eirs, and predicted that
their union would save France. They escorted him back to the Tuileries
with cheers, and the very same evening, after a stormy debate, which was a
remarkable commentary on the affection which they had just vowed to one
another, they set him at defiance, insulting him by annulling some decrees
to which he had given his assent, and passing a vote of confidence in
Petion as mayor.

The Feast of the Federation, as it was called, passed off quietly. The
king again recognized the Constitution before the altar erected in the
Champ de Mars, and, as he drove back to the palace, the populace
accompanied him the whole way, never ceasing their acclamations of "Vivent
le roi et la reine![6]" till they had dismounted and returned to their
apartments. Such a close of the day had been expected by no one. La
Fayette, who seems at last to have become really anxious to save the lives
of the king and queen, and to have been seriously convinced that they were
in danger, had now formally opened a communication with the court. He
concerted his plans with Marshal Luckner, and had learned so much wisdom
from his recent failure that he now placed no reliance on any thing but a
display of superior force. He accordingly proposed to Louis to bring up a
battalion of picked men from his and the marshal's armies to escort him to
the Champ de Mars; and, judging that, even if the feast should pass off
without any fresh danger, the king could never be considered permanently
safe while he remained in Paris, he recommended that on the next day,
Louis, still under the protection of the same troops, should announce to
the Assembly his departure for Compiegne, and should at once quit the
capital for that town, to which trusty officers would in the mean time
have brought up other divisions of the army in sufficient strength to set
all disaffected and seditious spirits at defiance.

The plan was at all events well conceived, but it was declined. Louis did
not apparently distrust the marquis's good faith, but he doubted his
ability to carry out an enterprise requiring an energy and decision of
which no part of La Fayette's career had given any indication; while the
queen distrusted his loyalty even more than his capacity. One of those
with whom she took counsel expressed his opinion of the marquis's real
object by saying that he might save the monarch, but not the monarchy; and
she replied that his head was still full of republican notion