party, and Louis was once more induced to listen to their plans for the
restoration of the former government. But this party was now a broken
reed, on which no hope of support could be placed. Events on the
frontiers conduced likewise to render the cause of Louis and the
Royalists more hopeless. In their first action the revolutionary
soldiers were defeated, and on the news of this reverse the populace
turned their rage against the monarch. Orders were issued by the
assembly for the disbanding of his guard, by which he was at all times
exposed to the irruptions of the rabble; and two decrees were likewise
issued in opposition to the royal will: one for the exile of the
refractory priests, and another for the establishment of a camp of
20,000 men under the walls of Paris. This was another crisis in the
reign of Louis, and had he made proper use of it he might have prevented
the supremacy of the populace. Aroused by a sense of danger from this
federal camp, thousands of the national guards and of the respectable
citizens petitioned against it; at the same time exhibiting an
inclination to rally round the throne. Dumouriez advised the monarch to
throw his whole influence into the scale of this party, and he was about
to act upon this advice, when he was prevented by a deep laid stratagem
of the Girondists. Being assured that he would resist the decree
relative to the nonjuring and seditious priesthood, they sent it to him
for the purpose of provoking his resistance, that the citizens might see
his lack of cordiality towards the revolution. This scheme succeeded.
Exasperated by the insults daily heaped upon him and his family, he
defied the Girondists, and yet at the same time neglected to rally round
him either the national guards or the citizens. The Girondist ministers
were now dismissed, and both their decrees were rejected, all which
tended to accelerate the fearful catastrophe which had been long
hovering over the throne of France, and the nation at large. The new
administration was chosen from among the Feuillants, but it possessed no
weight either with their own party or the people. The Feuillants joined
with the royalists to repress the growing spirit of insubordination, but
all their exertions were vain. Lafayette also wrote an energetic letter
to the assembly, denouncing the Jacobin faction, and demanding the
dissolution of the clubs, but he only stirred up the rage of the
populace against himself, without curbing