Note 154 — Chapter IV

Miles, "Corresp.," i, 398–400. Unfortunately, Lord Acton ("Lects. on the French Rev.," 253) accepted the stories against Pitt. He states that Danton secretly offered to save Louis for £40,000; that Lansdowne, Sheridan, and Fox urged Pitt to interpose; and that Pitt informed Maret that he did not do so because the execution of Louis would ruin the Whigs. I must reply that Lord Fitzmaurice assures me there is no sign that the first Lord Lansdowne urged Pitt to bribe the Convention, though in the debate of 21st December 1792 he suggested the sending an ambassador to Paris to improve the relations of the two lands, and assuage the hostility to Louis. Further, Danton could scarcely have made that offer; for he left Paris for Belgium on 1st December, and did not return till 14th January, after which he was engrossed in the last illness of his wife. Danton's name was dragged into the affair probably by mistake for Dannon (see Belloc, "Danton," 200). Lastly, as Maret left London on 19th December, and did not return until 30th January, he did not see Pitt at the crucial time of the trial. And would Pitt have made so damaging a remark to a Frenchman? Is it not obviously a Whig slander?