nted would have thrust his pike
into my stomach."

{227}

During the same interview Bertrand de Molleville congratulated the King
upon his almost miraculous escape from the dangers of the previous day.
Louis XVI. replied: "All my anxieties were for the Queen, my children
and my sister; because I feared nothing for myself."--"But it seems to
me," rejoined his interlocutor, "that this insurrection was aimed
chiefly against Your Majesty."--"I know it very well," returned Louis
XVI.; "I saw clearly that they wanted to assassinate me, and I don't
know why they did not do it; but I shall not escape them another day.
So I have gained nothing; it is all the same whether I am assassinated
now or two months from now!"--"Great God!" cried Bertrand de
Molleville, "does Your Majesty believe that you will be
assassinated?"--"I am convinced of it," replied the King; "I have
expected it for a long time and have accustomed myself to the thought.
Do you think I am afraid of death?"--"Certainly not, but I would desire
Your Majesty to take vigorous measures to protect yourself from
danger."--"It is possible," went on the King after a moment of
reflection, "that I may escape. There are many odds against me, and I
am not lucky. If I were alone I would risk one more attempt. Ah! if
my wife and children were not with me, people should see that I am not
so weak as they fancy. What would be their fate if the measures you
propose to me did not succeed?"--"But if they assassinate Your Majesty,
do you think that the Queen and her children would be in less
danger?"--"Yes, I think {228} so, and even were it otherwise, I should
not have to reproach myself with being the cause."

A sort of Christian fanaticism had taken possession of the King's soul.
Resigned to his fate, he ceased to struggle, and wrote to his
confessor: "Come to see me to-day; I have done with men; I want nothing
now but heaven."

[1] Listen, heaven, to the prayer
That here I make:
Preserve so good a father
To his subjects.

{229}

XXII.

LAFAYETTE IN PARIS.

One of the greatest griefs of a political career is disenchantment. To
pass from devout optimism to profound discouragement; to have treated
as alarmists or cowards whoever perceived the least cloud on the
horizon, and then to see the most formidable tempests unchained; to be
obliged to recognize at one's proper cost that one has carried illusion
to the verge of simplicity and has jud