in Normandy;
but Liancourt was a Liberal of the Constituante, and therefore
unforgiven. Marie Antoinette preferred to trust to Petion and
Santerre.

Early in August the most revolutionary section of Paris decided that
the king should be deposed. The Assembly rescinded the vote. Then the
people of that section and some others made known that they would
execute their own decree, unless the Assembly itself made it
unnecessary and accomplished legally what would otherwise be done by
the act of the sovereign people, superseding all powers and standing
above law. Time was to be allowed until August 9. If the king was
still on the throne upon the evening of that day, the people of Paris
would sound the tocsin against him.

On August 8 the Assembly came to a vote on the conduct of Lafayette,
in abandoning his army in time of war to threaten his enemies at home.
He was justified by 406 votes to 224. It was the last appearance of
the Liberal party. Four hundred deputies, a majority of the entire
body, kept out of the way in the moment of danger, and allowed the
Girondin and republican remnant to proceed without them. The
absolution of Lafayette proclaimed the resolve not to dethrone the
king. The Gironde had no constitutional remedy for its anxieties. The
next step would be taken by the democracy of Paris, and their victory
would be a grave danger to the Gironde and a triumph for the extreme
revolutionary faction. Up to this time they had struggled for mastery;
they would now have to struggle for existence. They accepted what was
inevitable. After the flight of the Feuillants, the Gironde, now
supreme in the legislature, capitulated to the revolution which they
dreaded, and appeared without initiative or policy.

On August 9 the Jacobin leaders settled their plan of action. Their
partisans in each section were to elect three commissaries to act with
the Commune for the public good, and to strengthen, and, if necessary,
eventually to supersede, the existing municipality. About one-half of
Paris sent them, and they assembled in the course of the night at the
Hotel de Ville, apart from the legal body. In the political science of
the day the constituency suspended the constituted authorities and
resumed all delegated powers. The revolutionary town-councillors, who
now came to the front, are the authors of the atrocities that
afflicted France during the next two years. They were creatures of
Danton. And as we now enter the compan