at chiefly concerned the nobles, therefore, was not to
evolve a masterly campaign, but to propound the fundamental principles
of monarchy, and to denounce an awful retribution on insurgents.

By the middle of July, 1792, the Prussians were ready to march, and
emperors, kings, and generals were meditating manifestoes. Louis sent
the journalist Mallet du Pan to the Duke of Brunswick, the
commander-in-chief, to assist him in his task. On July 24, and on August
4, 1792, the King of Prussia laid down the law of caste as emphatically
as had the Parliament of Paris some twenty years before. On July 25, the
Duke of Brunswick pronounced the doom of the conquered. I come, said the
King of Prussia, to prevent the incurable evils which will result to
France, to Europe and to all mankind from the spread of the spirit of
insubordination, and to this end I shall establish the monarchical power
upon a stable basis. For, he continued in the later proclamation, "the
supreme authority in France being never ceasing and indivisible, the
King could neither be deprived nor voluntarily divest himself of any of
the prerogatives of royalty, because he is obliged to transmit them
entire with his own crown to his successors."

The Duke of Brunswick's proclamation contained some clauses written
expressly for him by Mallet du Pan, and by Limon the Royalist.

If the Palace of the Tuileries be forced, if the least violence be
offered to their Majesties, if they are not immediately set at liberty,
then will the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Germany inflict "on
those who shall deserve it the most exemplary and ever-memorable
avenging punishments."

These proclamations reached Paris on July 28, and simultaneously the
notorious Fersen wrote the Queen of France, "You have the manifesto, and
you should be content." The court actually believed that, having
insulted and betrayed Lafayette and all that body of conservative
opinion which might have steadied the social equilibrium, they could
rely on the fidelity of regiments filled with men against whom the
emigrants and their allies, the Prussians, had just denounced an
agonizing death, such as Bouille's soldiers had undergone, together with
the destruction of their homes.

All the world knows what followed. The Royalists had been gathering a
garrison for the Tuileries ever since Lafayette's visit, in anticipation
of a trial of strength with the Revolutionists. They had brought thither
the Swiss guar