thus have been settled at once; but, singularly enough, this proposition was opposed by the very persons who would have escaped persecution through its means. An ecclesiastic on the right side complained that the churches might now be turned into mosques and pagodas, so blinded was the understanding upon the simplest matters by the hierarchical spirit; and, in opposition to a religious zeal, which claimed an exclusive authority for its own church, was generated in the end an equally fanatic. hatred of religion directed against the church. Another decree of the National Assembly, which declared the right of presenting petitions and memorials as not transferable, and granted it only to single individuals, was aimed at the popular societies, and designed to wrest from their hands the legislative power, which, under cover of that right, they had arrogated to themselves.

On the part of the court also steps were taken calculated to win the entire confidence of the nation. The nonjuring priests of the royal chapel were dismissed; several persons obnoxious to the people were removed from the court: and Montmorin, the minister, addressed a printed circular to the French ambassadors, containing a most unqualified panegyric on the revolution. "What is called the revolution," it was there said, "is nothing but the abolition of a multitude of abuses which had been multiplying for centuries, through the ignorance of the people, and through the power of the ministers, which has never been the power of the king. The most dangerous of the internal enemies of France are those who pretend that to them the sentiments of the monarch are doubtful; these men are either very blind or very criminal. They give themselves out to be friends of the king, and yet they are the only enemies of the kingdom. They repeat incessantly that the king is not happy, not contented; as though a king could have any other content

ment than the welfare of his people! They say that he is shorn of his importance; as though the importance founded on force were not more feeble and precarious than the importance of the law! They say that the king is not free! Detestable calumny, if one presupposes that violence can have been done to his will: absurd calumny, if one seeks want of freedom in the circumstance that his majesty has at different times consented to live among the citizens of Paris-a consent which he owed to their patriotism, nay, even to their fear, but especially to their love. Give, then, the same idea of the French constitution which the king himself entertains of it, and let no doubt be left that it is his majesty's intention to uphold it to the utmost of his power. This constitution, in securing the liberty and the equality of the citizens of the State, founds the welfare of the nation on the most immoveable basis. It ensures the authority of the king through the laws; by a glorious revolution, it anticipates a different revolution, which the abuses of the former government must have infallibly produced, and thereby occasioned perhaps the dissolution of the empire ; and, lastly, it renders the king happy." This declaration, dated the 23rd of April, was received by the Assembly with tumultuous applause, and a deputation was sent to thank the king for it. Louis replied that "he only wished that the Assembly could read his heart:" and, that no doubt might exist whether this circular of the minister's expressed his sentiments also, he addressed a letter with his own hand to the prince of Condé, inviting him, in precise accordance with the views and language of that document, to return to his country. "Return, my cousin, and enjoy in it all the happiness that it offers you. Return! Instead of enemies, you will find brethren. I command you, in the name of the nation and in my own name. I conjure you, by the bonds

which unite us, by the blood which flows in our veins. The law has spoken. Obey it, or dread the melancholy consequences of an inexcusable delusion." This letter Louis wrote on the 17th of June, 1791, and four days afterwards, on the 21st, he left Paris secretly with his family, and fled towards the frontiers.

CHAPTER XI.

FLIGHT AND CAPTIVITY OF THE KING, AND DISSOLUTION OF THE FIRST NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.

Mirabeau, some time before his death, had endeavoured to persuade the king to repair to Compiegne, where a corps of troops that could be relied upon was to be previously assembled; and he had undertaken to gain over to his side a majority of the deputies, with whose support he might crush the enemies of the throne left behind in Paris. A more complicated plan was proposed to him by Montmorin, the minister. The foreign powers were to declare war against France, and, by way of demonstration, to advance to the frontiers; Louis was to offer his mediation, to settle everything by a declaration to the courts, and in the gratitude of the nation to find means for re-establishing his authority. At the same time, Calonne, who had emigrated, was concerting with the emperor Leopold a third plan, according to which the principal European powers, combining for the purpose, were to assemble an army of one hundred thousand men, which was to march by different routes upon Paris, to collect the loyal regiments that it should meet with by the way, and to restore the former order of things there. The shrewd Leopold made it an express condition that the king should remain in Paris, and, without any co-opera

VOL. I.

L

tion till the proper moment, strive only to render himself as popular as possible. This plan might easily have been combined with Montmorin's; but, while these arrangements were making, Louis suddenly came to the resolution of escaping from the restraint imposed by his residence in Paris. It has never been known with certainty who induced the king to take this unfortunate step; but it is supposed to have been the emigrant minister, Breteuil, because he was apprehensive that, in case Calonne's plan should succeed, his influence with the court would outweigh his own.

The marquis de Bouillé, governor of Metz, whose principles were entirely monarchical, and whom the most cautious conduct alone had till now maintained in his post, had been fixed upon by Mirabeau as the officer by whose aid the plan which he proposed might be executed. Bouillé was full of zeal, and offered to attempt any thing. with the troops under his command; Louis, however, preferred to the simple but bold project of Mirabeau a middle course, apparently less dangerous, but in reality more unsafe, and which could scarcely have led to the desired end. He resolved to go to Montmedy, a small French fortress on the frontier of Luxemburg, with the intention of not only assuming the tone and position of a real king of France towards the National Assembly, but also of defending himself against the head-quarters or court at Coblenz; because he had been informed that Calonne purposed, after effecting a counter-revolution, to take the royal authority from a king who had become unfortunate through too great lenity, and to transfer it to count d'Artois, who could not be accused of that fault, with the title of Regent. About the same time, Gustavus of Sweden, full of sympathy for the misfortunes of the royal family of France, arrived at Spa, that he might be at hand to render his assistance, and at any rate to

conduct the king back to Paris at the head of the emigrants.

The mind of Louis wavered between these different plans. It was resolved in the beginning of April to put one of them in execution, and the popular leaders who discovered in the excursion to St. Cloud a pretext and a preparation for flight to the frontiers were not mistaken. The affair of the 18th of April decided the king, who had till then been irresolute. He wrote to Bouillé, informing him that he should leave Paris on the 19th of June, with his family, in a large carriage built expressly for the purpose, and travel by way of Chalons and Varennes, and ordering him to place escorts of troops of the line at moderate distances along that road for his protection. In vain Bouillé proposed a preferable route through Rheims; in vain he represented that so unusual a carriage would attract notice, that escorts would increase the public curiosity, and, if they were strong enough to afford any real protection, they would proclaim the secret of the intended flight. Louis persisted with the greatest obstinacy in his scheme, and Bouillé accordingly made the required arrangements. But on the appointed day the king deferred his departure because Madame de Tourzel, gouvernante of the king's children, throwing herself at his feet, besought him to permit her to accompany her charge. The guards of the Tuileries had already conceived suspicions; the first and most doubtful part of the attempt, nevertheless, succeeded, and in the night of the 21st of June, the family escaped in disguise from the palace through the apartments of the duke de Villequier, which had an outlet to the Placu de Carroussel, found at a distance two ordinary coaches, which conveyed them to Bondy, on the road to Lorraine, where the great travelling carriage, which had been provided for them by the Swedish count Axel