he requested
the commanders of the National Guard to re-enforce the sentries and
redouble their vigilance. The revolutionists, who had been
disconcerted for a moment by popular indignation, raised their heads
again. Prudhomme wrote in the _Revolutions de Paris_: "The Parisian
people--yes, the people, not the aristocratic class of citizens--have
just set a grand example to France. The King, at the instigation of
Lafayette, discharged his patriotic ministers; he paralyzed by his veto
the decree relative to the camp of twenty thousand men, and that on the
banishment of priests. Very well! the people rose and signified to him
their sovereign will that the ministers should be reinstated and these
two murderous vetoes recalled.... Doubtless it will not be long before
Europe will be full of a caricature representing Louis XVI. of the big
paunch, covered with orders, crowned with a red cap, and drinking out
of the same bottle with the _sans-culottes_, who are crying: 'The King
is drinking, the King has drunk. He has the liberty {226} cap on his
head.' Would he might have it in his heart!"

Apropos of this red bonnet which remained for three hours on the
sovereign's head, Bertrand de Molleville ventured to put some questions
to Louis XVI. on the evening of June 21. According to the Memoirs of
the former Minister of Marine, this is what the King replied: "The
cries of 'Long live the Nation' increasing in violence and seeming to
be addressed to me, I answered that the nation had no better friend
than I. Then an ill-looking man, thrusting himself through the crowd,
came close to me and said in a rude tone: 'Very well! if you are
telling the truth, prove it to us by putting on this red cap.' 'I
consent,' said I. Instantly one or two of these people advanced and
placed the cap on my hair, for it was too small for my head to enter
it. I was convinced, I don't know why, that their intention was simply
to place this cap on my head and then retire, and I was so preoccupied
with what was going on before my eyes, that I did not notice whether it
was there or not. So little did I feel it that after I had returned to
my chamber I did not observe that I still wore it until I was told. I
was greatly astonished to find it on my head, and was all the more
displeased because I could have taken it off at once without the least
difficulty. But I am convinced that if I had hesitated to receive it,
the drunken man by whom it was prese