om his rebellious subjects. Lafayette made a last effort
to save the throne, by appearing in person before the legislative
assembly, and demanding, in his own name and in that of the army, the
rights of constitutional royalty; but the Jacobins threatened him
with destruction, and Louis refused to be saved by a person whom he
considered as the author of his misfortunes, and Lafayette returned to
his troops with the loss of both influence and popularity. The
situation of Louis became daily and hourly more critical. Emboldened by
Lafayette's failure, the Girondists and Jacobins aimed at the monarch's
dethronement. The minds of men were inflamed by the harangues of
demagogues, and it was proclaimed that the country was in danger.
The contest of parties was fierce in the extreme; their madness being
heightened by the collection of formidable masses of hostile armies on
the frontiers. The approach of a crisis became evident on the 14th of
July, when a _fete_ was held in commemoration of the destruction of the
Bastille. On that day the king with the queen and dauphin went to the
Champ de Mars, and it was with difficulty that the soldiers saved
them from the rage of the rabble. The fermentation of the public
mind received a fearful acceleration, when it was discovered that the
Prussians and Austrians were advancing upon the capital, under the
command of the Duke of Brunswick. All France was put in motion thereby,
and thousands of hot-brained youth resorted to the capital to join
the already overwhelming rabble there. Thus supported the legislative
assembly determined on the deposition of the king, having first
appointed a commission to examine what grounds could justify such a
step, and whether such grounds existed. The blow was struck on the 10th
of August. On the preceding day the popular excitement was extreme, and
at midnight the tocsin for a scene of wild fury was sounded throughout
Paris. Obeying its horrid summons, the self-called patriots poured into
the fauxbourg Saint Antoine, the centre of the insurrection, from the
different rallying points; and by the dawn of day their columns, which
had been organized under the direction of the assembly, were ready
for the work of destruction. The palace of the Tuilleries was in vain
defended by some Swiss and royalist troops; after a great slaughter on
both sides it fell into the hands of the rabble. Before the combat took
place the king had fled to the legislative assembly, to pla