sing its laws to be rather forgotten than repealed.
Obedience arises from two causes, respect and fear. And both have been
alike snapped asunder by the sudden and violent retrograde movement of
the Assembly; for how can we respect or dread that power that trembles
at its own audacity? The Assembly has abdicated by not completing that
which it had dared to commence: the revolution that does not advance,
retreats; and the king has conquered without striking a blow."

On their side the revolutionary party assembled that evening at the
Jacobins, deplored their defeat, accused every one, and mutually
recriminated on each other. "See," said their orators, "what underhand
work has been accomplished in one night; what a triumph of corruption
and fraud! The members of the former Assembly have mixed with the new
members in the chamber, and have infused into the ears of their
successors those concessions that have ruined them. After the sitting of
that evening they mingled with the groups in the Palais Royal, spread
alarm around, hinted of a second flight of the king, prognosticated
trouble and anarchy, and made the people of Paris, who prefer their own
private interests to the public weal, fear the utter destruction of
confidence and the depression of the public credit. Can this venal race
resist such arguments?"

All the real feelings of Paris were infused the next day into the
attitude and discourses of the Assembly. "At the opening of the
sitting," says a Jacobin, "I took my place amongst the deputies who were
discussing the best means to obtain the repeal of the decree. I remarked
that the decree having been carried the previous evening almost
unanimously, it appeared impracticable to reckon upon so sudden and so
scandalous a change of opinion. 'We are sure of the majority,' was their
reply. I quitted my seat and took another, where precisely the same
conversation passed. I then took refuge in that part of the chamber that
had been so long the sanctuary of patriotism: there I heard the same
arguments, the same apostacy. All had been purchased in the course of
the night, and the best proof that this work of corruption had been
accomplished before the deliberation is, that all the orators who spoke
against the decree had their speeches ready written. Whence arises this
surprise of the patriots? Because the well-intentioned members of the
Assembly do not know each other; they have not met or reckoned their
numbers here. It is t