too, bore a part in the foul conspiracy as partisans
of the Duc d'Orleans, who were generally understood to have instructions
to be lavish of their master's gold, the vile prince hoping that the
result of the outbreak would be the assassination of his cousin, and his
own elevation to the vacant throne. In their speeches they gave Louis the
name of Monsieur Veto, in allusion to the still legal exercise of his
prerogative, by which he had sought to protect the priests; while the
queen was called Madame Veto, though in fact she had finally joined
Dumouriez in urging her husband to give his royal assent to the decree
against them, not, as thinking it on any pretense justifiable, but as
believing, with the general, in the impossibility of maintaining its
rejection. Yet nothing could more completely prove the absolute innocence
and unimpeachable good faith of both king and queen than the act of his
enemies in giving them this nickname; so clear an evidence was it that
they could allege nothing more odious against them than the possession by
Louis, in a most modified degree, of a prerogative which, without any
modification at all, has in every country been at all times regarded as
indispensable to, and inseparable from, royalty; and the exercise of it
for the defense of a body of men of whom none could deny the entire
harmlessness.

On the night of the 19th the appointed leaders of the different bands into
which the insurgents were to be divided separated; the watch-word,
"Destruction to the palace," was given out; and all Paris waited in
anxious terror for the events of the morrow. Louis was as well aware as
any of the citizens of the intended attack, and prepared for it as for
death. On the afternoon of the 19th he wrote to his confessor to desire
him to come to him at once. "He had never," he said, "had such need of his
consolations. He had done with this world, and his thoughts were now fixed
on Heaven alone. Great calamities were announced for the morrow; but he
felt that he had courage to meet them." And after the holy man had left
him, as he gazed on the setting sun he once more gave utterance to his
forebodings. "Who can tell," said he, "whether it be not the last that I
shall ever see?" The Royalists felt his danger almost as keenly as
himself, but were powerless to prevent it by any means of their own. The
Duke de Liancourt, who had some title to be listened to by the
Revolutionary party, since no one had been more z