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48 of freedom are liars, all those faithful to the King, all the counter-revolutionaries, are friends of truth and the defenders of oppressed innocence, all the manifestoes, pamphlets and intrigues of foreign courts, all these are merely legitimate and proper articles of complaint. In this case, the arrest of Louis was an injustice, an act of oppression, and the people's committees of Paris, all the patriots of France, these are the true guilty ones. …

The trial of Louis XVI is an appeal of royalty to the Constituent Assembly. In affording an audience to the lawyer of Louis XVI you are opening the struggle of despotism against liberty, you are organizing the right of calumny and blasphemy against the Republic. For, the right to defend the overthrown despot involves also the right to say anything in his favor that may be desired. You are giving a new lease of life to all the defeated factions; you encourage them, you inspire the defeated monarchism with new energy, you recognize the right to take sides for or against the King without let or hindrance. Nothing is more legitimate, more just, than that now all the defenders of royalty should appear on this platform to state their case. What sort of a republic is that whose very founders themselves summon the enemies of this form of government to defend themselves in the cradle of the Republic itself? …

All the bloodthirsty hordes of foreign despotism