decrees sent by the
National Assembly, though it proceeded from the best motives, produced
the worst effects. Duport, De Lameth, and Barnave well knew the troubles
such a course must create. Of this they forewarned His Majesty, before
any measure was laid before him for approval. They cautioned him not to
trifle with the deputies. They assured him that half measures would only
rouse suspicion. They enforced the necessity of uniform assentation, in
order to lull the Mirabeau party, who were canvassing for a majority to
set up D'ORLEANS, to whose interest Mirabeau and his myrmidons were then
devoted. The scheme of Duport, De Lameth, and Barnave was to thwart and
weaken the Mirabeau and Orleans faction, by gradually persuading them, in
consequence of the King's compliance with whatever the Assembly exacted,
that they could do no better than to let him into a share of the
executive power; for now nothing was left to His Majesty but
responsibility, while the privileges of grace and justice had become
merely nominal, with the one dangerous exception of the veto, to which he
could never have recourse without imminent peril to his cause and to
himself.

"Unfortunately for His Majesty's interest, he was too scrupulous to act,
even through momentary policy, distinctly against his conscience. When
he gave way, it was with reluctance, and often with an avowal, more or
less express, that he only complied with necessity against conviction.
His very sincerity made him appear the reverse. His adherents
consequently dwindled, while the Orleans faction became immeasurably
augmented.

"In the midst of these perplexities, an Austrian courier was stopped with
despatches from Prince Kaunitz. These, though unsought for on the part
of Her Majesty, though they contained a friendly advice to her to submit
to the circumstances of the times, and though, luckily, they were couched
in terms favourable to the Constitution, showed the mob that there was a
correspondence with Vienna, carried on by the Queen, and neither Austria
nor the Queen were deemed the friends either of the people or of the
Constitution. To have received the letters was enough for the faction.

"Affairs were now ripening gradually into something like a crisis, when
the Flanders regiment arrived. The note of preparation had been sounded.
'Let us go to Versailles, and bring the King away from his evil
counsellors,' was already in the mouths of the Parisians.

"In the meantime, D