t bend.

V.

The first acts of the king were too much imbued with the inspirations of
Barnave and the Lameths for the royal dignity. He addressed to the
commissioners of the Assembly charged with interrogating him as to the
circumstances of the 21st of June, a reply, the bad faith of which
called for the smile rather than the indulgence of his enemies.

"Introduced into the king's chamber and alone with him," said the
commissioners of the Assembly, "the king made to us the following
declaration:--The motives of my departure were the insults and outrages
I underwent on the 18th of April, when I wished to go to St. Cloud.
These insults remained unpunished, and I thereupon believed that there
was neither safety nor decorum in my staying any longer in Paris. Unable
to quit publicly, I resolved to depart in the night, and without
attendants; my intention was never to leave the kingdom. I had no
concert with foreign powers, nor with the princes of my family who have
emigrated. My residence would have been at Montmedy, a place I had
chosen because it is fortified, and that being close to the frontier, I
was more ready to oppose every kind of invasion. I have learnt during my
journey that public opinion was decided in favour of the constitution,
and so soon as I learnt the general wish I have not hesitated, as I
never have hesitated, to make the sacrifice of what concerns myself for
the public good."

"The king," added the queen, in her declaration, "desiring to depart
with his children, I declare that nothing in nature could prevent my
following him. I have sufficiently proved, during two years, and under
the most painful circumstances, that I will never separate from him."

Not content with this inquiry into the motives and circumstances of the
king's flight, public opinion, much irritated, demanded that the hand of
the nation should be extended even to the paternal authority, and that
the Assembly should appoint a governor for the dauphin. Eighty names,
for the most part of obscure persons, were found in the division which
was openly taken. They were hailed with shouts of general derision. This
outrage to the king and father was spared him. The governor subsequently
named by Louis XVI., M. de Fleurieu, never entered upon his duties. The
governor of the heir to an empire was the gaoler of a prison of
malefactors.

The Marquis de Bouille addressed from Luxembourg a threatening letter to
the Assembly, in order to turn