devant un tribunal pour une opinion est une injustice; on ne peut citer, en ce cas, un citoyen que devant le public.") Whatever a man says is only an opinion. And Camille Desmoulins declared, and with reason, that as soon as the Decemvirs interpolated into the body of laws which they had brought from Greece a law against defamation or libel, it was at once discovered that they meant to destroy freedom and to render permanent the Decemvirate; and in like manner, when Octavius, four hundred years later, revived that law of the Decemvirs against writings or speeches, and added to the lex Juliæ læsæ majestatis, one could say that Roman freedom had drawn its last breath."
I have given these citations to show what are authorities current among the Amis du Peuple. The address of Robespierre of the eighth of Thermidor is their gospel. It was, however, very droll to observe that these people complained of oppression while they were permitted to publicly ally themselves against the Government, and say things the tenth part of which would suffice in Germany[1] to subject them to life-long supervision. But it was reported that on this same evening an end would be put to these disturb-
- ↑ North Germany in the original and Germany in the French version; but when Heine wrote this was true of every corner of Continental Europe, Switzerland hardly excepted.—Translator.
