and its authors, whom, he insisted, the Assembly was
bound instantly to prosecute. His speech was not ill received; for the
Constitutionalists, who knew what he designed to say, had mustered in full
force, and had packed the galleries beforehand with hired clappers; and
many even of the Deputies who did not belong to that party cheered him, so
obvious to all but the most desperate was the danger to the whole State,
if Santerre and his brigands should be allowed to become its masters. But
they cared little for a barren indignation which had no more effectual
weapon than reproaches. He had said enough to exasperate, but had not done
enough to intimidate; while those whom he denounced had greater boldness
and presence of mind than he, and had the forces on which they relied for
support at hand and available. They instantly turned the latter on
himself, and in their turn denounced him for having left his army without
leave. He was frightened, or at least perplexed, by such a charge. He made
no reply, but seemed like one stupefied; and it was only through the
eloquence of one of his friends, M. Ramond, that he was saved from the
impeachment with which Guadet and Vergniaud openly threatened him for
quitting the army without leave.

Ramond's oratory succeeded in carrying through the Assembly a motion in
his favor, and several companies of the National Guard and a vast
multitude of the citizens showed their sympathy with his views by
escorting him with acclamations to his hotel. But neither their evident
inclination to support him, nor even the danger with which he himself had
been threatened, could give him resolution and firmness in action. For a
moment he made a demonstration as if he were prepared to secure the
success of his designs by force. He proposed that the king should the next
morning review Acloque's companies of the National Guard, after which he
himself would harangue them on their duty to the king and Constitution.
But the Girondins persuaded Petion to exert his authority, as mayor, to
prohibit the review. La Fayette was weak enough to submit to the
prohibition; and, quickened, it is said, by intelligence that Petion was
preparing to arrest him, the next day retired in haste from Paris and
rejoined the army.

He had done the king nothing but harm. He had shown to all the world that
though the Royalists and Constitutionalists might still be numerically the
stronger party, for all purposes of action they were by f