Thus the king pledged himself anew to support the Constitution. The Assembly received these asseverations in respectful silence, though it was no longer possible for them to give the king credit for sincerity. While the king was thus apologizing, Bouillé, who had fled to the protection of foreign armies, sent a menacing letter to the Assembly, in the name of the allied sovereigns of Europe, containing the following declarations:
"I know your means of defense," he wrote. "They are nothing; and your chastisement shall be an example to other people. Listen to the words of a man who regards you and your people but with indignation and horror. I know the roads. I will guide the foreign armies which will assail you. There shall not rest one stone upon another in Paris, if you dare to touch a hair of the head of my king."[287]
If Bouillé had wished to provoke the nation to throw down the head of the king as a gauntlet of defiance to the foes of the liberties of France, he could have done nothing more effectual than the utterance of such a menace. Both parties were now preparing vigorously for war. The emigrants at Coblentz, proclaiming that the king was a prisoner, and could no longer have any will of his own, declared monsieur the king's elder brother (Louis XVIII.) to be Regent of France. The most vigorous measures were adopted for accumulating troops and munitions of war for the great invasion.
FOOTNOTES:
[279] Marat, who edited "The Friend of the People," was, says Lamartine, "the fury of the Revolution. He had the clumsy tumblings of the brute in his thought and its gnashings of teeth in his style. His journal smelt of blood in every line."—History of the Girondists, vol. i., p. 115.
[280] The Constitution conferred upon the king and the Assembly the right of making peace and war. The king complained bitterly that he was no longer authorized alone to declare war and make peace.
[281] Mémoires de Madame de Campan, t. ii., p. 150.
[282] "Quiconque applaudira le roi sera bâttonné; quiconque l'insultera sera pendu."
[283] La Fayette's Memoirs.