, a declaration, denying that the latter had ever indicated a willingness to receive money for his own use, and also affirming that, in his letter to his government, he did not say anything derogatory to Mr. Randolph's character.
However, the alarm with which the preparations of the emperor inspired the people, and the mischief excited by the speeches of the Girondists against the court and the ministers, agitated the capital more and more every day. At each fresh communication from M. de Lessart, minister of foreign affairs, the party of the Gironde raised a fresh cry of war and treason. Fauchet denounced the minister.
The most fearful of these symptoms burst out at Caen. The Abbé Fauchet was constitutional bishop of Calvados. The celebrity of his name, the elevated patriotism of his opinions, the éclat of his revolutionary renown, his eloquence, and his writings, disseminated widely in his diocese, were the causes of greater excitement throughout Calvados than elsewhere.
Fauchet had the daring mind of a sectarian and the intrepidity of a man of resolution. "We are accused of a desire to persecute. It is calumny. No persecution. Fanaticism is greedy of it, real religion repulses it, philosophy holds it in horror. Let us beware of imprisoning the nonjurors; of exiling, even of displacing them. Let them think, say, write all they please against us.
This conduct lost him the support of even the most sanguine democrats, and, when the administration asked for his recall, he fell from his prominence unregretted. But his successor, Fauchet, a less extreme man, was warmly welcomed by the opposition leaders, including Madison and Randolph, Jefferson's successor as Secretary of State, and was admitted into the inmost councils of the party.
Fauchet..... The house of representatives call upon the President for papers relating to the treaty with Great Britain.... He declines sending them.... Debates upon the treaty making power.... Upon the bill for making appropriations to carry into execution the treaty with Great Britain.... Congress adjourns.... The President endeavours to procure the liberation of Lafayette.
That Fauchet believed that Randolph deceived him did not affect the merits of the case, nor, if true, did it excuse Randolph, especially as everybody with whom he was brought into close contact seems at some time or other to have had doubts of his sincerity.
The Fauchet letter, therefore, although its revelations astounded and grieved him, had no effect upon his action, which would have been the same in any event; for he had said over and over again that he had not changed his first opinion.
This, sir, as I mentioned in your room, is a situation in which I can not hold my present office, and therefore I hereby resign it. "It will not, however, be concluded from hence that I mean to relinquish the inquiry. No, sir very far from it. I will also meet any inquiry; and to prepare for it, if I learn there is a chance of overtaking Mr. Fauchet before he sails, I will go to him immediately.
Word Of The Day