[170] The ambassador at Paris.
[171] On June 26, 1791, a plan was presented to the National Assembly for the prosecution of the king and of those who assisted him in his escape. After a warm debate, commissioners were nominated to inquire into the events of June 20-21, and three commissioners were separately appointed to take the signed declarations of the king and queen. The proposal to distinguish the case of the king and queen from that of inferior persons was unsuccessfully opposed by Robespierre.
[172] The three Gardes du Corps, brought back on the top of the royal carriage, bound with ropes, were MM. de Valery, de Moustier, and de Malden. The two former published accounts of the flight to Varennes.
[173] François Claude Aymour, Marquis de Bouillé (1739-1800), born at the Château de Cluzel in Auvergne, died at London in 1800. He had distinguished himself both in the Seven Years' War and in the American War of Independence. In 1790 he became governor of the provinces of les Trois Évêchés, Alsace, Lorraine, and Franche Comté, and commander-in-chief of the army of the Meuse, Sarre-et-Moselle, with his head-quarters at Metz. His letter to the National Assembly was written, as he states, to divert the wrath of the Assembly from the king to himself. In it he assumed the whole responsibility for the affair. His letter, says M. Feuillet de Conches (Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette et Madame Elisabeth, vol. iv. pp. 469-471), produced a deep impression throughout Europe. Three autograph letters, addressed by Louis XVI., and the Kings of Sweden and Prussia, to the marquis, are there quoted. After the arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes he fled to Coblentz, summoning officers and men to join him. He served in the army of the Prince of Condé in 1791, and in that of the Duke of York in 1793. He afterwards retired to England, where his Mémoires sur la Révolution were published in 1797.
[174] Elizabeth Vassall, a West Indian heiress, married, May 27, 1786, Sir Godfrey Webster, Bart., of Battle Abbey, Sussex. She was divorced from her husband on July 3, 1797, and, three days afterwards, married the third Lord Holland.
[175] François Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1803), novelist, poet, and soldier, was at this time editor of the Journal des amis de la Constitution. He helped Brissot to draw up the petition for the deposition of Louis XVI., July 17, 1791.
[176] Voltaire died at Paris in May, 1778. His body, lest burial should be refused, was carried to the Abbey of Scellières. Thence the remains were brought, Sunday, July 10, 1791, to the ruins of the Bastille, and placed the next day in the Pantheon.
[177] On Wednesday, July 13, 1791, the report of the seven committees on the affairs of the king was read before the National Assembly, detailing the circumstances of the king's escape, and stating the manner in which, by the laws of the Constitution, the Assembly should conduct itself towards the king. Practically, the report was in favour of the inviolability of the king's person. In this sense it was adopted on July 15, 1791, and against it was held the meeting of the Champs de Mars on July 17.
[178] J. Pierre Brissot (de Warville) (1754-93) was at this time a supporter of the Duc d'Orléans. He afterwards led the Brissotins against the Montagnards, and was guillotined with the Girondists in October, 1793.
[179] On the Island of St. Pierre, in the Lake of Bienne, J. J. Rousseau lived in 1765.