[284] Robespierre was opposed to this act of special respect, and exclaimed,
"What means this obsequious exception? Do you fear to degrade royalty by handing over the king and queen to ordinary tribunals? A citizen, a citoyenne, any man, any dignity, however elevated, can never be degraded by the law."
[285] Thiers, vol. i., p. 185.
[286] Even Lamartine says, "The king addressed to the commissioners of the Assembly a reply, the bad faith of which called for the smile rather than the indulgence of his enemies."—Lamartine's Hist. of the Girondists, vol. i., p. 105.
"The Assembly accepted the declaration of the king, although it was evident to them that the king did not intend merely to go to Montmedy, where no preparations had been made to receive him, but that he intended to go to the magnificent monastery of Orval, three leagues beyond the frontier, in Luxembourg, then occupied by the Austrians. Troops, commanded by the Prince of Condé, were there awaiting his arrival. The flight of the king was the signal for the loyalist officers to desert. All those of a regiment in garrison at Dunkirk fled to the Austrians, carrying with them the banners of the regiment."—Hist. de la Rev. Française, par Villiaumé.
COMMOTION IN PARIS.
The Remains of Voltaire removed to the Pantheon.—Decision of the Assembly on the Flight of the King.—Thomas Paine.—Views of the Constitutional Monarchists.—Message from La Fayette to the King of Austria.—The Jacobins summon the Populace to the Field of Mars.—Mandate of the Jacobins.—The Crowd on the Field of Mars dispersed by the Military.—Completion of the Constitution.—Remarkable Conversation of Napoleon.—The King formally accepts the Constitution.—Great, but transient, Popularity of the Royal Family.
In the midst of these stormy scenes the Assembly voted to remove the remains of Voltaire, which had slumbered for thirteen years in the obscure abbey of Scellières in Champagne, to the Pantheon in Paris. On the 11th of July his coffin was received with great pomp at the barriers, and conducted to a pedestal on the ancient site of the Bastille, constructed from one of the foundation-stones of the fortress. Voltaire had once been imprisoned in that gloomy citadel. Upon the pedestal which supported the coffin were engraved the words,