MIRABEAU
It is doubtless a point gained toward reconciling opposite opinions, to make known clearly what it is that produces the coincidence, and what it is that constitutes the differences. Amicable discussions are more favorable to a right understanding of our respective sentiments than defamatory insinuation, outrageous accusations, the animosities of rivalship, the machinations of cabal and malevolence.
A report has been spread abroad for this week past, that that part of the National Assembly which approves the concurrence of the royal will, in the exercise of the right of peace and war, has incurred the guilt of parricide against public liberty. Rumors of perfidy, of corruption, are disseminated; popular vengeance is invoked to aid the tyranny of opinion. One might assert that there can not, without a crime, exist two opinions upon one of the most delicate and most difficult questions of civil organization. What a strange madness this, what a deplorable blindness, which thus inflames us one against
- ↑ From a speech delivered in the National Assembly on May 28, 1790. Abridged. Translated in 1793 by James White. Sometimes known as the second speech "On the Right of Declaring War."
