very

such spectators at the very time. "The king," says Weber (he was foster-brother of the queen)," threw open the window, and from the balcony implored the people to spare the lives of these his unfortunate servants. Those of them who had taken refuge near the person of the king, threw their bandoleers to the people, and cried, " Vive la nation!" " Vive le roi!" was immediately echoed from all quarters; and the body guards, saw themselves on a sudden embraced and caressed by the tigers who had been disputing in what manner they were to be murdered. La Fayette was able to rouse some proper feelings in the old French guards, but was obliged to depend on them, and more particularly on his own officers. The common soldiers of the national guards, the militia of Paris, would not fire on their fellow citizens, as they called them, and these fellow citizens happened now to be the dreadful fiends, who were ready to pillage and murder. Weber, who gives a very interesting account of these transactions (he was at Versailles at the time), cannot forgive La Fayette for his mistaken confidence, at least for going to rest any where but in the antechamber of the king; others excuse him. La Fayette and his officers, and the grenadiers of the old guards, having now allayed the murderous fury of the multitude, and saved the body guards, the king was obliged to intimate his willingness to go to Paris, and he came at last to the balcony to reiterate his assurances to this effect. The joy of the populace knew no bounds, but "the queen," "the queen," became every where the cry; and she was given to understand that it was necessary for her to come forward: she advanced into the balcony immediately, leading the dauphin in one hand, and the young princess in the other. "No children," was then the cry; "no children!" An ominous sound, as if she alone was to be made the victim. The queen, with a movement of her hand, returned them both back to the inside of the apartment, and with a calm countenance of repose and dignity, her hands folded upon her bosom, stood alone-unprotected indeed, and alone; like one, that thought death might at the moment await her, and that did not mean to brave it; but still like one that was a queen, and the daughter of Maria Theresa, and did not fear it.-The multitude gazed for a moment, and the elevated grandeur of a mind, that corre

sponded with its high station of dignity and rule, awed their rude passions into obedience, and prevailed. The admiration was universal, and the clapping of hands and the shouts of "Vive la reine" made the courts of the palace re-echo to her applause; an applause, which, having been won by her magnanimity, she had a right to enjoy, and which it is to be hoped, for one short passing moment, she did enjoy-the short and passing moment of conscious exultation and triumph, to be set in contrast with all the agonies she had lately endured, and was yet to suffer.

Her great danger and her very imminent danger (as from previous circumstances that had occurred she well knew) was the possibility that she might be fired at by some of the many assassins that were mixed with the mob below; her being ordered to put away the children seemed to intimate something of this kind. Pieces were levelled at her. Weber says, he saw one, and that the man who was next the ruffian struck the barrel down, and almost massacred him on the spot; others say that many were levelled. "Finding," says Weber, "that all resistance was thought vain, and that the royal family must at all events go to Paris, my anxiety," says he, "became extreme. I equipped myself in the uniform of a staff-officer, got a horse from the royal stables, and placed myself as near as possible to the carriage of the king.

“First went the main body of the Parisians," he continues, "each soldier with a loaf on his bayonet; then came the poissardes, drunk with fury, exultation, and wine, astride on the canons, mounted on the horses of the body guards, surrounded by the brigands and workmen that had come from Paris; waggons of flour and grain formed a convoy, followed by the grenadiers, who still kept under their protection the body guards, whose lives had been purchased by the king; these captives were led, one by one, disarmed, bare-headed, and on foot, some of them with the grenadier caps instead of their hats; the dragoons, the soldiers of the regiment of Flanders, and the hundred Swiss guards then surrounded and followed the carriage of the king, where were seated his majesty, the royal family, and the governess. It would be difficult to describe," says Weber, "the confusion and tediousness of a procession like this, which lasted six hours: it began

with a general discharge of musketry at Versailles; halts were made from time to time to give opportunity for new salutes the poissardes on these occasions descended from the cannons and the horses, to dance around the carriage of the king, and to sing their songs. But the horror," says he, "of this dreadful day, cold and rainy as it was; this infamous soldiery, wading in the mud; these harpies, these monsters in human form; and in the middle of his captive guards a monarch dragged along thus ignominiously with his family, all together, formed a spectacle so terrible, a mixture of every possible affliction and shame so piteous, that my imagination cannot to this hour recall the remembrance without an almost instant oversetting and annihilation of my faculties. No idea can be formed," he continues, "of all that was said and uttered by the populace as we went along. For three parts of the whole time I kept myself at the right door of the carriage; at any discharge of the musketry, at any explosion of the cries and vociferations of the populace, I cast a look into the carriage, and their majesties had the goodness to express to me, by their gestures, and their eyes cast up to heaven, their perfect astonishment at the state at which it had been possible to make the people at last arrive."

The remainder of the history is well known. The king and the royal family came to Paris; they were received by the mayor, by Bailly, the man of science, who called the day of their arrival a beautiful day, a strange and most unfortunate expression, which Bailly was not a man to have used in its more obvious and offensive sense. It was an expression that neve rwas or could be forgotten, apparently so completely at variance with every sentiment and reflection that could at the time, and on the spot, be entertained by any wise and good man like M. Bailly, who might wish, indeed, for freedom and the fall of tyranny, but who surely could not see a tyrant in Louis, or freedom in excesses like these.

The king was then transferred to the Tuilleries, and the palace of his ancestors became his prison.

LECTURE XX.

LALLY TOLLENDAL. MOUNIER. BURKE.

FOX. DARWIN. COWPER. MRS. BARBAULD. SIR JAMES

MACKINTOSH.

THE

HE violent party must now be considered as having entirely succeeded. They had got possession of the king and the royal family, and they had lodged them in the Tuilleries.

The National Assembly was next transferred to Paris, and all the real power was thus placed within the inspection and control of the tumultuous inhabitants of the metropolis.

The Assembly, it might have been at first sight hoped, would still have been able to maintain its consequence, and protect the king, by the assistance of La Fayette and the national guards, and by the influence of its own weight and character.

But all constituted authority had just been found inadequate to the preservation of order. Nothing but the most lawless fury had of late prevailed, and no friend of the Revolution or of mankind, who had actually witnessed these scenes, could have been otherwise than deeply afflicted at the past, and surely, as it might have been expected, somewhat appalled at the prospect of the future.

Yet these do not appear to have been exactly the sentiments generally felt in and out of Paris (such was the enthusiasm of the season), felt, I mean, among the more ardent friends of liberty.

Excesses and enormities, it was thought, could not but be expected from a populace just broken loose from oppression; they were of a temporary nature, it was held, and such excesses and enormities now, and at every period of the Revolution, were always considered as in themselves a proof

how bad had been the system of government under which the people of this great country had formerly lived; a reflection that afforded a general answer, of a most convenient nature, to every complaint that could be uttered, or accusation that could be made.

But very different was the impression which these and other events had made on the more reasonable friends of liberty; on the more moderate part of the Assembly itself; on Mounier and his associates; on those who wished for a limited monarchy and a free constitution; free, at least, after the measure and the manner of the constitution established in England.

Very different were the feelings of such men; and Mounier and his friends, immediately after these outrages at Versailles on the 5th and 6th of October, and before the Assembly had left the place, held a meeting, and considered the situation of their country and their own.

Nothing could have been more deplorable than must have appeared to patriots like these, the circumstances of both; themselves defeated and disappointed in their dearest hopes, without the chance of being further useful; their country abandoned to the caprices of a giddy and bloody populace; and their king, whom they had not meant thus to assist and honour, left to await his fate, in the midst of his helpless family, and to stand the result of a revolution which they had themselves so contributed to set first in motion, and which it was now no longer in their power to direct or to control.

The consciousness of virtuous intention must support men in situations like these: their reflections, however they may fail, can never be like those of men who are disappointed in enterprises of guilt; for they have at least meant well, and the Almighty Master has not left afflicted virtue without its appropriate support-but still what is suffered is severe. There is nothing of joy or triumph, there is little of cheerfulness in what passes in the virtuous mind on these occasions; and we are thus taught the duty of being prudent, if possible, as well as benevolent; that laudable intentions are not of themselves sufficient; that we are not to rest satisfied with them; that good must not only be attempted, but accomplished.

The mortification, the indignant feelings, the agonies of men of high sensibility in great conjunctures of affairs like