ther word.

As they crossed the garden the king broke the silence. "How unusually
early," he remarked, "the leaves fall this year!" To those who heard him,
the bareness which he remarked seemed an omen of the fate which awaited
himself, about to be stripped of his royal dignity; perhaps even, like
some superfluous crowder of the grove, to fall beneath the axe. The
Assembly had already been deliberating whether it should invite him to
take refuge with them when they heard that he was approaching. It was
instantly voted that a deputation should be sent to meet him, which, after
a few words of respectful salutation, fell in behind. A vast crowd was
collected outside the doors of the hall. They hooted the king, and, still
more bitterly, the queen, as they advanced. "Down with Veto!" was the
chief cry; but mingled with it were still more unmanly insults, invoking
more especially death on all the women. But the Guards kept the mob at a
distance, though when they reached the hall the Jacobins made an effort to
deprive them of that protection. They declared that it was illegal for
soldiers to enter the hall, as indeed it was; yet without them the princes
must at the last moment have been exposed to all the fury of the mob. At
this critical moment Roederer showed both fidelity and presence of mind.
He implored the deputies to suspend the law which forbade the entrance of
the troops, and, while the Jacobins were reviling him and his proposal, he
pretended to suppose that it had been agreed to, and led forward a
detachment of soldiers who cleared the way. One grenadier look up the
dauphin in his arms and carried him in; and, although the pressure of the
crowd was extreme, at last the whole family were placed within the hall in
such safety as the Assembly was able or disposed to afford them.

Louis bore himself not without dignity. His words were few but calm. "I am
come here to prevent a great crime. I think I can not be better placed,
nor more safely, gentlemen, than among you." The president, who happened
to be Vergniaud, while appearing to desire to give him confidence, yet
avoided uttering a single word, except the simple address of "sire," which
should be a recognition of the royal dignity, if indeed his speech was not
a studied disavowal of it. Louis might reckon, he said, on the firmness of
the National Assembly: its members had sworn to die in support of the
rights of the people and of the constituted authorities: and then,