rgniaud
carried a decree placing nonjurors at the mercy of local authorities,
and threatening them with arbitrary expulsion as public enemies in
time of national peril. If the king sanctioned, he would be isolated
and humiliated. If the king vetoed, they would have the means of
raising Paris against him, without waiting for the vicissitudes of war
or the co-operation of Dumouriez. Madame Roland wrote a letter to the
king, and her husband signed it, on June 10, representing that it was
for the safety of the priests themselves that they should be sent out
of the way of danger. Roland, proud of the composition, sent it to the
papers. The Girondin ministry was at once dismissed. Dumouriez
remained, attempted to form an administration without the Girondin
colleagues, but could not overcome the king's resistance to the act of
banishment. On June 15 he resigned office, and took a command on the
frontier. The majority in the Assembly was still faithful to the
Constitution of 1791, and opposed to further change; but the rejection
of their decree against the royalist clergy alienated them at the
critical moment. Lewis had lost ground with his friends; he had
angered the Girondins; and he had lost the services of the last man
who was strong enough to save him.

On June 15 a high official in the administration of the department was
at Maubeuge, on a visit to Lafayette. His name was Roederer, and we
shall meet him again. He rose high under Napoleon, and is one of those
to whom we owe our knowledge of the Emperor's character, as well as of
the events I am about to relate. His interview with the general was
interrupted by a message from Paris. Lafayette was called away; and
Roederer, from the next room, heard the joyful exclamations of the
officers. The news was the fall of the Girondin ministry; and
Lafayette, to strengthen the king's hands, wrote to the Assembly
remonstrating against the illiberal and unconstitutional tendencies of
the hour. His letter was read on the 18th. A new ministry had been
forming, consisting of Feuillants and men friendly to Lafayette, one
of whom, Terrier de Montciel, enjoyed the confidence of the king. On
the opposition side were the Girondins angry and alarmed at their fall
from power, the more uncompromising Jacobins, Petion at the head of
the Commune, and behind Petion, the real master of Paris, Danton,
surrounded by a group of his partisans, Panis and Sergent in the
police, Desmoulins and Freron in t