t by
successful violence against the king and the aristocracy was so
resolutely applied to the Assembly, that very serious politicians
sought the means of arresting the movement. Volney, who was no orator,
but who was the most eminent of the deputies in the department of
letters, made the attempt on September 18. He proposed that there
should be new elections for a parliament that should not consist of
heterogeneous ingredients, but in which class interests should be
disregarded and unknown. He moved that it should represent equality.
They reminded him of the oath not to separate until France was a
constitutional State, and the protest was ineffectual. But in
intellectual France there was no man more perfectly identified with
the reigning philosophy than the man who uttered this cry of alarm.

On October 2 the first chapters of the Constitution were ready for the
royal assent. They consisted of the Rights of Man, and of the
fundamental measures adopted in the course of September. Mounier, the
new President, carried to the king the articles by which his cause had
been brought to its fall. Lewis undertook to send his reply; and from
Mounier came no urging word. They both fancied that delay was
possible, and might yet serve. The tide had flowed so slowly in May,
that they could not perceive the torrent of October. On the day of
that audience of the most liberal of all the royalists, the respite
before them was measured by hours.

All through September, at Paris, Lafayette at the head of the forces
of order, and the forces of tumult controlled by the Palais Royal had
watched each other, waiting for a deadly fight. There were frequent
threats of marching on Versailles, followed by reassuring messages
from the General that he had appeased the storm. As it grew louder,
he made himself more and more the arbiter of the State. The
Government, resenting this protectorate, judged that the danger of
attack ought to be averted, not by the dubious fidelity and the more
dubious capacity of the commander of the National Guard, but by the
direct resources of the Crown. They summoned the Flanders regiment,
which was reputed loyal, and on October 1 it marched in, a thousand
strong. The officers, on their arrival, were invited by their comrades
at Versailles to a festive supper in the theatre. The men were
admitted, and made to drink the health of the king; and in the midst
of a scene of passionate enthusiasm the king and queen appeared.