of the pen in the American Rebellion. But this was a war measure, when
the country was in most imminent peril; and it was also a moral measure
in behalf of philanthropy. The spoliation of the clergy by the National
Assembly was a great injustice, since it was not urged that the clergy
had misused their wealth, or were neglectful of their duties, as the
English monks were in the time of Henry VIII. This Church property had
been held so sacred, that Louis XIV. in his greatest necessities never
presumed to appropriate any part of it. The sophistry that it belonged
to the nation, and therefore that the representatives of the nation had
a right to take it, probably deceived nobody. It was necessary to give
some excuse or reason for such a wholesale robbery, and this was the
best which could be invented. The simple truth was that money at this
juncture was a supreme necessity to the State, and this spoliation
seemed the easiest way to meet the public wants. Like most of the
legislation of the Assembly, it was defended on the Jesuit plea of
expediency,--that the end justifies the means; the plea of unscrupulous
and wicked politicians in all countries.

And this expediency, doubtless, relieved the government for a time, for
the government was in the hands of the Assembly. Royal authority was a
mere shadow. In reality, the King was a prisoner, guarded by Lafayette,
in the palace of the Tuileries. And the Assembly itself was now in fear
of the people as represented by the clubs. There were two hundred
Jacobin clubs in Paris and other cities at this time, howling their
vituperations not only on royalty but also on everything else which was
not already destroyed.

The Assembly having provided for the wants of the government by the
confiscation of two thousand millions,--which, however, when sold, did
not realize half that sum,--issued their _assignats_, or bonds