mbly by martial law at the cost of many lives. Owing to the
aversion felt by Marie Antoinette to Lafayette, who with affectionate
loyalty more than once had risked his popularity and life to serve the
crown, the court made the fatal mistake of opposing his election to
the mayoralty of Paris and paved the way for the triumph of Petion and
of the Dantonists.

At the news of the first victories of the invading Prussians and
_emigres_, Louis added to his amazing tale of follies by vetoing the
formation of a camp near Paris and by turning a deaf ear to the
earnest entreaties of the brave and sagacious Dumouriez and accepting
his resignation. He sent a secret agent with confidential instructions
to the _emigres_ and the coalesced foreign armies: the ill-starred
proclamation[167] of the Duke of Brunswick completed the destruction
of the monarchy. While the French were smarting under defeat and stung
by the knowledge that their natural defender, the king, was leagued
with their enemies, this foreign soldier warned a high-spirited and
gallant nation that he was come to restore Louis XVI. to his
authority, and threatened to treat as rebellious any town that opposed
his march, to shoot all persons taken with arms in their hands, and in
the event of any insult being offered to the royal family to take
exemplary and memorable vengeance by delivering up the city of Paris
to military execution and complete demolition. When the proclamation
reached Paris at the end of July 1792, it sounded the death knell of
the king and the triumph of the Republicans. Paris was now to become,
in Goethe's phrase, the centre of the "world whirlwind"--a storm
centre launching forth thunderbolts of terror. After the Assembly had
twice refused to bring the king to trial, the extremists were able to
organise and direct an irresistible wave of popular indignation
towards the Tuileries, and on 10th August the palace was stormed.
While a band of brave and devoted Swiss guards was being cut to pieces
in hundreds, the feeble and futile king had fled to the Assembly and
was sitting safely with his wife and children in a box behind the
president's chair.

[Footnote 167: It was composed by one of the _emigres_, M. de Limon,
approved by the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia, and
signed, against his better judgment, by the Duke of Brunswick.]

No room for compromise now. The printed trial of Charles I. was
everywhere sold and read. "This," people said, "w