angers that
menaced the nation and denounced the Jacobins as the faction whose
growing power was full of peril to the state. Four days later the
mob invaded the Tuileries and passed riotously through all the
rooms, insulting in the grossest manner the royal family, who were
compelled to stand before them and undergo this humiliation for
three hours. On hearing of this event Lafayette hurried from his
camp and appeared before the Assembly, entreating the punishment of
the instigators of the outrage. His sublime audacity in thus
opposing his own personality to the machinations of his enemies, and
that, too, before a body already irritated by his unasked advice,
paralyzed the fury of his adversaries, while his eloquence charmed
the hearts of his hearers; but all was in vain, and the only result
of this heroic action was that a decree of accusation was brought in
against him, which was rejected by a vote of 406 to 224. Upon the
massacre of the Swiss Guards, on August 10th, followed by the actual
deposition and imprisonment of the king, Lafayette sounded his army
to ascertain if they would march to Paris in defence of
constitutional government, but he found them vacillating and
untrustworthy. His own dismissal from command came soon after:
orders were sent for his arrest, and nothing remained for him but
flight.

On August 19th he left the army and attempted to pass through
Belgium on his way to England, but he was captured by Austrian
soldiers near the frontier. He protested that he no longer held rank
as an officer in the army and should be considered as a private
citizen; but his rights were not respected in either capacity, for
he was not treated as a prisoner of war neither was he arraigned as
a criminal. On the contrary, without any charges being preferred
against him, and without the formality of a trial of any kind, he
was immediately thrown into prison and was detained in various
Belgian, Prussian, and Austrian jails and fortresses for more than
five years, the last three being passed in close confinement at
Olmutz. An unsuccessful attempt at escape increased the severity of
his detention, and he nearly lost his life through the hardships and
privations that he endured, till his wife and daughters came, in
1795, and voluntarily shared his incarceration. The only reason for
the savage treatment that he received, unjustified by any forms of
international, of military, or of criminal law, seems to have lain
in the f