encouragement to one of the queen's disposition. She herself had been interrogated by commissioners appointed by the Assembly to inquire into the circumstances connected with the transaction, and her statement has been preserved. With her habitual anxiety to conceal from others the king's incapacity and want of resolution, she represented herself as acting wholly under his orders. 'I declare,' said she, 'that as the king desired to quit Paris with his children, it would have been unnatural for me to allow any thing to prevent me from accompanying him. During the last two years, I have sufficiently proved, on several occasions, that I should never leave him; and what in this instance determined me most was the assurance which I felt that he would never wish to quit the kingdom. If he had had such a desire, all my influence would have been exerted to dissuade him from such a purpose[3].' And she proceeded further to exculpate all their attendants. She declared that Madame de Tourzel, who had been ill for some weeks, had never received her orders till the very day of the departure. She knew not whither she was going, and had taken no luggage, so that the queen herself had been forced to lend her some clothes. The three Body-guards were equally ignorant, and the waiting-women. Though it was true, she said, that the Count and Countess de Provence had gone to Flanders, they had only taken that course to avoid interfering with the relays which were required by the king, and had intended to rejoin him at Montmedy. The king's own statement tallied with hers in every respect, though it was naturally more explicit as to his motives and intentions; and his innocence of purpose was so irresistibly demonstrated, that, though Robespierre, in the most sanguinary speech which, he had ever yet uttered, demanded that he should be brought to trial, not concealing his desire that it should end in his condemnation; and though Petion, and a wretch named Buzot, a warm admirer and intimate friend of Madame Roland, demanded his deposition and the proclamation of a republic, Barnave had no difficulty in carrying the Assembly with him in opposition to their violence; and it was finally resolved that nothing which had happened furnished grounds for taking proceedings against any member of the royal family. It was ordered at the same time that De Bouille should be arrested and impeached; but when he found that nothing could be effected for the deliverance of the king, he had fled across the frontiers, and was safe from their malice.
Meanwhile, the unconstitutional and unprecedented violence which had been offered to the king naturally created the greatest excitement and indignation in all foreign countries. A month before the late expedition, the emperor had addressed a formal note to M. Montmorin, as Secretary of State, declaring that he would regard any ill-treatment of his sister as an injury done to himself;[4] and now[5] the chivalrous Gustavus of Sweden proposed to address to the Assembly a joint letter of warning from all the sovereigns of Europe, to declare that they would all make common cause with the King of France if any attempt were made to offer him further violence. But even the Austrian ministers regarded such a declaration as more likely to aggravate than to diminish the dangers of those whom it was designed to serve; and the queen herself preferred waiting for a time, to see the result of the strife between the rival parties in the Assembly.
The Assembly was at this time fully occupied with the completion of the Constitution, a work for which it had but little time left, since its own duration had been fixed at two years, which would expire in September; and also with the consideration of a question concerning the composition of the next Assembly which had been lately brought forward, and on which the queen was unfortunately misled into using her influence to procure a decision which was undoubtedly, in its eventual consequences, as disastrous to the king's fortunes as it was irreconcilable with common sense. Robespierre brought forward a resolution that no members of the existing Assembly should be eligible for a seat in that by which it was to be replaced. It was in reality a resolution to exclude from the new Assembly not only every one who had any parliamentary or legislative experience, but also all the adherents or friends of the throne, and to place the coming elections wholly in the power of the Jacobins. Robespierre was willing to be excluded himself from a conviction, that, with such an Assembly as would surely be returned, the Jacobin Club would practically exercise all the power of the State. But the Constitutional party, who saw that it was aimed at them, opposed it with great vigor; and would probably have been able to defeat it if the Royalist members who still retained their seats would have consented to join them. Unhappily the queen took the opposite view. With far more acuteness, penetration, and fertility of imagination than are usually given to women, or to men either, she had still in some degree the defect common to her sex, of being prone to confine her views to one side of a question; and to overrule her reason by her feelings and prejudices. Though she acknowledged the service which Barnave had rendered by defeating those who had wished to bring the king and herself to trial, she, nevertheless, still regarded the Constitutionalists in general with deep distrust as the party which desired to lower, and had lowered, the authority and dignity of the throne; and, viewing the whole Assembly with not unnatural antipathy, she fancied that one composed wholly of new members could not possibly be, more unfriendly to the king's person and government, and might probably be far better disposed toward them. She easily brought the king to adopt her views, and exerted the whole of her influence to secure the passing of the decree, sending agents to canvass those deputies who were opposed to it. With the Royalist members, the Extreme Right, her voice was law, and, by the unnatural union of them and the Jacobins, the resolution was carried.
It is the more singular that she should have been willing thus, as it were, to proscribe the members of the present Assembly, because, in a very remarkable letter which she wrote to her brother the emperor at the end of July, she founds the hopes for the future, which she expresses with a degree of sanguineness which can hardly fail to be thought strange when the events of June are remembered, on the conduct of the Assembly itself. The letter is too long to quote at full length, but a few extracts from it will help us in our task of forming a proper estimate of her character, from the unreserved exposition which it contains of her feelings, both past and present, with her views and hopes for the future, even while she keenly appreciates the difficulties of the king's position; and from the unabated eagerness for the welfare of France which it displays in every reflection and suggestion. That she still considers the imperial alliance of great importance to the welfare of both nations will surprise no one. The suspension of the royal authority which the Assembly had decreed on the 26th of June had been removed on the decision that the king was not to be proceeded against. Yet her first sentence shows that she was still subjected to cruel and lawless tyranny, which even hindered her correspondence with her own relations. A queen might have expected to be able to write in security to another sovereign; a sister to a brother; but La Fayette and those in authority regarded the rights of neither royalty nor kindred.
'A friend, my dear brother, has undertaken to convey this letter to you, for I myself have no means of giving you news of my health. I will not enter into details of what preceded our departure. You have already known all the reasons for it. During the events which befell us on our journey, and in the situation in which we were immediately after our return to Paris, I was profoundly distressed. After I recovered from the first shock of the agitation which they produced, I set myself to work to reflect on what I had seen; and I have endeavored to form a clear idea of what, in the actual state of affairs, the king's interests are, and what the conduct is which they prescribe to me. My ideas have been formed by a combination of motives which I will proceed to explain to you.
'...The situation of affairs here has greatly changed since our journey. The National Assembly was divided into a multitude of parties. Far from order being re-established, every day seemed to diminish the power of the law. The king, deprived of all authority, did not even see any possibility of recovering it on the completion of the Constitution through the influence of the Assembly, since that body itself was every day losing more the respect of the people. In short, it was impossible to see any end to disorder.
'To-day, circumstances present much more hope. The men who have the greatest influence in affairs are united together, and have openly declared for the preservation of the monarchy and the king, and for the re- establishment of order. Since their union, the efforts of the seditious have been defeated by a great superiority of strength. The Assembly has acquired a consistency and an authority in every part of the kingdom, which it seems disposed to use to establish the observance of the laws and to put an end to the Revolution. At this moment the most moderate men, who have never ceased to be opposed to revolutionary acts, are uniting, because they see in union the only prospect of enjoying in safety what the Revolution has left them, and of putting an end to the troubles of which they dread the continuance. In short, every thing seems at this moment to contribute to put an end to the agitations and commotions to which France has been given over for the last two years. This termination of them, however, natural and possible as it is, will not give the Government the degree of force and authority which I regard as necessary; but it will preserve us from greater misfortunes; it will place us in a situation of greater tranquillity, and, when men's minds have recovered from their present intoxication, perhaps they will see the usefulness of giving the royal authority a greater range.
'This, in the course which matters are now taking, is what one can foresee for the future, and I compare this result with what we could promise ourselves from a line of conduct opposed to the wishes which the nation displays. In that ease I see an absolute impossibility of obtaining any thing except by the employment of a superior force; and on this last supposition I will say nothing of the personal dangers which the king, my son, and I myself
