e for alarm.
The audacity of the Jacobins daily increased; and in order to oppose
a barrier to it, the wiser of the national assembly had recourse to
royalty. Lafayette, Mirabeau, the two Lameths, and others, foreseeing
the danger in which the new constitution was placed from their
proceedings, acted thus, though it proved all to no purpose. In the
midst of his exertions to stem the coming ruin of the country, Mirabeau,
who was of all men in France the most able to effect such a work, died.
It was proposed in the assembly, on the 28th of February, that the tide
of emigration should be stopped, by entrusting the power of granting
passports to a committee of three persons. Against this iniquitous
measure Mirabeau loudly exclaimed; and his opposition to the measure
raised such a clamour against him, that, in his exertions to silence
their voices, he was so overcome, that he returned thence to a bed of
sickness, from which he never arose. His last words were--"After my
death the factions will soon tear the last shreds of the monarchy."

Before Mirabeau had closed his mortal career, he had counselled the king
to retire to Metz, beyond the power of the Parisians; and there, at the
head of an independent force, to treat with the nation, if he could not
with the assembly, and obtain a more equitable adjustment between the
rights of the crown and those of the people. Exposed to daily renewed
mortifications, Louis finally resolved upon flight; and a plan was
concerted with the Marquis de Bouille, who formed a camp of some
faithful regiments near Montmedy, for his escape thither. The king and
his family left the Tuilleries and the capital on the night of the 20th
of June, and arrived undisturbed as far as St. Menehauld; but here he
was recognized by the postmaster Drouet, who, by taking prompt measures,
had him arrested at Varennes. On the fifth day of his flight he was
conducted back to Paris as a prisoner, surrounded by an angry populace
and the national guards. He had left behind him, on his departure from
the Tuilleries, a declaration, in which he protested against the decrees
of the national assembly which he had sanctioned, and manifested his
intention of overthrowing the new order of things. Had he succeeded,
therefore, France was threatened with civil war and executors; and now
that he had failed, vengeance was to fall upon his own head. On his
return the national assembly suspended him provisionally from his
functions, an