ast,
"_The king forever_!"

When this was reported in Paris the storm burst anew. A thousand
terrible women, led by one still more terrible than the rest, started
for Versailles. This crowd of base and degraded beings, re-enforced on
the way by all that is worst, arrived at the palace, and the howling
mob encamped outside in the rain all night. Entrance at last was found
by someone, and they were inside and at the queen's door; she barely
escaping by a hidden passageway leading to the king's room.

"The king to Paris!" was the cry; and in the morning the wretched Louis
appeared upon the balcony and indicated his willingness to go to Paris
as they desired. And then the queen, hoping to touch their hearts,
also appeared upon the balcony, holding in her arms the dauphin, with
the tricolor on his breast. And with this horrible escort they did go
back to Paris, leaving Versailles forever, and were virtually prisoners
at the Tuileries.

The position of Lafayette at this time is a singular one: an agent of
the National Assembly, protecting the king from the Jacobins, and
saying to Robespierre and Marat, "If you kill the king to-day, I will
place the dauphin on the throne to-morrow."

But the currents of a cataract nearing the fall are difficult to guide.
Three parties were forming in the National Assembly: the _Girondists_,
the party of genius and eloquence and of moderation; the _Jacobins_,
the party of the extremists and radicals; and a third party, undecided,
waiting to see what was safest and best.

All that was noble and true and fine in the French Revolution was in
the party of the Girondists. Dreamers, idealists, their dream was of a
republic like the one in America, and their ideal an impossible
perfection of condition in which human reason was supreme. The
excesses of the Revolution they did not approve, but were willing to
sacrifice the king and even the royal family, if necessary. They did
not realize the forces with which they were airily playing, nor that
the time was at hand when the Girondists would vainly strive to
restrain the horrible excesses; that, after they had sacrificed the
royal family, the Jacobins would sacrifice them; the slayers would be
slain!

Lafayette, neither a Girondist nor a Jacobin, was a loyal Frenchman and
patriot, with the American ideal in his heart, vainly trying to mediate
between a feeble king and a people who had lost their reason. The time
was near when he would gi