That a mine so formidable should have exploded without effect, gave some momentary advantages to the party at whose safety it was aimed. Men of worth exclaimed against the infamy of such a gratuitous insult to the crown, while it was still called a Constitutional authority. Men of substance dreaded the recurrence of such acts of revolutionary violence, and the commencement of riots, which were likely to end in pillage. Petitions were presented to the Assembly, covered with the names of thousands, praying that the leaders of the insurgents should be brought to punishment; while the King demanded, in a tone which seemed to appeal to France and to Europe, some satisfaction for his insulted dignity, the violation of his palace, and the danger of his person.[220] But La Fayette, at the head of an army whose affections he was supposed to possess, was the most formidable intercessor. He had, two or three days before, [June 16,] transmitted to the Assembly a letter, or rather a remonstrance,[221] in which, speaking in the name of the army, as well as his own, he expressed the highest dissatisfaction with the recent events at Paris, complaining of the various acts of violation of the constitution, and the personal disrespect offered to the King. This letter of itself had been accounted an enormous offence, both by the Jacobins and the Girondists; but the tumult of the 20th of June roused the general to bolder acts of intercession.
LA FAYETTE ARRIVES AT PARIS.
On the 28th of the same month of June, all parties heard with as much interest as anxiety, that General La Fayette was in Paris. He came, indeed, only with a part of his staff. Had he brought with him a moderate body of troops upon whom he could have absolutely depended, his presence so supported, in addition to his influence in Paris, would have settled the point at issue. But the general might hesitate to diminish the French army then in front of the enemy, and by doing so to take on himself the responsibility of what might happen in his absence; or, as it appeared from subsequent events, he may not have dared to repose the necessary confidence in any corps of his army, so completely had they been imbued with the revolutionary spirit. Still his arrival, thus slightly attended, indicated a confidence in his own resources, which was calculated to strike the opposite party with anxious apprehension.
He appeared at the bar of the Assembly, and addressed the members in a strain of decision, which had not been lately heard on the part of those who pleaded the royal cause in that place. He denounced the authors of the violence committed on the 20th of June, declared that several corps of his army had addressed him, and that he came to express their horror, as well as his own, at the rapid progress of faction; and to demand that such measures should be taken as to ensure the defenders of France, that while they were shedding their blood on the frontiers, the Constitution, for which they combated, should not be destroyed by traitors in the interior. This speech, delivered by a man of great courage and redoubted influence, had considerable effect. The Girondists, indeed, proposed to inquire, whether La Fayette had permission from the minister of war to leave the command of his army; and sneeringly affirmed, that the Austrians must needs have retreated from the frontier, since the general of the French army had returned to Paris: but a considerable majority preferred the motion of the Constitutionalist Ramond, who, eulogizing La Fayette as the eldest son of liberty, proposed an inquiry into the causes and object of those factious proceedings of which he had complained.[222]
Thus happily commenced La Fayette's daring enterprise; but those by whom he expected to be supported did not rally around him. To disperse the Jacobin club was probably his object, but no sufficient force gathered about him to encourage the attempt. He ordered for the next day a general review of the national guards, in hopes, doubtless, that they would have recognised the voice which they had obeyed with such unanimity of submission; but this civic force was by no means in the state in which he had left them at his departure. The several corps of grenadiers, which were chiefly drawn from the more opulent classes, had been, under pretence of the general principle of equality, melted down and united with those composed of men of an inferior description, and who had a more decided revolutionary tendency. Many officers, devoted to La Fayette and the Constitution, had been superseded; and the service was, by studied contumely and ill usage, rendered disgusting to those who avowed the same sentiments, or displayed any remaining attachment to the sovereign. By such means Pétion, the mayor of Paris, had now authority enough with the civic army to prevent the review from taking place. A few grenadiers of different sections did indeed muster, but their number was so small that they dispersed in haste and alarm.
The Girondists and Jacobins, closely united at this crisis, began to take heart, yet dared not on their part venture to arrest the general. Meantime La Fayette saw no other means of saving the King than to propose his anew attempting an escape from Paris, which he offered to further by every means in his power. The plan was discussed, but dismissed in consequence of the Queen's prejudices against La Fayette, whom, not unnaturally, (though as far as regarded intention certainly unjustly,) she looked upon as the original author of the King's misfortunes.[223] After two days lingering in Paris, La Fayette found it necessary to return to the army which he commanded, and leave the King to his fate.[224]
La Fayette's conduct on this occasion may always be opposed to any aspersions thrown on his character at the commencement of the Revolution; for, unquestionably, in June 1792, he exposed his own life to the most imminent danger, in order to protect that of the King, and the existence of royalty. Yet he must himself have felt a lesson, which his fate may teach to others; how perilous, namely, it is, to set the example of violent and revolutionary courses, and what dangerous precedents such rashness may afford to those who use similar means for carrying events to still further extremities. The march to Versailles, 6th October, 1789, in which La Fayette to a certain degree co-operated, and of which he reaped all the immediate advantage, had been the means of placing Louis in that precarious situation from which he was now so generously anxious to free him. It was no less La Fayette's own act, by means of his personal aid-de-camp, to bring back the person of the King to Paris from Varennes; whereas he was now recommending, and offering to further his escape, by precisely such measures as his interference had then thwarted.
PETION AND MANUEL SUSPENDED.
Notwithstanding the low state of the royal party, one constituted authority, amongst so many, had the courage to act offensively on the weaker and the injured side. The Directory of the Department (or province) of Paris, declared against the mayor, imputed to him the blame of the scandalous excesses of the 20th of June, and suspended him and Manuel, the Procureur of the Community of Paris, from their offices, [July 6.] This judgment was affirmed by the King. But, under the protection of the Girondists and Jacobins, Pétion appealed to the Assembly, where the demon of discord seemed now let loose, as the advantage was contended for by at least three parties, avowedly distinct from each other, together with innumerable subdivisions of opinion. And yet, in the midst of such complicated and divided interests, such various and furious passions, two individuals, a lady and a bishop, undertook to restore general concord, and, singular to tell, they had a momentary success. Olympia de Gouges was an ardent lover of liberty, but she united with this passion an intense feeling of devotion, and a turn like that entertained by our friends the Quakers, and other sects who affect a transcendental love of the human kind, and interpret the doctrines of Christian morality in the most strict and literal sense. This person had sent abroad several publications recommending to all citizens of France, and the deputies especially of the Assembly, to throw aside personal views, and form a brotherly and general union with heart and hand, in the service of the public.