Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/680

644 which the antagonism of the ruling faction invariably brought with it. lie was warned that his life was in the greatest peril, owing to the noble and daring efforts he had made in defending the cause of the Order, hopeless as it was. “I am under no apprehensions,” replied he, “for the moment has now arrived when a man of honour who faithfully performs his duty may die as gloriously upon the scaffold as on the field of battle.” At his death, which occurred shortly after, his place was left unfilled; he was consequently the last accredited envoy the fraternity ever possessed within the French kingdom.

Great as had been the provocation, the knights did not break entirely with the French directory, nor did they openly join the forces of those who sought to crush the dreadful outbreak. A temporizing policy seems to have been their object, but in this they certainly did not act with much discrimination. They might have been sure that no concessions and no appearance of neutrality would lead those who had destroyed the French langues to regard the central government with a favourable eye. Their principles were essentially monarchical, and therefore averse from the changes that had taken place. They had so far avowed their sentiments and revealed their sympathies with the fallen monarch of France, that when the news of his execution arrived at Malta, a funeral service was performed in St. John’s cathedral, at which de Rohan presided; the nave was hung with black, and the fraternity, in deep mourning, offered up prayers for the soul of him who had been thus sacrificed to popular fury. Had the knights openly and unreservedly thrown the whole of their influence into the alliance, by which it was sought to stay the progress of the revolution, they could not have found themselves in a worse position than that to which their timid and temporizing policy had brought them. They would then, at least, have had the consolation of feeling that they had acted consistently, and in a manner suited to an institution based on the principles which governed the foundation of the Order of St. John.

Their chief was indeed unsuited to the perilous crisis in which he was placed, and physical incapacity had latterly been added to break down his energy and spirit. In 1791 he had been struck with apoplexy, which at the time it was thought must