window, however, was fenced by
iron bars; and these bars had been to a certain extent eaten through
with _aqua fortis_. The king had succeeded in pushing his head through,
and upon that result he relied for his escape; for he connected this
trial with the following strange maxim or postulate, viz., that
wheresoever the head could pass, there the whole person could pass. It
needs not to be said, that, in the final experiment, this absurd rule
was found not to hold good. The king stuck fast about the chest and
shoulders, and was extricated with some difficulty. Had it even been
otherwise, the attempt would have failed; for, on looking down from
amidst the iron bars, the king beheld, in the imperfect light, a number
of people who were not among his accomplices.

Equal in fatuity, almost 150 years later, were the several attempts at
escape concerted on behalf of the French royal family. The abortive
escape to Varennes is now familiarly known to all the world, and
impeaches the good sense of the king himself not less than of his
friends. The arrangements for the falling in with the cavalry escort
could not have been worse managed had they been intrusted to children.
But even the general outline of the scheme, an escape in a collective
family party--father, mother, children, and servants--and the king
himself, whose features were known to millions, not even withdrawing
himself from the public gaze at the stations for changing horses--all
this is calculated to perplex and sadden the pitying reader with the
idea that some supernatural infatuation had bewildered the predestined
victims. Meantime an earlier escape than this to Varennes had been
planned, viz., to Brussels. The preparations for this, which have been
narrated by Madame de Campan, were conducted with a disregard of
concealment even more astounding to people of ordinary good sense. "Do
you really need to escape at all?" would have been the question of many
a lunatic; "if you do, surely you need also to disguise your
preparations for escape."

But alike the madness, or the providential wisdom, of such attempts
commands our profoundest interest; alike--whether conducted by a Caesar
or by the helpless members of families utterly unfitted to act
independently for themselves. These attempts belong to history, and it
is in that relation that they become philosophically so impressive.
Generations through an infinite series are contemplated by us as
silently awaiting the t