Paris and Louis were too vacillating and unstable to allow any permanent peace, or permit France to enjoy any prolonged prosperity. Before the 1st of August the solemn oath which had been taken on the Champ de Mars was forgotten by both king and people. The same contentions were again fanning the flames of a still more ominous conflagration.
On the 26th of August, 1790, La Fayette thus writes to General Washington:—
“We are disturbed with revolts among the regiments; and, as I am constantly attacked on both sides by the aristocratic and the factious parties, I do not know to which of the two we owe these insurrections. Our safeguard against them is the National Guard. There are more than a million of armed citizens, among them patriotic legions, and my influence with them is as great as if I had accepted the chief command. I have lately lost some of my favor with the mob, and displeased the frantic lovers of licentiousness, as I am bent on establishing a legal subordination. But the nation at large is very thankful to me for it. It is not out of the heads of aristocrats to make a counter-revolution. Nay, they do what they can with all the crowned heads of Europe, who hate us. But I think their plans will either be abandoned or unsuccessful. I am rather more concerned at a division that rages in the popular party. The club of the Jacobins and that of ’89, as it is called, have divided the friends of liberty, who accuse each other; the Jacobins being taxed with a disorderly extravagance, and ’89 with a tincture of ministerialism and ambition. I am endeavoring to bring about a reconciliation.”
“To defend the king and the constitution” was La Fayette’s unswerving purpose. There had been a time when he had hoped that France might become a republic like the United States; but as he carefully watched successive events he became convinced that the nation was not prepared for such a change, and henceforth he decided in favor of a constitutional and limited monarchy; and notwithstanding the king’s exasperating blindness, in regarding La Fayette as his enemy rather than his defender, and the queen’s open enmity, La Fayette enacted faithfully and consistently the double and difficult rôle of upholding the rights of royalty at the same time that he was defending the sacred rights of the people.
Madame Campan says in her “Memoirs of Marie Antoinette”:—
“The queen gave frequent audiences to M. de La Fayette. One day, when he was in her inner closet, his aides-de-camp, who waited for him, were walking up and down the great room where the persons in attendance remained. Some imprudent young women were thoughtless enough to say, with the intention of being overheard by those officers, that it was very alarming to see the queen alone with a rebel and a brigand. I was hurt at such indiscretion, which always produced bad effects, and I imposed silence on them. One of them persisted in the appellation brigand. I told her that, as to rebel, M. de La Fayette well deserved the name, but that the title of leader of a party was given by history to every man commanding forty thousand men, a capital, and forty leagues of country; that kings had frequently treated with such leaders, and if it was convenient to the queen to do the same, it remained only for us to be silent and respect her actions. On the morrow the queen, with a serious air, but with the greatest kindness, asked what I had said respecting M. de La Fayette on the preceding day, adding that she had been assured I had enjoined her women silence, because they did not like him, and that I had taken his part. I repeated to the Queen what had passed, word for word. She condescended to tell me that I had done perfectly right.”
As La Fayette was the commander of the National Guard, and as Louis and Marie Antoinette had been brought forcibly to Paris, and were in some sense under the surveillance of La Fayette and his Guard, they were unable to perceive that he was their best friend, and they at length determined to fly from their enforced restraint in Paris. The plan was made and executed.
“And so the royalty of France is actually fled? This precious night, the shortest of the year, it flies and drives! But in Paris, at six in the morning, when some patriot deputy, warned by a billet, awoke La Fayette and they went to the Tuileries? Imagination may paint, but words cannot, the surprise of La Fayette, or with what bewilderment helpless Gouvion rolled glassy Argus’ eyes, discerning now that his false chambermaid had told true!”
A new danger now assailed La Fayette. The infuriated mob, apprised that the king had escaped, laid the blame upon his keeper. “Down with La Fayette!” “Away with the traitor!” are the cries which meet his ear, as he boldly faces the vast throngs of excited Parisians who crowd around the Hôtel de Ville. With folded arms and calm dignity, he stood before the riotous mob. With unflinching courage he surveyed that surging mass in silence for a moment; then, when he spoke, it was neither to excuse nor defend himself. His thoughts, as ever, were not for himself; only for the interests of the people. Casting his piercing glance over the multitude he exclaimed, in clarion tones, in which there was no quavering of fear or hesitation in their clear ring:—
“If you call this event a misfortune, what name would you give to a counter-revolution, which would deprive you of your liberty?”