is ruin.

{222}

Marie Antoinette herself was opposed to vigorous measures. She still
desired to try the effects of kindness. Learning that a legal inquiry
was proposed into the events of June 20, and foreseeing that M. Hue
would be called as a witness, she said to this loyal servant: "Say as
little in your deposition as truth will permit. I recommend you, on
the King's part and my own, to forget that we were the objects of these
popular movements. Every suspicion that either the King or myself feel
the least resentment for what happened must be avoided; it is not the
people who are guilty, and even if it were, they would always obtain
pardon and forgetfulness of their errors from us."

During this time the Assembly maintained an attitude more than
equivocal. It contained a great number of honest men. But, terrorized
already, it no longer possessed the courage of indignation. It grew
pale before the menaces of the public. By cringing to the rabble it
had attained that hypocritical optimism which is the distinctive mark
of moderate revolutionists, and which makes them in turn the dupes and
the victims of those who are more zealous.

If the majority of the deputies had said openly what they silently
thought, they would not have hesitated to stigmatize the invasion of
the Tuileries as it deserved. But in that case, what would have become
of their popularity with the pikemen? And then, must they not take
into account the ambitions of the Girondins, the hatreds of the
Mountain party, {223} and the rancor of Madame Roland and her friends?
Was it not, moreover, a real satisfaction to the bourgeoisie to give
power a lesson and humiliate a sovereign? Ah! how cruelly this
pleasure will be expiated by those who take delight in it, and how they
will repent some day for having permitted justice, law, and authority
to be trampled under foot!

When the session of June 21 opened, Deputy Daverhoult denounced in
energetic terms the violence of the previous day. Thuriot exclaimed:
"Are we expected to press an inquiry against forty thousand men?"
Duranton, the Minister of Justice, then read a letter from the King,
dated that day, and worded thus: "Gentlemen, the National Assembly is
already acquainted with the events of yesterday. Paris is doubtless in
consternation; France will hear the news with astonishment and grief.
I was much affected by the zeal shown for me by the National Assembly
on this occasion. I leave to i