venture to
present themselves, I undertake solemnly either that my head shall fall
on the scaffold, or to prove that their heads should roll at the feet of
the nation they have betrayed."

The deputies entered: Danton, recognising La Fayette amongst them,
mounted the tribunal, and addressing the general, said:--"It is my turn
to speak, and I will speak as though I were writing a history for the
use of future ages. How do you dare, M. de La Fayette, to join the
friends of the constitution; you, who are a friend and partisan of the
system of the two chambers invented by the priest Sieyes, a system
destructive of the constitution and liberty? Did you not yourself tell
me that the project of M. Mounier was too execrable for any one to
venture to reproduce it, but that it was possible to cause an equivalent
to it to be accepted by the Assembly? I dare you to deny this fact--that
damns you. How comes it that the king in his proclamation uses the same
language as yourself? How have you dared to infringe an order of the day
on the circulation of the pamphlets of the defenders of the people,
whilst you grant the protection of your bayonets to cowardly writers,
the destroyers of the constitution? Why did you bring back prisoners,
and as it were in triumph, the inhabitants of the Faubourg St. Antoine,
who wished to destroy the last stronghold of tyranny at Vincennes? Why,
on the evening of this expedition to Vincennes, did you protect in the
Tuileries assassins armed with poignards to favour the king's escape?
Explain to me by what chance, on the 21st June, the Tuileries was
guarded by the company of the grenadiers of the Rue de l'Oratoire, that
you had punished on the 18th of April for having opposed the king's
departure? Let us not deceive ourselves: the king's flight is only the
result of a plot; there has been a secret understanding, and you, M. de
La Fayette, who lately staked your head for the king's safety, do you by
appearing in this assembly seek your own condemnation? The people must
have vengeance; they are wearied of being thus alternately braved or
deceived. If my voice is unheard here, if our weak indulgence for the
enemies of our country continually endanger it, I appeal to posterity,
and leave it to them to judge between us."

M. de La Fayette, thus attacked, made no reply to these strong appeals;
he merely said that he had come to join the assembly, because it was
there that all good citizens should hasten in pe