pon for their execution. The new minister, Breteuil, had promised to
reestablish the royal authority within three days. Marshal Broglie, who
commanded the army round Paris, was invested with unlimited powers. The
Assembly, it was agreed upon, were to be dissolved, and forty thousand
copies of a proclamation to this effect were ready to be circulated
throughout the kingdom. The rising of the populace was supposed to be a
temporary evil, and it was thought to the last moment an impossibility
that a mob of citizens should resist an army. The Assembly was duly
apprised of all these projects. It sat for two days in a state of
constant inquietude and alarm. The news from Paris was doubtful. A
firing of cannon was supposed to be heard, and persons anxiously placed
their ears to the ground to listen. The escape of the King was also
expected, as a carriage had been kept in readiness, and the bodyguard
had not pulled off their boots for several days.

In the orangery belonging to the palace, meat and wine had been
distributed among the foreign troops to encourage and spirit them up.
The Viscount of Noailles and another deputy, Wimpfen, brought word of
the latest events in the capital, and of the increasing violence of the
people. Couriers were despatched every half-hour to gather intelligence.
Deputations waited on the King to lay before him the progress of the
insurrection, but he still gave evasive and unsatisfactory answers. In
the night of the 14th the Duke of Liancourt had informed Louis XVI of
the taking of the Bastille and the massacre of the garrison on the
preceding day. "It is a revolt!" exclaimed the monarch, taken by
surprise. "No, sire, it is a revolution," was the answer.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] Edmund Burke passed a splendid and well-known eulogium on the
beauty and accomplishments of the Queen, and it was in part the
impression which her youthful charms had left in his mind that threw the
casting-weight of his talents and eloquence into the scale of opposition
to the French Revolution. I have heard another very competent judge, Mr.
Northcote, describe her entering a small anteroom, where he stood, with
her large hoop sideways, and gliding by him from one end to the other
with a grace and lightness as if borne on a cloud. It was possibly to
"this air with which she trod or rather disdained the earth," as if
descended from some higher sphere, that she owed the indignity of being
conducted to a scaffold. Personal grace a