hen violence is used against you, to repress
it vigorously.... Once more, you are not to be assailants, but to act
on the defensive only."

Roederer added that the cannoneers, instead of complying with his
urgent exhortations, gave no response save that of unloading their
pieces before him. After having explained how greatly the {302}
defence was disorganized, he thus ended his report: "We felt ourselves
no longer in a position to protect the charge confided to us; this
charge was the King; the King is a man; this man is a father. The
children ask us to assure the existence of the father; the law asks us
to assure the existence of the King of France; humanity asks of us the
existence of the man. No longer able to defend this charge, no other
idea presented itself than that of entreating the King to come with his
family to the National Assembly.... We have nothing to add to what I
have just said, except that, our force being paralyzed, and no longer
in existence, we can have none but that which it shall please the
National Assembly to communicate. We are ready to die in the execution
of the orders it may give us. We ask, while awaiting them, to remain
near it, being useless everywhere else." The Assembly, not then
suspecting that it would so soon depose Louis XVI., applauded without
contradiction from the galleries. The president said to Roederer: "The
Assembly has listened to your account with the greatest interest; it
invites you to be present at the session."

The advice given by Roederer to the King has been greatly blamed. The
event has seriously influenced the judgment since passed upon it. If
Louis XVI. had received the support he had a right to count on from the
representatives, things would have appeared in quite another light.
Count de Vaublanc, in his Memoirs, has rendered full justice {303} to
the loyal intentions of the municipal attorney. "The advice he gave
has been accounted a crime," says M. de Vaublanc; "I think it is an
unjust reproach. Until then he had done all that lay in his power to
contribute to the defence of the palace. He must have seen clearly
that as the King would not defend himself, he could no longer be
defended. If the rebels had been attacked, neither M. Roederer nor any
one else would have proposed going to the Assembly; but since they were
on the defensive, and without any recognized leader, the magistrate
might doubtless have been struck with a single thought: The Kin