stinctions?

Pamphlets began to appear in favour of a republic. Popular societies
were formed, and became the vogue, with a programme of universal
suffrage, and fraternization as a social characteristic. Women,
occasionally children, were admitted; the members called one {112}
another brother and sister, having discarded more formal modes of
address; popular banquets were held. The influence of woman, of which
something has already been said, was widened by the action of these
societies; that influence a little later tended to give the Revolution
the hysterical turn which it took.

The professional politicians showed little inclination to follow the
lead of the _Societes populaires_. The assembly remained rigidly
middle class in its attitude. The Jacobin Club maintained the same
position, though a few of its members were now inclining towards
democracy, and one of them, Robespierre, not quite so isolated as a few
months earlier, came forward as its official mouthpiece. In April 1791
he issued a speech, printed in pamphlet form, in which he ably argued
the case for democratic suffrage. He was hailed as the champion and
friend of the poor man, the apostle of fraternity.

Since he had been compelled to accept the civil constitution of the
clergy the King's revolt had become more marked. He declared to his
friends that he would sooner be king of Metz than king of France under
such terms. The rise of the democratic movement in the winter had not
tended to allay his fears, and by the {113} spring of 1791 he was
decided, so far as it was in his nature ever to be decided, to remove
from Paris and find some way out of his difficulties. His hopes of
escape centred on the northeastern frontier. There, at Metz, 200 miles
from Paris, were the headquarters of the energetic Bouille; and beyond
Metz was the Rhine, where the Emperor Leopold, his brother-in-law, was
already assembling troops that might prove a further support.

With such an outlook, it was natural that the Court, and in this case
the Court meant the Queen, should attempt to concert measures with
Vienna; the phantom of the Austrian alliance, so detested at the time
of the Seven Years' War, was reappearing. Marie Antoinette held
numerous conferences with the foreign ambassadors on the subject and
wrote frequent letters to her brother invoking his aid; all of which
was more or less suspected or known by the public outside the palace
walls.

Paris was, inde