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AGAINST IMPRISONMENT FOR DEBT

DELIVERED IN CONVENTION, MARCH 9, 1793

EYOND a doubt, citizens, the hopes of your commissioners will not be deceived. Yes, your ene

mies, the enemies of liberty, shall be exterminated, for your efforts shall be relentless. You are worthy the dignity of regulating and controlling the nation's energy. Your commissioners, disseminated in all parts of the Republic, will repeat to Frenchmen that the great quarrel between despotism and liberty shall soon terminate. The people of France shall be avenged; it becomes us then to put the political world in harmony, to make laws in accord with such harmony. But before we too deeply entertain these grander objects, I shall ask you to make a declaration of a principle too long ignored; to abolish a baneful error, to destroy the tyranny of wealth upon misery.

If the measures I propose be adopted, then Pitt, the Breteuil of English diplomacy, and Burke, the Abbể Maury of the British Parliament, who are impelling the English people to-day against liberty, may be touched.

What do you ask? You would have every Frenchman armed in the common defence. And yet there is a class of men sullied by no crime, who have stout arms, but no liberty. They are the unfortunates detained for debt. It is a shame for humanity, it is against all philosophy, that a man in receiving money can pawn his person as security. I can readily prove that this principle is favorable to cupidity, since experience proves that the lender takes

no pecuniary security, since he has the disposition of the body of his debtor. But of what importance are these mercantile considerations? They should not influence a great nation. Principles are eternal, and no Frenchman can be rightly deprived of his liberty unless he has forfeited it to society. The possessing and owning class need not be alarmed. Doubtless, some individuals go to extremes, but the nation, always just, will respect all the proprieties. Respect misery, and misery will respect opulence. (Applause.) Never wrong the unfortunate, and the unfortunate, who have more soul than the rich, will remain guiltless. (Loud applause.)

I ask that this National Convention declare that every French citizen imprisoned for debt shall be liberated, because such imprisonment is contrary to moral health, contrary to the rights of man, and to the true principles of liberty.

EDUCATION, FREE AND COMPULSORY

FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE CONVENTION, AUGUST 19, 1993

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ITIZENS—After having given liberty to Frauce;

after having vanquished her enemies, there can be no honor greater than to prepare for future generations an education in keeping with that liberty. This is the object which Lepeletier proposes: that all that is good for society shall be adopted by those who live under its social contract. It has been said that paternal affection opposes the execution of such plans. Certainly we must respect natural rights even in their perversion. But even if we do not fully sustain

compulsory schooling, we must not deprive the children of the poor of an education.

The greatest objection has been that of finding the means; but I have already said there is no real extravagance where the good result to the public is so great, and I add the principle that the child of the poor can be taught at the expense of the superfluities of the scandalous fortunes erected among us. It is to you who are celebrated among our Republicans that I appeal; bring to this subject the fire of your imagination, the energy of your character. It is the people who must endow national education.

When you commence to sow this seed of education in the vast field of the Republic, you must not count the expense of reaping the harvest. After bread, education is the first need of a people. (Applause.) I ask that the question be submitted, that there be founded, at the expense of the nation, establishments where each citizen can have the right to send his children for free public instruction. It is to the monks-it is to the age of Louis XIV., when men were great by their acquirements, that we owe the age of philosophy, that is to say, of reason, brought to the knowledge of the people. To the Jesuits, lost by their political ambitions, we owe an impetus in education evoking our admiration. But the Republic has been in the souls of our people, twenty years ahead of its proclamation. Corneille wrote dedications to Montauron, but Corneille made the "Cid," "Cinna"; Corneille spoke like a Roman, and he who said: "For being more than a king you think you are something," was a true Republican.

Now for public instruction; everything shrinks in domestic teaching, everything enlarges and ennobles in public communal instruction. A mistake is made in presenting a

tableau of paternal affections. I, too, am a father, and more so than the aristocrats who oppose public education, for they are never sure of their paternities. (Laughter.) When I consider my rights relatively to the general good I feel elevated; my son is not mine. He belongs to the Republic. Let her dictate his duties that he can best serve her. It has been said it is repugnant to the heart of our peasantry to make such sacrifice of their children. Well, do not constrain them too much. Let there be classes, if necessary, that only meet on the Sabbath. Begin the system by a gradual adaptation to the manners of the people. If you expect the State to make an instant and absolute regeneration, you will never get public instruction. It is necessary that each man develop the moral means and methods he received from nature. Have for them all communal houses and faculties for instruction, and do not stop at any secondary considerations. The rich man will pay, and will lose nothing if he will profit for the instruction of his son.

I ask, then, that under suitable and necessary modifications you decree the erection of national establishments where children can be instructed, fed, and lodged gratui tously, and the citizens who desire to retain their children at home can send them there for instruction.

Convention, December 12, 1793.-It is a proper time to establish the principle which seems misunderstood, that the youth belong to the Republic before they belong to their parents. No one more than myself respects nature, but of what avail the reasoning of the individual against the reason of the nation? In the national schools the child will suck the milk of Republicanism. The Republic is one and indivisible. Public instruction produces such a

centre of unity. To none, then, can we accord the priv ilege of isolation from such benefits.

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FREEDOM OF WORSHIP

DELIVERED IN THE CONVENTION, APRIL 18, 1793

E HAVE appeared divided in counsel, but the instant we seek the good of mankind we are in accord. Vergniaud has told us grand and immortal truths. The Constitutional Assembly, embarrassed by a king, by the prejudices which still enchain the nation, and by deep-rooted intolerance, has not uprooted accepted principles, but has done much for liberty in consecrating the doctrine of tolerance. To-day the ground of liberty is prepared and we owe to the French people a government founded on bases pure and eternal! Yes! we shall say to them: Frenchmen you have the right to adore the divinity you deem entitled to your worship: "The liberty of worship, which it is the object of law to establish, means only the right of individuals to assemble to render in their way homage to the Deity." Such a form of liberty is enforcible only by legal regulations and the police, but you do not wish to insert regulating laws in your declaration of rights. The right of freedom of worship, a sacred right, will be protected by laws in harmony with its principles. We will have only to guarantee these rights. Human reason cannot retrograde; we have advanced too far for the people ever to believe they are not absolutely free in religious thought, merely because you have failed to engrave the principle of