nces were preparing to invade France;
and the consequence was that the poor helpless king had to do an act
which would have been ridiculous, if it were not too sad to laugh at.
As pretended Constitutional King and Head of the Nation, he had to
behave in public towards these foreign princes as if they were enemies,
when it was for his sake that they were levying armies. By his private
letters, written in cipher, and sent in secret, he was urging them to
make haste to march to his rescue; and at the very same time he had to
go to the Assembly and propose that they should declare war against
these enemies of the nation. He said this with the tears in his eyes.
It was on the 20th of April that he endured this humiliation. What man
of spirit would not rather have taken one side or the other, at all
hazards, than have played such a double part as this? If he could act
with the people in reforming their affairs, well and good. If he could
not,--if he believed them all wrong, and that it was his sacred duty to
stand by the old order of things, how much more respectable it would
have been to have said so,--to have declared, "You may imprison me--you
may destroy me,--but I will stand by my throne and its powers!" In that
case, the worst he could have been charged with would have been a
mistake. As it was, he stood before the Assembly an object of universal
contempt,--proposing, with tears in his eyes, a declaration of war
against those who were preparing war at his desire, and for his sake;
and everyone knowing that it was so.

He and the queen seemed never to have understood or believed what was
carefully pointed out to them by the advisers whom they distrusted--that
this making war in their behalf could not end well for them. If their
foreign friends should be beaten, they would be left more helpless and
despised than ever. If the French should be beaten, the frightened and
angry people would be sure to treat with more and more rigour--and
perhaps with fury--the family who had brought a foreign enemy upon them.
Their advisers must have been glad at last to be rejected and
dismissed; for it must have been provoking to discover, at every turn,
the double dealing of the king and queen; and very melancholy to see
them perpetually pursuing the exactly opposite course to that which was
noble and wise. One wonders whether, if little Louis had lived to be a
man, he would have been as ignorant, selfish, and unwise;--whether the