t minds. Sadness dominates in his; anger in hers. Even on the
steps of the scaffold, Madame Roland will not feel her hatred lessen.
Dumouriez, on the contrary, will cast a glance of melancholy respect
upon the unfortunate sovereign whose sorrows and whose resignation,
whose gentleness and uprightness, had touched him so profoundly.

{110}

XI.

THE FETE OF THE SWISS OF CHATEAUVIEUX.

Dumouriez, at the beginning of his ministry, was still the slave of the
Jacobins, his allies and protectors. His elevation to the ministry was
in great part due to them, and even while despising them, he felt
unable to shake off their yoke. Little by little, they inspired him
with horror, and before many weeks were over, his only idea was to free
himself from their control. But at first he treated them like a power
with which he was obliged to reckon. What proves this is his passive
attitude at the time of the celebrated fete of the Swiss of
Chateauvieux. The prologue of the bloody tragedies that were in course
of preparation, this fete shows what headway the revolutionary ideas
had made. The sinister days of the Convention were approaching, the
Terror existed in germ, and already many representatives who, on a
secret ballot, would have voted in accordance with right and honor,
were cowardly enough to do so against their conscience when they had to
answer to their names.

Things had travelled fast since the close of the Constituent Assembly.
In 1790, that Assembly, as {111} the faithful guardian of discipline,
had congratulated the Marquis de Bouille on the energy with which he
repressed the military rebellion that broke out at Nancy, August 31.
The soldiers garrisoned at this town were guilty of the greatest
crimes. They pillaged the military chests, arrested the officers, and
fired on the troops who remained faithful. M. Desilles, an officer of
the King's regiment, conducted himself at the time in a heroic manner.
When the insurgents were about to discharge the cannon opposite the
Stainville gate, he sprang towards it, and covering it with his body,
cried: "It is your friends, your brothers, who are coming! The
National Assembly sends them. Do you mean to fire on them? Will you
disgrace your flags?" It was useless to try to hold Desilles back. He
broke away from his friends and threw himself again in front of the
rebels, falling under four wounds at the moment when the fight began.

The Constituent Assembly pas