d urged La Fayette to take advantage of
the opportunity, and lead them on to close by force the club of the
Jacobins, and another of equal ferocity, known as the Cordeliers[2],
lately founded by the fiercest of the Jacobins, Danton, and a butcher
named Legendre, who boasted of his ferocity as his only title to interfere
in the Government. If he had been honest in his professions of a desire to
save the monarchy, La Fayette would have adopted their advice, for it had
already become plain to every one that the existence of these clubs was
incompatible with the preservation of the kingly authority; but his
imbecile love of popularity made him fear to offend even such a body of
miscreants as the followers of Danton and Robespierre, and he professed to
believe that he had given them a sufficient lesson, and had so convinced
them of his power to crush them that they would be grateful to him for
sparing them, and learn to act with more moderation in future.

The decision of the Assembly also on the question, of the king's conduct
in leaving Paris was not without its 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, th