epared and learned by heart a short speech, with
which, if the worst news which she apprehended should arrive, she intended
to repair to the Assembly, and claim its protection for the wife and
children of their sovereign.[5] But often, as she rehearsed it, her voice,
in spite of all her efforts, was broken by sobs, and her reiterated
exclamation, "They will never let him return!" but too truly expressed the
deep forebodings of her heart.

They were not yet fated to be realized; the Insurrection Committee had
already organized a force which they had entitled the National Guard, and
of which they had conferred the command on the Marquis de La Fayette, And
at the gates of the city the king was met by him and the mayor, a man
named Bailly, who had achieved a considerable reputation as a
mathematician and an astronomer, but who was thoroughly imbued with the
leveling and irreligious doctrines of the school of the Encyclopedists. No
men in Paris were less likely to treat their sovereign with due respect.

Since his return from America, La Fayette had been living in retirement on
his estate, till at the recent election he had been returned to the
States-general as one of the representatives of the nobles for his native
province of Auvergne. He had taken no part in the debates, being entirely
destitute of political abilities;[6] and he had apparently no very
distinct political views, but wavered between a desire for a republic,
such, as that of which he had witnessed the establishment in America, and
a feeling in favor of a limited monarchy such as he understood to exist in
Great Britain, though he had no accurate comprehension of its most
essential principles. But his ruling passion was a desire for popularity;
and as he had always been vain of his unbending ill-manners as a proof of
his liberal sentiments,[7] and as his vanity made him regard kings and
queens with a general dislike, as being of a rank superior to his own, he
looked on the present occurrence as a favorable opportunity for gaining
the good-will of the mob, by showing marked disrespect to Louis. He would
not even pay him the ordinary compliment of appearing in uniform, but
headed his new troops in plain clothes; and even those were not such as
belonged to his rank, but were the ordinary dress of a plain citizen;
while Bailly's address, as Louis entered the gates, was marked with the
most studied and gratuitous insolence. "Sire," said he, "I present to your
majes