to go astray in
the opposite direction. But it is impossible to avoid being struck with
the candor with which she judges her boy's character, and with the
judiciousness of her system of education; and equally impossible to resist
the conviction that a boy of good disposition, trained by such a mother,
had every chance of becoming a blessing to his subjects, if fate had only
allowed him to succeed to the throne which she had still a right to look
forward to for him as his assured inheritance.

CHAPTER XXV.

Necker resumes Office.--Outrages in the Provinces.--Pusillanimity of the
Body of the Nation.--Parties in the Assembly.--Views of the
Constitutionalists or "Plain."--Barnave makes Overtures to the Court.--The
Queen rejects them.--The Assembly abolishes all Privileges, August 4th.--
Debates on the Veto.--An Attack on Versailles is threatened.--Great
Scarcity in Paris.--The King sends his Plate to be melted down.--The
Regiment of Flanders is brought up to Versailles.--A Military Banquet is
held in the Opera-house.--October 5th, a Mob from Paris marches on
Versailles.--Blunders of La Fayette--Ferocity of the Mob on the 5th.--
Attack on the Palace on the 6th.--Danger and Heroism of the Queen.--The
Royal Family remove to Paris.--Their Reception at the Barrier and at the
Hotel de Ville.--Shabbiness of the Tuileries.--The King fixes his
Residence there.

Necker had obeyed the king's summons the moment that he received it, and
before the end of the month he returned to Versailles and resumed his
office. But, even before the king's dispatch reached him, Paris had
witnessed terrible proofs that the tranquillity which the king's visit to
the capital was supposed to have re-established was but temporary. The
populace had broken out into fresh tumults, murdering some of Breteuil's
colleagues with circumstances of frightful barbarity; while intelligence
of similar disturbances in the provinces was constantly arriving. In
Normandy, in Alsace, and in Provence, in the towns, and in the rural
districts, the towns-people and the peasants rose against their wealthier
neighbors or their landlords, burning their houses, and commonly murdering
the owners with the most revolting barbarity. Some were torn into pieces;
some were roasted alive; some had actually portions of their flesh cut off
and eaten by their murderers in their own sight, before the blow was given
which terminated their agonies. Their sex did not save ladies from be