Lafayette, We Come! / The Story of How a Young Frenchman Fought for Liberty in America and How America Now Fights for Liberty in France

by Rupert Sargent Holland

His visit caused great excitement. He went to the Assembly and made a stirring speech in which he said that the violence committed at the Tuileries had roused the indignation of all good citizens. His words were cheered by the more sober deputies, but the Jacobins protested loudly. One of the latter asked how it happened that General Lafayette was allowed to leave his army to come and lecture the Assembly on its duties. The General’s speech had some influence in restoring order, but the power of the Jacobins was steadily increasing.

Lafayette then went to the Tuileries, where he saw the royal family. Louis was ready to receive any assurance of help that the General could give him, for the King saw now that his only reliance lay in the constitution he had signed, and felt that might prove a slight support. Marie Antoinette, however, refused to forgive Lafayette for the part he had taken in the early days of revolution, and would have no aid at his hands.

When he left the Tuileries some of his former National Guards followed his carriage with shouts of “Vive Lafayette! Down with the Jacobins!” and planted a liberty pole before his house. This gave Lafayette the idea of appealing to the whole force of the National Guard and urging them to stand by the constitution. He asked permission to speak to them at a review the next day, but the mayor, fearing Lafayette’s influence, countermanded the review. Then the General held meetings at his house and did all he could to persuade Guards and citizens to oppose the Jacobins, who, if they had their way, would, in his opinion, ruin the country.

At the end of June he returned to the army. Daily he heard reports of the growing power of his enemies, the Jacobins. Then he resolved to make one more attempt to save the King and the constitution. He received orders to march his troops by a town called La Capelle, which was about twenty miles from Compiègne, one of the King’s country residences. His plan was that Louis XVI. should go to the Assembly and declare his intention of passing a few days at Compiègne; there Lafayette’s army would meet him, and the King would proclaim that he was ready to send his troops against the enemies of France who had gathered on the frontiers and should reaffirm his loyalty to the constitution. The General thought that if the King would do this it would restore the confidence of the people in their sovereign.

But neither the King nor the nobles who were with him at the Tuileries were attracted by this plan, which meant that Louis would openly declare his hostility toward those emigrant nobles who had gathered on the borders. And when the Jacobins learned that Lafayette had been communicating secretly with the King they used this news as fresh fuel for their fire. So the result of the scheme was only to add to the currents of suspicion and intrigue that were involving Paris in the gathering storm.

The power of the Assembly grew weaker; its authority was more and more openly thwarted; the deputies wanted to stand by the constitution, but it appeared that the country did not care to live under its laws. The government of Paris was now entirely under the control of the Jacobins. They filled the ranks of the National Guards with ruffians in their pay. On July fourteenth the King reviewed soldiers who were secretly ready to tear the crown from his head and was forced to listen to bitter taunts and jibes.

Then, at the end of July, the allied armies of Austria and Prussia, accompanied by a great many French noblemen, crossed the frontier and began their heralded invasion. The general in command, the Duke of Brunswick, issued a proclamation calling on the people of Paris to submit to their king, and threatening all sorts of dire things if they persisted in their rebellion. The proclamation acted like tinder to powder. The invasion united all parties for the moment. If the Duke of Brunswick succeeded, no man who had taken part in the Revolution could think his life or property secure, and France would return to the old feudal despotism, made worse by its dependence on foreign armies.

The people of Paris and of France demanded immediate and vigorous action; the Assembly could not lead them, and the Jacobins seized their chance. Danton and his fellows addressed the crowds in the streets and told them that France would not be safe until the monarchy and the aristocracy had been exterminated. The people heard and believed, and by August first were ready to strike down any men their leaders pointed out to them.

Danton and the Jacobins made their plans rapidly. They filled the floor and the galleries of the Assembly with men whose violent threats kept the deputies constantly in fear of physical force. They taught the people to hate all those who defended the constitution, and chief among the latter Lafayette, whom the Jacobins feared more than any other man in France. So great was their fury against him that Gouverneur Morris wrote to Jefferson at the beginning of August, “I verily believe that if M. de Lafayette were to appear just now in Paris unattended by his army, he would be torn in pieces.”

On August tenth the mob, armed with pikes, surrounded the Tuileries. The King looked out on a crowd made up of the most vicious elements of the city. He tried to urge the National Guards to protect him, but they were demoralized by the shouts of the throngs. Finally he decided to take refuge with the National Assembly, and with the Queen and their children succeeded in reaching the Assembly chamber.