denouncing all that had been effected since he had
suffered violence at Versailles. Many others besides Lewis were aware
of the defects, and desired their amendment. But the renunciation of
so much that he had sanctioned, so much that he had solemnly and
repeatedly approved, exposed him to the reproach of duplicity and
falsehood. He not only underwent the ignominy of capture and exposure;
he was regarded henceforth as a detected perjurer. If the king could
never be trusted again, the prospects of monarchy were hopeless. The
Orleans party offered no substitute, for their candidate was
discredited. Men began to say that it was better that what was
inevitable should be recognised at once than that it should be
established later on by violence, after a struggle in which more than
monarchy would be imperilled, and which would bring to the front the
most inhuman of the populace. To us, who know what the next year was
to bring, the force and genuineness of the argument is apparent; but
it failed to impress the National Assembly. Scarcely thirty members
shared those opinions, and neither Barere nor Robespierre was among
them. The stronghold of the new movement was the Club of the
Cordeliers. The great body of the constitutional party remained true
to the cause, and drew closer together. Lameth and Lafayette appeared
at the Jacobins arm in arm; and when the general was attacked for
negligence in guarding the Tuileries, Barnave effectually defended
him. This was the origin of the Feuillants, the last organisation for
the maintenance of monarchy. They were resolved to save the
Constitution by amending it in the direction of a strengthened
executive, and for their purpose it was necessary to restore the king.
If his flight had succeeded, it was proposed to open negotiations with
him, for he would have it in his power to plunge France into foreign
and domestic war. He was more formidable on the frontier than in the
capital. Malouet, the most sensible and the most respected of the
royalists, was to have been sent to treat, in the name of the
Assembly, that, by moderating counsels, bloodshed might be averted,
and the essentials of the Revolution assured. But, on the second
evening, a tired horseman drew rein at the entrance, and the joyous
uproar outside informed the deputies before he could dismount that he
came with news of the king. He was the Varennes doctor, and he had
been sent at daybreak to learn what the town was to do with i