against me proofs of my share in the attempts of the
5th of October." "They are rather my enemies who say so," replied La
Fayette: "if I had proofs against you I should already have arrested
you. I have none, but I am seeking for them." The Duc d'Orleans went.
Nine months had passed away since his return. The Constituent Assembly
had left, without any other defence than anarchy, the constitution it
had so lately voted. Disorder prevailed throughout the kingdom: the
first acts of the Legislative Assembly announced the hesitation of a
people which halts on a declivity, but is doomed to descend to the very
bottom.

IX.

The Girondists, at the first step going a-head of the Barnaves and
Lameths, showed a disposition to push France, all unprepared, into a
republic. The Duc d'Orleans, whose long residence in England had allowed
him to reflect at a distance from the attractions of events and
factions, felt his Bourbon blood rise within him. He did not cease to be
a patriot, but he understood that the safety of the country on the brink
of a war was not in the destruction of the executive power.
Unquestionably pity for the king and queen awakened in a heart in which
hatred had not stifled every generous feeling. He felt himself too much
avenged by the days of 5th and 6th October, by the humiliation of the
king before the Assembly, by the daily insults of the populace under the
windows of Marie Antoinette, and by the fearful nights of this family,
whose palace was but a prison; and perhaps also he feared for himself
the ingratitude of revolutions.

He had gone to England on compulsion, and had remained there under the
idea, which was perfectly just, that his name might be used as a pretext
for agitation in Paris. Laclos had gone to him in London from time to
time to try again to tempt the exile's ambition, and make him ashamed of
a deference for La Fayette, which France took to be cowardice. The
prince's pride was roused at this, and he threatened to return; but the
representations of M. de la Luzerne, minister of France in England,
those of M. de Boinville, one of La Fayette's aides-de-camp, and his own
reflections, had prevailed over the incitements of Laclos. Proof of this
is found in a note of M. de la Luzerne's, found in an iron chest amongst
the king's secret papers. "I attest," says M. de la Luzerne, "that I
have presented to M. the Duc d'Orleans, M. de Boinville, aide-de-camp of
M. de La Fayette, that M. de Boinvill