ereign was not living to mourn the destruction he had
brought on this high-minded man; and the fair royal hand which he had so
desired to kiss had become cold in death some days before.

To return to the spring of 1792. The palace was now as dismal an abode
as ever children grew up in. The king's temper and manners gave way
entirely. For ten days he never once spoke, except to say the words
necessary in the game of backgammon, which he played with his sister
every day after dinner. The queen kneeled to him, imploring him to
exert himself. When this availed nothing, she endeavoured to arouse him
by the most frightful representations she could make of the danger they
were all in--a danger which increased every day, and which required that
he should act, and not sit sulking, while the hours flew by which were
bringing destruction on their heads. She sometimes expressed sympathy
and tenderness; sometimes showed him his children, and besought him to
act, for their sakes: and sometimes she asked him proudly whether, if
they must perish, it would not be better to die with dignity and honour
than to wait sullenly, as if inviting the rabble to come and tread their
lives out on the floor of their own palace?

In one instance, she prevailed with him against his judgment; and in
five days, after, bitterly repented it. There was no use in persuading
him to a single spirited act now and then, when he had not resolution to
follow it up by others: and so she found. In June, the Assembly wished
to banish all the clergy, and to form a camp of twenty-thousand men,
under the walls of Paris. The king would have agreed, telling the queen
that the people only wanted a pretence for a general insurrection; and
that it would burst forth at the moment of his refusing anything they
wished. The queen, however, induced him to use his lawful power of
disapproving and forbidding these measures. This happened on the 15th
of June. When he declared to his ministers his intention of doing this,
three days before, they remonstrated, and the wife of one of them,
Madame Roland, wrote a letter, in her husband's name, to the king; a
letter so plain spoken that the king and queen could not brook it; and
the ministry were all turned out next morning.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TEN.

THE MOB IN THE PALACE.

The angry people rose. Twenty-thousand of the poorest, dirtiest, and
most savage, went to the magistrates in a body, to declare their
intentio