"TO MONS. BONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL.
From the Dungeon of the Temple, Ventose 10th, Year XII. March 1, 1804.
Sir,
Since your ambition requires more victims, strike, but do not calumniate those you butcher. Wade in the blood of innocence, but spare honour in taking away life.
If you expect from me the supplicant's petition, read no farther. In this dungeon where your tyranny has plunged me, I am more elevated than you upon your throne. So say all just men of my contemporaries, and future ages will confirm their sentence. No, Sir, on the border of eternity I call to an account for your treason against my country and against myself. Do you remember our mutual agreement on the 8th November, 1799? Talleyrand, Sieyes, and Le Fever were present -- I promised to die by your side in the attempt of removing the Directorial tyrants. You swore to establish a government, not depending upon the life of one individual, not tyrannical but firm, stable and liberal; bestowing freedom on Frenchmen, and worthy to obtain by gratitude from foreign nations, that confidence and esteem, which your predecessors and yourself have commanded by the dread of your bayonets. When I shortly afterwards went to lead armies -- disorganized and defeated -- your last words were: 'I know your love of your country; be victorious, and France shall force admiration, even from her rivals and foes, by the liberty she enjoys at home, and by the generosity of her external negotiations!' How have you respected these fulfilled these promises? How have you respected these oaths? In my degraded country, I see nothing but cringing slaves and proud tyrants; base placemen and infamous spies. Everywhere in Europe, from Sicily to Moscow, yourself are alike feared and detested. Deny those facts if our can! You have long followed the example of Sylla the triumvir; imitate for a month only, Sylla, the private citizen, and you shall be convinced, that the compliments of selfish and enslaved princes prove no more the standard of merit in the governor, than the flattery of vile courtiers, or the praise of corrupt counsellors.
But as this will probably be the last time that you will hear from me, consider what I now tell you, not as the envious declamation of an imprisoned rival general, but as the genuine effusion of the mind of a dying patriot, who forgives his death and your ingratitude. You pretend that my countrymen are happy, and satisfied with your government. Let it be so, though slaves can have no opinion, or at least dare not express one. But you are mortal as well as myself. I you love Frenchmen, let not their happiness depend upon your life. You have too much sense but to know that with you, the consulate for life will expire in the Bonaparte family, and other pretenders of other upstart families will combat for, annihilate or occupy a consular throne, of only a few years standing. As to your right of appointing a successor in your Will, remember that Louis XIV, the royal descendent of fifty kings was, after a reign of upwards of threescore years, not five minutes a corpse before his Will was overturned; a Will approved by the princes of the blood, registered in the parliament, and applauded by all his courtiers; and that the duke of Maine was shut up as a prisoner when he expected to rule as a regent
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