replied
the young man, quietly and firmly. "As you know, all my sympathies are
with the King and Queen, and in whatsoever way I can serve their
Majesties I am ready here and now to pledge myself to that service."

Indeed, the enterprise suited Calvert's temper well. Any excitement or
danger was welcome to him just then. His hopes of seeing military
service having been frustrated, he was glad to find some other scheme at
hand which promised to divert his melancholy thoughts from himself.

"'Tis like you to speak so, boy," said Mr. Morris, grasping Calvert
warmly by the hand. "I knew you would not fail me. And, before God, how
could I fail them?" he burst out, rising in agitation and stumping
about the room. "I have done wrong in engaging in the remotest way in
this affair, in urging you to become a party to it, but my humanity
forbids me to withhold whatever of aid I can render. Was ever a monarch
so cruelly beset, so bereft of wise counsellors, of trusty friends? He
knows not where to look for help, nor which way to turn. He suspects
every adviser of treachery, of self-interest, of veniality, and he has
reason to do so. The wisest, in his desperate position, would scarce
know how to bear himself, and what can we expect of so narrow an
intellect, so vacillating and timid a nature? I pity him profoundly, but
I also despise him, for there is a want of metal in him which will ever
prevent him from being truly royal."

"'Tis doubly difficult to help those who will not help themselves. Do
you think it is really possible to save his Majesty?" asked Calvert,
doubtfully.

"We can but make one more desperate effort, and I confess that I rely
more on the firmness of the Queen for its success than I do on the
King," said Mr. Morris. "But I will tell you of the plan and you can
judge for yourself of its feasibility."

The scheme agreed upon between Mr. Morris and Lafayette in that
interview at Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld's, and which Mr. Morris
proceeded to detail to Calvert, was briefly this: It being evident that
as long as the King remained in Paris he was a virtual prisoner and
subject to the capricious commands of the Assembly, his ministers, and
the mobs, daily increasing in numbers and lawlessness, it seemed to
both Mr. Morris and Lafayette that the thing of first importance was to
effect the King's escape from the capital. To accomplish this it was
Lafayette's suggestion that the King should go to the Assembly when
a