It is only necessary, you will
perceive, to employ an agent, or two, to cast a few stones from a crowd,
to place every collection of citizens at the mercy of an armed force, on
this doctrine. A soldier has the right of a citizen to defend himself
beyond dispute, against the man who assails him; but a citizen who is
assailed from a crowd has no right to discharge a pistol into that
crowd, by way of defending himself. But this is of a piece with most of
the logic of the friends of exclusion. Their cause is bad, and their
reasoning is necessarily bad also.

From the Pont Royal I proceeded to the Pont Neuf, where the collection
of people was still more numerous, every eye being fastened on the quays
in the direction of the Place de la Bastille, near which the disturbance
had commenced. Nothing, however, was visible, though, once or twice, we
heard a scattering fire of musketry. I waited here an hour, but nothing
farther was heard, and, according to promise, I returned to the hotel,
to repeat the little I had seen and gathered. In passing, I observed
that the number of National Guards at the Pont Royal had increased to
about a hundred.

After quieting the apprehensions of my family, I proceeded to quiet
those of a lady of my acquaintance, who was nearly alone in her
lodgings. I found her filled with apprehensions, and firmly believing
that the present government was to be overturned. Among other things,
she told me that the populace had drawn General Lafayette, in triumph,
to his own house, and that, previously to the commencement of the
conflict, he had been presented with a _bonnet rouge_, which he had put
upon his head. The _bonnet rouge_, you will understand, with all
Frenchmen is a symbol of extreme Jacobinism, and of the reign of terror.
I laughed at her fears, and endeavoured to convince her that the idle
tale about General Lafayette could not be true. So far from wishing to
rule by terror, it was his misfortune not to resort to the measures of
caution that were absolutely necessary to maintain his own legal
ascendancy, whenever he got into power. He was an enthusiast for
liberty, and acted on the principle that others were as well disposed
and as honest as himself. But to all this she turned a deaf ear, for,
though an amiable and a sensible woman, she had been educated in the
prejudices of a caste, being the daughter and sister of peers of France.

I found the tale about General Lafayette quite rife, on going agai