had sufficed for two revolutions and that it
would be devoted to a third, if one should arise, for the benefit of
the people. By the death of Mirabeau, April 2, 1791, the last chance
of a compromise between the court party and the radicals was taken
away. Two weeks later the royal family attempted to leave the
Tuileries for St. Cloud, in order to pass the Easter holidays there
and to hear mass in the royal chapel; but the populace blocked the
way, and even a portion of the National Guard, in a state of
semi-mutiny, threatened to interfere if the other battalions fired
on the people. This, nevertheless, Lafayette offered to do, and to
force a passage at all hazards, but the king positively forbade the
shedding of blood on his account, and resumed his virtual
imprisonment in the palace. Lafayette was so chagrined by the
seditious behavior of his troops that he again threw down his
commission, whereupon an extraordinary revulsion of feeling took
place; the municipality and the citizens were terror-stricken lest
universal anarchy should ensue, and even the National Guard,
repentant of their disgraceful conduct, cast themselves at the feet
of their general, joining their voices to those of others in
entreating him to resume his office, which, after three days, he
consented to do, upon promise of obedience in the future.

[Illustration: The Arch of Steel.]

This was the meridian of Lafayette's career, when his popularity and
his influence were at their height. Power we can hardly call it, for
that implies some voluntary deed of assumption, and he always acted
in obedience to others, to some authority constituted at least under
the forms of law, or, in the absence of that, to the sovereign
people. From this time difficulties thickened around him and he was
constantly environed by suspicion and by intrigues of all kinds
against his character and his life, but he never swerved from the
line of his duty. Not one of the political parties gave him its
entire confidence, and each in turn conspired against him, only to
be baffled by the underlying conviction, on the part of the masses,
of his supreme patriotism and integrity. After the flight of the
king and his family, on June 20th, Lafayette was violently denounced
in the Jacobin club as a friend to royalty, and accused of having
assisted in the evasion; but the attempt to proscribe him in the
Assembly failed utterly, and that body appointed six commissioners
to protect him fro