[7] "Aucun nom propre, excepté le sien, n'était encore célèbre dans les six cents députés du Tiers."—Considérations sur la Révolution Française, pp. 186, 187
[8] In the first weeks of the session he told the Count de la Marck, "On ne sortira plus de là sans un gouvernement plus ou moins semblable à celui d'Angleterre."—Correspondance entre le comte de la Marck, i., p. 67.
[9] He employed M. Malouet, a very influential member of the Assembly, as his agent to open his views to Necker, saying to him, "Je m'adresse donc à votre probité. Vous êtes lié avec MM. Necker et de Montmorin, vous devez savoir ce qu'ils veulent, et s'ils ont un plan; si ce plan est raisonnable je le défendrai."—Correspondance de Mirabeau et La Marck, i., p. 219.
[10] There is some uncertainty about Mirabeau's motives and connections at this time. M. de Bacourt, the very diligent and judicious editor of that correspondence with De la Marck which has been already quoted, denies that Mirabeau ever received money from the Duc d'Orléans, or that he had any connection with his party or his views. The evidence on the other side seems much stronger, and some of the statements of the Comte de la Marck contained in that volume go to exculpate Mirabeau from all complicity in the attack on Versailles on the 9th of October, which seems established by abundant testimony.
CHAPTER XXIV.
[1] A letter of Madame Roland dated the 26th of this very month, July, 1789, declares that the people "are undone if the National Assembly does not proceed seriously and regularly to the trial of the illustrious heads [the king and queen], or if some generous Decius does not risk his life to take theirs."
[2] This story reached even distant province. On the 24th of July Arthur Young, being at Colmar, was assured at the table-d'hôte "That the queen had a plot, nearly on the point of execution, to blow up the National Assembly by a mine, and to march the army instantly to massacre all Paris." A French officer presumed but to doubt of the truth of it, and was immediately overpowered with numbers of tongues. A deputy had written it; they had seen the letter. And at Dijon, a week later, he tells us that "the current report at present, to which all possible credit is given, is that the queen has been convicted of a plot to poison the king and monsieur, and give the regency to the Count d'Artois, to set fire to Paris, and blow up the Palais Royal by a mine."—ARTHUR YOUNG'S Travels, etc., in France, pp. 143, 151.
[3] "Car dès ce moment on menaçait Versailles d'une incursion de gens armés de Paris."—MADAME DE CAMPAN, ch. xiv.
[4] Lacretelle, vol. vii., p. 105.
[5] She meant to say, "Messieurs, je viens remettre entre vos mains l'épouse et la famille de votre souverain. Ne souffrez pas que l'on désunisse sur la terre ce qui a été uni dans le ciel."—MADAME DE CAMPAN, ch. xiv.