"Do not believe that I can be bullied; my mind is made up."
Dumouriez replied, asking for an audience, and requested his successor to be sought for. It was clear that the anti-revolutionist party felt strong.
Indeed, they were reckoning on the following forces:
The Constitutional Guards, six thousand strong, disbanded, but ready to fly to arms at the first call; seven or eight thousand Knights of the Order of St. Louis, whose red ribbon was the rallying token; three battalions of Switzers, sixteen hundred men, picked soldiers, unshaken as the old Helvetic rocks.
Better than all, Lafayette had written: "Persist, sire; fortified with the authority the National Assembly has delegated to you, you will find all good citizens on your side!"
The plan was to gather all the forces at a given signal, seize the cannon of each section of Paris, shut up the Jacobin's Club-house and the Assembly, add all the Royalists in the National Guard, say, a contingent of fifteen thousand men, and wait for Lafayette, who might march up in three days.
The misfortune was that the queen would not hear of Lafayette. Lafayette was merely the Revolution moderated, and might prolong it and lead to a republic like that he had brought round in America; while the Jacobins' outrageous rule would sicken the people and could not endure.
Oh, had Charny been at hand! But it was not even known where he was; and were it known, it would be too low an abasement for the woman, if not the queen, to have recourse to him.
The night passed tumultuously at the palace, where they had the means of defense and attack, but not a hand strong enough to grasp and hurl them.
Dumouriez and his colleagues came to resign. They affirmed they were willing to die for the king, but to do this for the clergy would only precipitate the downfall of the monarchy.