giving a
constitution to his country, to preserve the monarchy.

To appease the suspicions of the people that the king meditated a flight
from Paris, he declared that he would answer with his head for the
king's remaining. When, therefore, in June, 1791, the king and queen
made their blundering attempt to escape, La Fayette was immediately
suspected of having secretly aided it. Danton cried out at the Jacobin
club:

"We must have the person of the king, or the head of the commanding
general!"

It was in vain that, after the king's return, he ceased to pay him royal
honors; nothing could remove the suspicions of the people. Indeed, he
still openly advised the preservation of the monarchy, and, when a mob
demanded the suppression of the royal power, and threatened violence to
the National Guard, the general, after warning them to disperse, ordered
the troops to fire--an action which totally destroyed his popularity and
influence. Soon after, he resigned his commission and his seat in the
Assembly, and withdrew to one of his country seats.

He was not long allowed to remain in seclusion. The allied dynasties of
Europe, justly alarmed at the course of events in Paris, threatened the
new republic with war. La Fayette was appointed to command one of the
three armies gathered to defend the frontiers. While he was disciplining
his troops, and preparing to defend the country, he kept an anxious eye
upon Paris, and saw with ever-increasing alarm the prevalence of the
savage element in the national politics. In 1792 he had the boldness to
write a letter to the National Assembly, demanding the suppression of
the clubs, and the restoration of the king to the place and power
assigned him by the constitution.

Learning, soon after, the new outrages put upon the king, he suddenly
left his army and appeared before the bar of the Assembly, accompanied
by a single aide-de-camp; there he renewed his demands, amid the
applause of the moderate members; but a member of the opposite party
adroitly asked:

"Is the enemy conquered? Is the country delivered, since General La
Fayette is in Paris?"

"No," replied he, "the country is not delivered; the situation is
unchanged; and, nevertheless, the general of one of our armies is in
Paris."

After a stormy debate, the Assembly declared that he had violated the
constitution in making himself the organ of an army legally incapable of
deliberating, and had rendered himself amenable to the mi