ch, for more than an hour, they
encourage the National Guard. "All I ask," says Leroux again, "is that
you wait a little longer. I hope that we shall induce the King to yield
to the National Assembly."--Always the same tactics: hand the fortress
and the general over rather than fire on the mob. To this end they
return to the King, with Roederer at their head, and renew their efforts:
"Sire," says Roederer, "time presses, and we ask you to consent to
accompany us."--For a few moments, the last and most solemn of the
monarchy, the King hesitates.[2683] His good sense, probably,
enabled him to see that a retreat was abdication; but his phlegmatic
understanding is at first unable to clearly define its consequences;
moreover, his optimism had never explored the vastness of the stupidity
of the people, nor sounded the depths of human malice and spite; he
cannot imagine that slander may transform his determination not to shed
blood into a desire to shed blood.[2684] Besides, he is bound by his
past, by his habit of always yielding; by his determination, declared
and maintained for the past three years, never to cause civil war; by
his obstinate humanitarianism, and especially by his religious goodwill.
He has systematically extinguished in himself the animal instinct of
resistance, the flash of anger in all of us which starts up under unjust
and brutal aggressions; the Christian has supplanted the King; he is no
longer aware that duty obliges him to be a man of the sword that, in his
surrender, he surrenders the State, and that to yield like a lamb is to
lead all honest people, along with himself, to the slaughterhouse. "Let
us go," said he, raising his right hand; "we will give, since it is
necessary, one more proof of our self-sacrifice."[2685] Accompanied
by his family and Ministers, he sets out between two lines of National
Guards and the Swiss Guard,[2686] and reaches the Assembly, which sends
a deputation to meet him; entering the chamber he says: "I come here to
prevent a great crime. "--No pretext, indeed, for a conflict now exists.
An assault on the insurgent side is useless, since the monarch, with all
belonging to him and his government, have left the palace. On the other
side, the garrison will not begin the fight; diminished by 150 Swiss and
nearly all the grenadiers of the Filles-Saint-Thomas, who served as the
King's escort to the Assembly, it is reduced to a few gentlemen, 750
Swiss, and about a hundred National