to
the capital!"

Lafayette and another hurried to the city-hall, in Paris, to inform the
people of the king's declarations. "He has hitherto been deceived," he
said, "but he now sees the merit and justness of the popular cause." The
enthusiasm was general at this announcement. Tears of joy were shed, and
the revolution appeared to be at an end. The king confirmed the
nomination of Lafayette as the commander-in-chief of the national guard,
by which he was put at the head of four millions of armed citizens; and
the nation breathed free with hope. But the wily duke of Orleans, who
desired the destruction of the king for the base purposes of his own
exaltation, excited suspicions among the people, and a demand for the
king's presence at the Tuilleries was made. Louis went voluntarily from
Versailles to Paris, followed by sixty thousand citizens and a hundred
deputies of the assembly, and there formally accepted the Declaration of
the Rights of Man, which was presented to him. This set the minds of the
people at rest, and quiet was restored to the capital and to France.

But Lafayette was filled with apprehension for the future. To Colonel
John Trumbull, who was about to leave France for the United States at
the close of summer, he communicated a special message to Washington
concerning the state of affairs in France. After speaking of the changes
already effected and the hopes for the future, he said: "Unhappily,
there is one powerful and wicked man, who, I fear, will destroy this
beautiful fabric of human happiness--the duke of Orleans." He had
already been accused, and no doubt justly, of sending hired assassins to
Versailles to murder Louis and the royal family, that he might be made
regent of the kingdom. "He does not, indeed," said Lafayette, "possess
talent to carry into execution a great project; but he possesses
immense wealth, and France abounds in marketable talents. Every city
and town has young men eminent for abilities, particularly in the
law--ardent in character, eloquent, ambitious of distinction, but poor."
Such was the material that composed the leaders in the reign of terror
which speedily followed, and deluged Paris in blood.

The revolution in France, under the direction of Lafayette and his
associates, was thorough as far as it went, yet it was conservative. It
elicited the warmest sympathies of the American people, and Washington
was rejoiced at the promise thus made of happiness for the French
n