[142] Some authorities say the 9th.
[143] France and its Revolutions, by George Long, Esq., vol. i., p. 25.
[144] It is said that this famous address to the king was composed by M. Dumont, the leading ideas having been communicated to him by Mirabeau. A few extracts will give one an idea of the spirit of the piece.
"In the emotions of your own heart, sire, we look for the true safety of the French. When troops advance from every quarter, when camps are forming around us, when the capital is besieged, we ask one another with astonishment, 'Hath the king distrusted the fidelity of his people? What mean these menacing preparations? Where are the enemies of the state and of the king that are to be subdued?'
"The danger, sire, is urgent, is universal, is beyond all the calculations of human prudence.
"The danger is for the provinces. Should they once be alarmed for our liberty we should no longer have it in our power to restrain their impetuosity.
"The danger is for the capital. With what sensations will the people, in their state of indigence, and tortured with the keenest anguish, see the relics of its subsistence disputed for by a throng of threatening soldiers?
"The danger is for the troops. They may forget that the ceremony of enlisting made them soldiers, and recollect that nature made them men.
"The danger, sire, is yet more terrible. And judge of its extent by the alarms which bring us before you. Mighty revolutions have arisen from causes far less striking.
"Sire, we conjure you, in the name of our country, in the name of your own happiness, and your own glory, to send back your soldiers to the posts from which your counselors have drawn them. Send back that artillery," etc.