er France.

Far to the west and on the opposite side of the Seine is the immense
area of the Champ de Mars, where, on the anniversary of the fall of
the Bastille, was enacted the fairest scene of the Revolution. The
whole population of Paris, with their marvellous instinct of order and
co-operation, spontaneously set to work to dig the vast amphitheatre
which was to accommodate the 100,000 representatives of France, and
400,000 spectators, all united in an outburst of fraternal love and
hope to swear allegiance to the new Constitution before the altar of
the Fatherland. The king had not yet lost the affection of his people.
As he came to view the marvellous scene an improvised bodyguard of
excavators, bearing spades, escorted him about. When he was swearing
the oath to the Constitution, the queen, standing on a balcony of the
_Ecole militaire_, lifted up the dauphin as if to associate him in his
father's pledge. Suddenly the rain which had marred the great festival
ceased, the sun burst forth and flooded in a splendour of light, the
altar, Bishop Talleyrand, his four hundred clergy, and the king with
upraised hand. The solemn music of the _Te Deum_ mingled with the wild
paean of joy and enthusiasm that burst from half a million throats.

The unconscionable folly, the feeble-minded vacillation and miserable
trickery by which this magnificent popularity was muddled away is one
of the saddest tragedies in the stories of kings. It is clear from Sir
S. Romilly's letters that after the acceptance of the Constitution,
Louis was popular among all classes. But the people, with unerring
instinct, had fixed on the queen as one of the chief obstacles to what
might have been a peaceful revolution. Neither Marie Antoinette nor
Louis Capet comprehended the tremendous significance of the forces
they were playing with--the resolute and invincible determination of a
people of twenty-six millions to emancipate itself from the
accumulated wrongs of centuries. "_Eh bien! factieux_," said Marie to
the Commissioners from the Assembly after the return from Varennes,
"_vous triomphez encore!_" The despatches and opinions of American
ambassadors during this period are of much value. The democratic
Thomas Jefferson, reviewing in later years the course of events,
declared that had there been no queen there would have been no
revolution. Governor Morris, whose anti-revolutionary and conservative
leanings made him the friend and confidant of the ro