ts
prisoners.

The king, ceasing to be a danger, became an embarrassment. He could
not at once be replaced on the throne. Without prejudging the future,
it was resolved that he be detained at the Tuileries until the
Constitution, completed and revised, was submitted to him for his free
assent. Thus, for ten weeks, he was suspended. The Assembly governed
and legislated, without reference to his sanction; and the interregnum
was so prolonged that the monarchy could never recover. When, in
September, Lewis resumed his royal function, he was no longer an
integral element in the State, but an innovation and an experiment. On
the day when, standing uncovered before the legislators, he promised
fidelity to their Constitution, it seemed natural to them, in the
presence of tarnished and diminished majesty, to sit down and put
their hats on. The triumvirs, who had foiled Mirabeau, began
immediately after his death to sustain the royal cause in secret.
Montmorin called on Lameth before he was up, and began the
negotiation. Barnave frequented the house of Montmorin, but took care
always to come accompanied, in order to prevent a bribe. His two days'
journey in the royal company confirmed him in his design. Having
reduced the prerogative when it was excessive, they revived it when it
had become too weak, and the king could no longer inspire alarm. They
undertook to devise props for the damaged throne. "If not Lewis XVI.,"
said Lafayette, "then Lewis XVII." "If not this king," said Sieyes,
"find us another." This was the predominant feeling.

When an attack was made on the king at the Jacobins, all the deputies
present, excepting six, seceded in a body, and founded a new club at
the Feuillants. On July 15, in a speech which was considered the
finest heard in France since Mirabeau, Barnave carried an overwhelming
vote in favour of monarchy. He said that the revolutionary movement
could go no farther without carrying away property. He dreaded the
government of the poor over the rich; for Barnave's political
philosophy consisted in middle-class sovereignty--government by that
kind of property which depends on constant labour, integrity,
foresight, and self-denial, excluding poverty and opulence. Defeated
at the Jacobins and in the Assembly, the republicans prepared a
demonstration on the Champ de Mars, where a petition was signed for
the dethronement of the king. The Assembly, fearing a renewal of the
scenes at Versailles, commission