CHAPTER XXXII.
[1] A certain set of writers in this country at one time made La Fayette a subject for almost unmixed eulogy, with such earnestness that it may be worth while to reproduce the opinion expressed of him by the greatest of his contemporaries—a man as acute in his penetration into character as he was stainless in honor—the late Duke of Wellington. In the summer of 1815, he told Sir John Malcolm that "he had used La Fayette like a dog, as he merited. The old rascal," said he, "had made a false report of his mission to the Emperor of Russia, and I possessed complete evidence of his having done so. I told him, the moment he entered, of this fact; I did not even state it in the most delicate manner. I told him he must be sensible he had made a false report. He made no answer." And the duke bowed him out of the room with unconcealed scorn.—Kaye's Life of Sir J. Malcolm, ii., p. 109.
[2] Lamartine calls the Cordeliers the Club of Coups-de-main, as he calls the Jacobins the Club of Radical Theories.—Histoire des Girondins, xvi., p. 4.
[3] Dr. Moore, ii., p. 372; Chambrier, ii., p. 142.
[4] Mercy to Marie Antoinette, May 16th, Feuillet de Conches, ii., p. 60.
[5] Ibid., p. 140.
[6] A resolution, that is, to recognize the Constitution.
[7] Arneth, p. 188; Feuillet de Conches, ii, p. 186.
[8] The letter took several days to write, and was so interrupted that portions of it have three different dates affixed, August 16th, 21st, 26th. Mercy's letter, which incloses Burke's memorial, is dated the 20th, from London, so that the first portion of the queen's letter can not be regarded as an intentional answer to Burke's arguments, though it is so, as embodying all the reasons which influenced the queen.
[9] The manifesto which he left behind him when starting for Montmédy.
[10] The king.
[11] Feuillet de Conches, ii., p. 228; Arneth, p. 203.
[12] The Emperor Leopold died March 1st, 1792.
[13] The declaration of Pilnitz, drawn up by the emperor and the King of Prussia at a personal interview, August 21st, 1791, did not in express words denounce the new Constitution (which, in fact, they had not seen), but, after declaring "the situation of the King of France to be a matter of common interest to all European sovereigns," and expressing a hope that "the reality of that interest will be duly appreciated by the other powers whose assistance they invoke," they propose that those other powers "shall employ, in conjunction with their majesties, the most efficacious means, in order to enable the King of France to consolidate in the most perfect liberty the foundation of a monarchical government, conformable alike to the rights of sovereigns and the well-being of the French nation."— Alison, ch. ix., Section 90.
[14] Arneth, p. 208.
[15] Ibid, p. 210; Feuillet de Conches, ii., p. 325.
[16] Letter, date December 3d, 1791. Feuillet de Conches, iv., p. 278.
[17] Madame de Campan, ch xix.
[18] "Leurs touffes de cheveux noirs volaient dans la salle, eux seuls à cette époque avaient quitté l'usage de poudrer les cheveux."—Note on the Passage by Madame de Campan, ch xix.
[19] This first Assembly, as having framed the Constitution, is often called the Constituent Assembly; the second, that which was about to meet, being distinguished as the Legislative Assembly.