ces by the people," cried he;
"and without the assistance of the national guard, who displayed so much
attachment for me--." At these words which indicated the pretension to
personal popularity lurking in the mind of the royalist orator, the
Assembly gave marked signs of disapprobation, and the _cote gauche_
murmured loudly. "I do not speak for myself," returned Cazales, "but for
the common interest. I will willingly sacrifice my petty existence, and
this sacrifice has long ago been made; but it is important to the whole
empire that your sittings be undisturbed by any popular tumult in the
critical state of affairs at present, and in consequence I second all
the measures for preserving order and tranquillity that have just been
proposed." At length, on the motion of several members, the Assembly
decided, that in the king's absence, all power should be vested in
themselves, and that their decrees should be immediately put in
execution by the ministers without any further sanction or acceptance.
The Assembly seized on the dictatorship with a prompt and firm grasp,
and declared themselves permanent.

XVII.

Whilst the Assembly, by the rights alike of prudence and necessity,
seized on the supreme power, M. de La Fayette cast himself with calm
audacity amidst the people, to grasp again, at the peril of his life,
the confidence that he had lost. The first impulse of the people would
naturally be to massacre the perfidious general, who had answered for
the safe custody of the king with his life, and had yet suffered him to
escape. La Fayette saw his peril, and, by braving, averted the tempest.
One of the first to learn the king's flight, from his officers, he
hurried to the Tuileries, where he found the mayor of Paris, Bailly, and
the president of the Assembly, Beauharnais. Bailly and Beauharnais
lamented the number of hours that must be lost in the pursuit before the
Assembly could be convoked, and the decrees executed. "Is it your
opinion," asked La Fayette, "that the arrest of the king and the royal
family is absolutely essential to the public safety, and can alone
preserve us from civil war?" "No doubt can be entertained of that,"
returned the mayor and the president. "Well then," returned La Fayette,
"I take on myself all the responsibility of this arrest;" and he
instantly wrote an order to all the national guards and citizens to
arrest the king. This was also a dictatorship, and the most personal of
all dictatorship