machinations which
were secretly going on; and the declaration accommodated itself to
answer that purpose. In a little time the National Assembly found itself
surrounded by troops, and thousands more were daily arriving. On this a
very strong declaration was made by the National Assembly to the King,
remonstrating on the impropriety of the measure, and demanding the
reason. The King, who was not in the secret of this business, as himself
afterwards declared, gave substantially for answer, that he had no other
object in view than to preserve the public tranquility, which appeared
to be much disturbed.

But in a few days from this time the plot unravelled itself M. Neckar
and the ministry were displaced, and a new one formed of the enemies
of the Revolution; and Broglio, with between twenty-five and thirty
thousand foreign troops, was arrived to support them. The mask was now
thrown off, and matters were come to a crisis. The event was that in a
space of three days the new ministry and their abettors found it prudent
to fly the nation; the Bastille was taken, and Broglio and his foreign
troops dispersed, as is already related in the former part of this work.

There are some curious circumstances in the history of this short-lived
ministry, and this short-lived attempt at a counter-revolution. The
Palace of Versailles, where the Court was sitting, was not more than
four hundred yards distant from the hall where the National Assembly
was sitting. The two places were at this moment like the separate
headquarters of two combatant armies; yet the Court was as perfectly
ignorant of the information which had arrived from Paris to the National
Assembly, as if it had resided at an hundred miles distance. The then
Marquis de la Fayette, who (as has been already mentioned) was chosen to
preside in the National Assembly on this particular occasion, named by
order of the Assembly three successive deputations to the king, on the
day and up to the evening on which the Bastille was taken, to inform and
confer with him on the state of affairs; but the ministry, who knew not
so much as that it was attacked, precluded all communication, and were
solacing themselves how dextrously they had succeeded; but in a few
hours the accounts arrived so thick and fast that they had to start from
their desks and run. Some set off in one disguise, and some in another,
and none in their own character. Their anxiety now was to outride the
news, lest they