useful as an auxiliary, but
the lead in the movement the clubs assumed to themselves. Their first care
was to deprive the king of all means of resistance, and with this view to
get rid of the Constitutional Guard, the commander of which was still the
gallant Duke de Brissac, a noble-minded and faithful adherent of Louis
amidst all his distresses. But it was not easy to find any ground for
disbanding a force which was too small to be formidable to any but
traitors; and the pretext which was put forward was so preposterous that
it could excite no feeling but that of amusement, if the object aimed at
were not too serious and shocking for laughter. At Easter the dauphin had
presented the mess of the regiment with a cake, one of the ornaments of
which was a small white flag taken from among his own toys. Petion now
issued orders to search the officers' quarters for this child's flag, and,
when it was found, one of the Jacobin members was not ashamed to produce
it to the Assembly as a proof that the court was meditating a counter-
revolution and a massacre of the patriots, and to propose the instant
dissolution of the Guard. The motion was carried, though some of the
Constitutionalist party had the honesty to oppose it, as one which could
have only regicide for its object; and Louis did not dare refuse it his
assent.

He was now wholly disarmed. To render his defeat in the impending struggle
more certain, one of the ministers, Servan, himself proposed a levy of
twenty thousand fresh soldiers, to be stationed permanently at Paris, and
this motion also was passed. Again Louis could not venture to withhold his
sanction from the bill, though he comforted himself by dismissing the
mover, with two of his colleagues, Roland and Claviere. Roland's dismissal
had indeed become indispensable, since, on the preceding day, he had had
the audacity to write him an insolent letter, composed by his ferocious
wife, which in express terms threatened him with death "if he did not give
satisfaction to the Revolution.[10]" Nor was Madame Roland inclined to be
satisfied with the murder of the king and queen. As has been already
mentioned, she at the same time urged upon her submissive husband the
assassination of Dumouriez, who, having intelligence of her enmity, began
in self-defense to connect himself with the Jacobins. On the dismissal of
Roland and the others, he had exchanged the foreign port-folio for that of
war, and was practically the prime