clearly sacrilege, punishable, perhaps, with death. But Paine
interfered, procured passports, and sent the penitent soldier safely
out of the country.

Speaking no French, for he never succeeded in learning the language,
Paine's part in the public sittings of the Convention must have been
generally limited to eloquent silence or expressive dumbshow. But when
the trial of the King came on, he took a bold and dangerous share in
the proceedings, which destroyed what little popularity the ruin of his
federal schemes had left him, and came near costing him his head. He
was already so great a laggard behind the revolutionary march, that he
did not suspect the determination of the Mountain to put the King to
death. Louis was guilty, no doubt, Paine thought,--but not of any great
crime. Banishment for life, or until the new government be
consolidated,--say to the United States, where he will have the
inestimable privilege of seeing the working of free institutions;--once
thoroughly convinced of his royal errors, morally, as well as
physically uncrowned, he might safely be allowed to return to France as
plain Citizen Capet: that should be his sentence. But the extreme left
of the Convention and the constituent rabble of the galleries wanted to
break with the past, and to throw a king's head into the arena as wager
of battle to the despots of Europe. The discovery of the iron safe in
the palace offered, it was thought, sufficient show of evidence for the
prosecution; if not, they were ready to dispense with any. The case was
prejudged; the trial, a cruel and an empty form. There were two
righteous men in that political Gomorrah,--Tronchet and the venerable
Malesherbes. They offered their services to defend the unfortunate
victim. Who can read Malesherbes's noble letter to the President of the
Convention, without thinking the better of French nature forever after?