Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/106

86 banishment. His reasons, a French translation of which was read by Bancal while he stood mute at the tribune, evinced humanity and sagacity. He contrasted the success of the English 1688 with the failure of 1649, excused Louis as the victim of bad training, and warned France of the impolicy of losing her sole ally, America, where universal grief would be caused by the death of a king regarded as its best friend. In a sentence, which goes far to redeem Paine's errors, he said:

"I know that the public mind in France has been heated and irritated by the dangers to which the country has been exposed; but if we look beyond, to the time when these dangers and the irritation produced by them shall have been forgotten, we shall see that what now appears to us an act of justice will then appear only an act of vengeance." Marat twice interrupted, first alleging that Paine was a Quaker, and as an objector to capital punishment disentitled to vote, and then pretending that his speech had been mistranslated.

Danton had a friendly feeling for Paine, with whom he was able to converse in English, and dissuaded him from attending the Convention on the 2nd June 1793, telling him that, being a friend of Brissot, he might share his fate. Paine said it was painful (the pun must have been unconscious) to witness such things, to which Danton replied, "Revolutions are not made with rose-water." His