trymen, they could not believe that danger approached them; and, while they regarded with horror the revolutions of their own times in Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, could not forego the cherished illusions that the amenity of French manners and the indelible respect of the people for their superiors, and for their King, must be their guarantee against all danger*. In the Assembly, as events proceeded, motions and speeches of an alarming nature were made, until the Duke de La Rochefoucault Liancourt waited on the King with a full recital of the news, and an accurate description of the temper of the legislature. CHAP. LXVI. 1789. goes to the Consternation and terror succeeded. The King, 15th. on the next day, about noon, repaired to the hall of The King the Assembly. He was preceded by no pompous dis- Assembly. play, nor was his intention known. He made a speech, replete with expressions of love for his people, with whom he declared himself to be identified, and of confidence in their representatives there assembled. He said he had given orders that the obnoxious troops should be withdrawn, and authorized, nay, invited, the deputies to communicate his sentiments to the capital. His speech was received with bursts of approbation; Conduct of when he retired, the whole body respectfully attended that body. him, and the Queen with the Dauphin, her second son, in her arms, greeted them from the balcony. A deputation was appointed to appease the people of 16th. Paris, and reconcile them with the King; but they carried with them no expression of the sense of the legislature on past transactions, no decree, no proclamation demanding respect for the laws: they were, in fact, missionaries sent to congratulate the conquerors of the Bastille. In that sense they were received; for, when M. Moreau de Saint Mery, addressing the Commune, -represented how much the King had done in favour of liberty, he was cut short by screams and cries,-"We insist on seeing the King! "let him come among us without guards, and give us "the assurances he has given to the Assembly. Why CHAP. 1789. Ministry dismissed. 17th. The King goes to Paris. His reception. "are his odious ministers retained? Why have they "not met the sentence their crimes have merited?" Resistance to these demands was hopeless: the King dismissed his ministers, and announced the recall of M. Necker and his colleagues, and promised that he would immediately repair to Paris. The municipality appointed M. Bailly, a man learned, weak, and vain, their Mayor, and M. de Lafayette, who had been very quiet during the storm, General of the civic soldiery, now called the National Guard. Although apprized that danger threatened his life, the King fulfilled his promise; and his reception shewed, in a dreadful perspective, the expectations he had a right to form. Impressed with the communications he had received, Louis attended mass, received the sacrament, and transmitted a paper to his brother, appointing him regent in case of his death. His ministers were dismissed; and all the princes of the blood, except Monsieur his brother, with many nobles attached to the court, and therefore hated by the people, had emigrated, awed at the triumph and alarmed at the furious menaces of the populace. At eleven in the morning, he went into his carriage; almost all the members of the National Assembly, in their costume, proceeded with him on foot; and the common people of Versailles, their numbers being increased by labourers from the adjacent villages, armed with implements of husbandry and staves, incumbered the procession and augmented the disturbance. Four hundred gardes-du-corps marched first. Their progress was inevitably slow and disorderly; they did not arrive in Paris till seven o'clock; and the guards and attendants were prevented from entering the city, and compelled to wait on the outside until his return. By order of the new mayor and new commander of the soldiery, the cry of" Vive la nation" was substituted for the old exclamation, "Vive le Roi." Bailly tendered the city keys to his Sovereign, with a speech of pedantic contumely. These," he said, "are the "identical keys which were presented to Henry the "Fourth when he had conquered his people; but, at 66 "this day, the people have conquered their king." Passing on, through two hundred thousand armed men, with three-coloured cockades, while he was accompanied only by his brother and five noblemen*, amidst menacing cries and interjections, and without a cheering exclamation from any of the people, the King exhibited no terror or disquiet. Nor was the danger confined to words: when the royal carriage arrived at the Champs Elysées, three muskets were heard, and a woman, close to the coach, was shot dead by a ball of extraordinary magnitude†; while the hat of a nobleman was also struck through by a bullet, although he sustained no personal injury. Thus was the King conducted to the Hotel de Ville, where he entered under what was called the arch of steel,-that is, bayonets and pikes crossed over his head; a symbol, it is said, invented by the secret societies. Bailly presented to him the three-coloured, now called national, cockade, accompanied with an expression which denoted that he thought it his only protection. The King, overpowered by the variety of sensations which this protracted torture created, answered only that his people might depend upon his love: M. De Lally, anxious to afford some relief, made a short speech, inviting them to swear that they would defend the King; all present declared that they swore it, and this terrible day at last drew to a conclusion. In extenuation of the cruelties which followed the taking of the Bastille, it might be alleged, although not very correctly, that the people were exasperated by resistance, and carried beyond their natural bounds by the pressure of the moment. Events which soon occurred demonstrated that horrible murders, attended with savage aggravations, could be perpetrated with deliberation, and applauded where reprehension and restraint ought to have been expected. The unsparing rage of faction still produced lists of proscription, and the persons mentioned in them were not permitted to * MM. De Beaucaire, De Villeroy, De Nesle, De Villequier, and D'Estaing. † Named, Aimée Felicité du Prateau. Le Marquis de Corbière. CHAP LXVI. 1789. More murders committed. CHAP. 22nd. 1789. In the pro vinces. System in believe them inefficient menaces. M. Foulon, a man seventy-four years old, was dragged to Paris as a prisoner, with his hands tied behind him, a crown of nettles on his head, and his mouth stuffed with hay. The mob forced the Hotel de Ville, and, in spite of the remonstrances of Bailly and Lafayette, suspended him to the lamp iron; the rope broke twice, but still the murderers persevered; and, after they had executed him, fixed his head on a pike, and paraded it through the streets. In their procession, they discovered his son-in law, M. Berthier de Sauvigny, and siezed him as an additional victim. Young and in full health, he made a valiant resistance; to avoid the disgrace of the rope, he assailed the whole mob with a musket, wrenched from the hand of a national guard, and fell covered with unnumbered bayonet wounds. One of his military murderers ripped open his body, and tore out his palpitating heart; and his head, placed on a pike, was paraded with that of his father-in-law. Nor were these scenes confined to the capital. The provinces, where it might be presumed that vice and corruption had made less progress, produced their full share. Emissaries from Paris spread alarming reports of meditated mischief: the crops were to be destroyed before harvest, and violence and massacre were to be perpetrated in all parts. The military in garrison towns generally renounced the law of discipline; the mob took upon themselves the work of blood and destruction. In provinces far distant from each other, these proceed in Guyenne, Alsace, Provence, Franche-Comté, Normandy, Burgundy, the same means were pursued, with so much similarity of particulars as to leave no doubt that a general instruction pervaded all the insurgent bodies. It were tedious and nauseous to recite the circumstances of savageness by which the acts of carnage were characterized; but it is worthy of remark, that the incendiaries uniformly destroyed the title deeds of those whose houses they plundered, and applied horrible tortures to make the proprietors discover and surrender them. ings. Indifference of the Assembly. In the Assembly no effective measures were taken to restrain these excesses. The members occupied themselves in abstract discussions on the rights of man, or the formation of committees for purposes of remote or undefined legislation. They professed to be arranging the principles of a constitution, which should be the glory of their country, and a model for all mankind; but when M. Lally depicted the horrors he had witnessed, and required the intervention of the Assembly, Robespierre met the demand with a canting apostrophe on the ills which the people had suffered from despotism during two centuries; and Barnave asked, with a sneer, if the blood which had been shed was so very pure? At last, they issued, not a law, but a proclamation, not commanding, but inviting the people to keep the peace, and, with respect to the murder of Foulon and Berthier, they passed to the order of the day. M. Necker was recalled, the National Assembly Necker's having addressed the Crown to re-instate him. His triumph. passage to Versailles and the capital was a triumph; troops of military attended him; the legislature received him with acclamations and complimentary 29th speeches; Bailly was profuse in commendations and 30th. professions of regard; the mob insisted on seeing their benefactor, and celebrated his return with illuminations and bonfires. He addressed them in a long speech, deprecating all tumultuary and illegal proceedings, and praying the release of the Baron de Besenval, commandant of the Swiss guards, who had been imprisoned, and whose life was menaced by the new distributors of vengeance. The Communes, influenced by Bailly, decreed accordingly, and Necker departed, thinking himself firmly established in popular favour, and substantially the head of a party in the state, when, in fact, his name was a mere word used by a faction to distress the court, while his person and merits were entirely indifferent to them. His reputation, such as it was, gave distaste to the faction which sought to govern; his ruin was resolved on, and the compliment of the day was the last mark of popular favour which awaited him. The district assemblies, of which there |