the refractory spirit that began to
prevail among the National Guards, resigned the command of them, but
resumed it at the urgent solicitation of sixty battalions. The
democratic spirit became more and more insolent, and at length the king
and his family fled from Paris in disguise. Terror prevailed among all
classes. A crisis seemed impending. Political dissolution appeared at
hand. But the monarch was arrested at Varennes and taken back to Paris
under an escort of thirty thousand National Guards. The helpless king
assured the assembly that he had no intention of leaving France, but
wished to live quietly at a distance from the capital, until government
should in a degree be restored and the constitution settled. His
justification was that he was subjected to too many insults in the
capital, and that the personal safety of the queen was imperilled.

The populace were not satisfied. On the twentieth of July they met in
the Elysian Fields, with Robespierre at their head, and petitioned for
the dethronement of the king. Four thousand troops fired upon them and
killed several hundred. Then and there, in the exasperation of the
people and the appearance of Robespierre, the epoch of the Reign of
Terror dawned. Yet Lafayette and his friends held the factions in
check. The constitution was completed early in September, and was
accepted by the king, who solemnly swore that he would "employ all the
powers with which he was intrusted in maintaining the constitution
declared by the national assembly."

Proclamation of this act was made throughout the kingdom, and a grand
festival in commemoration of the event took place in the Elysian Fields.
One hundred thousand citizens danced on that occasion; festoons of
many-colored lamps were suspended between the trees; every half hour,
one hundred and thirty pieces of cannon thundered along the banks of the
Seine; and on a tree planted upon the site of the Bastile was a placard
inscribed--

"Here is the epoch of liberty;
We dance on the ruins of despotism;
The constitution is finished--
Long live patriotism!"

On the thirtieth, the king made a speech to the assembly, when the
president proclaimed: "The constituent assembly declares their mission
fulfilled and their sittings terminated." Then opened a new act in the
French revolution.

While this revolution was thus progressing, half-formed, half-understood
political maxims, that were floating upon the tide of social