Robespierre and Danton, and even the Republicans, or Brissotines, had hitherto considered these occasional insurrections and murders like affairs of posts in a campaign, in which they themselves had enjoyed uniformly the advantage; but while La Fayette was followed and obeyed by the National Guard, men of substance, and interested in maintaining order, it was clear that he had both power and will to stop in future, these revolutionary excesses.

This important advantage in some degree balanced the power which the republican and revolutionary party had acquired. These predominated, as has been already said, in the Club of Jacobins, in which they reviewed the debates of the Assembly, denouncing at their pleasure those who opposed them; but they had besides a decided majority among the daily attendants in the tribunes, who, regularly paid and supplied with food and liquors, filled the Assembly with their clamours of applause or disapprobation, according to the rules they had previously received. It is true, the hired auditors gave their voices and applause to those who paid them, but nevertheless they had party feelings of their own, which often dictated unbought suffrages, in favor of those who used the most exaggerated tone of revolutionary fury. They shouted with sincere and voluntary zeal for such men as Marat, Robespierre and Danton, who yelled out for the most bloody measures of terror and proscription, and proclaimed war against the nobles with the same voice with which they flattered the lowest vices of the multitude.

There was one order yet remained which was to be levelled, the destruction of the Church was still to be accomplished; and the Republican party proceeded in the work of demolition with infinite address, by including the great object in a plan for restoring finance, and providing for the expenses of the state, without imposing further burthens on the people They assumed for the benefit of the public the whole right of property belonging to the Church of France.

As it was impossible to bring these immense subjects at once to sale, the Assembly adopted a system of paper-money, called Assignats, which were secured or hypothecated upon the church-lands. It must be admitted these supplies enabled the National Assembly not only to avoid the gulf of general bankruptcy, but to dispense with many territorial exactions which pressed hard upon the lower orders, and to give relief and breath to that most useful portion of the community.

Victorious at once over altar and throne, mitre and coronet,

King, Nobles and Clergy, the National Assembly seemed in fact to possess and to exert that omnipotence, which has been imputed to the British Parliament. Never had any legisla ture made such extensive and sweeping changes, and neve. were such changes so easily accomplished. The nation was altered in all its relations; its flag and its emblems were changed-every thing of a public character was destroyed and replaced, down to the very title of the sovereign, who, no longer termed King of France and Navarre, was now called King of the French. The names and divisions of the provinces, which had existed for many years, were at once obliterated, and were supplied by a geographical partition of the territory into eighty-three departments, subdivided into six hundred districts, and these again portioned out into forty-eight thousand communities or municipalities. By thus recasting as it were the whole geographical relations of the separate territories of which France consisted, the Abbe Sieyes designed to obliterate former recollections and distinctions, and to bring every thing down to the general level of liberty and equality.

The Parliaments of France, long the strong-holds of liberty, now perished unnoticed, as men pull down old houses to clear the ground for modern edifices. The sale of offices of justice was formally abolished; the power of nominating the judges was taken from the crown; the trial by jury, with inquests of accusation and conviction, corresponding to the grand and petty juries of England, were sanctioned and established. In thus clearing the channels of public justice, dreadfully clogged as they had become during the decay of the monarchy, the National Assembly rendered the greatest possible services to France, the good effects of which will long be felt.

The National Assembly also recognised the freedom of the press; and in doing so, conferred on the nation a gift fraught with much good and some evil, capable of stimulating the worst passions, and circulating the most atrocious calumnies, and occasioning frequently the most enormous deeds of cruelty and injustice; but ever bearing along with it the means of curing the evils caused by its abuses, and of transmitting to futurity the sentiments of the good and the wise, so invaluable when the passions are silenced, and the calm slow voice of reason and reflection comes to obtain a hearing. The press stimulated massacres and proscriptions during the frightful period which we are approaching; but the press has also held up to horror the memory of the perpetrators, and expos

ed the artifices by which the actors were instigated. It is a rock on which a vessel may be, indeed, and is often wrecked; but that same rock affords the foundation of the brightest and noblest beacon.

Faithful to their plan of forming not a popular monarchy, but a species of royal republic, and stimulated by the real republicans, whose party was daily gaining ground among their ranks, as well as by the howls and threats of those violent and outrageous demagogues, who, rom the seats they had adopted in the Assembly were now known by the name of the Mountain, the framers of the Constitution had rendered it democratical in every point, and abridged the royal authority, till its powers became so dim and obscure as to merit Burke's happy illustration, when he exclaimed, speaking of the new-modelled rench government,

-What seem'd its head,

The likeness of a kingly crown had on."

The crown was deprived of all appointments to civil offices which were filled up by popular elections, the Constitutionalists being in this respect faithful to their own principles, which made the will of the people the source of all power. Never was such an immense patronage vested in the body of any nation at large, and the arrangement was politic in the immediate sense, as well as in conformity with the principles of those who adopted it; for it attached to the new Constitution the mass of the people, who felt themselves elevated from villanage into the exercise of sovereign power.

Called to the execution of these high duties, which hitherto they had never dreamed of, the people at large became enamoured of their own privileges, carried them into every department of society, and were legislators and debaters in season and out of season. The exercise even of the extensive privilege committed to them, seemed too limited to these active citizens. The Revolution appeared to have turned the heads of the whole lower classes, and those who had hitherto thought least of political rights, were now seized with the fury of deliberating, debating and legislating, in all possible tines and places. The soldiers on guard debated at the Oratoire-the journeyman tailors held a popular assembly at the Colonnade the peruke-makers met at the Champs-Elysees In spite of the opposition of the National Guard, three thou sand shoemakers deliberated on the price of shoes in the Place Louis Quinze; every house of call was converted into

the canvassing hall of a political body; and France for a time presented the singular picture of a country, where every one was so much involved in public business, that he had little leisure to attend to his own.

There was, besides, a general disposition to assume and practise the military profession; for the right of insurrection having been declared sacred, each citizen was to be prepared to discharge effectually so holy a duty. The citizens procured muskets to defend their property-the rabble obtained pikes to invade that of others-the people of every class everywhere possessed themselves of arms, and the most peaceful burgesses were desirous of the honors of the epaulette. The children, with mimicry proper to their age, formed battalions on the streets, and the spirit in which they were formed was intimated by the heads of cats borne upon pikes in front of the juvenile revolutionists.

CHAP. II.

Escape of Louis-he is captured and brought back to Paris. Riot in the Champ de Mars. Legislative Assembly-its party divisions. Views and sentiments of foreign nations. France declares war. First results of the war. Insurrection of the 20th June. Armed mob intrude into the Assembly-thence into the Tuilleries. La Fayette repairs to Paris -remonstrates in favor of the King. Marseillois appear in Paris.— The day of the 10th of August. Tocsin sounded early in the morning. Swiss Guards. Mandat assassinated. Conflict at the Tuilleries. Massacre of the Swiss Guards. Royal Family spend the night in a neighboring Convent.

SMALL as was the share of public power which the new Constitution of France afforded to the Crown, Louis, in outward semblance at least, appeared satisfied. He went, apparently freely and voluntarily, down to the National Assembly, and, in a dignified and touching speech, (could it have been thought a sincere one,) accepted the Constitution, made common cause with the regenerated nation, and declared himself the head of the Revolution. Constrained as he was by oircumstances, anxious for his own safety, and that of his

family, the conduct of Louis must not be too severely criticised; but this step was unkingly as well as impolitic; and the unfortunate monarch gained nothing by abasing himself to the deceit which he practised at the urgency of his ministers, excepting the degradation attending a deception, by which none are deceived. No one, when the heat of the first enthusiasm was over, gave the King credit for sincerity in his acceptance of the Constitution; the Royalists were revolted, and the Revolutionists could only regard the speech and accession as the acts of royal hypocrisy. Louis was openly spoken of as a prisoner; and the public voice, in a thousand different forms, announced that his life would be the penalty of any attempt to his deliverance.

Meanwhile, the King endeavored to work out his escape from Paris and the Revolution at once, by the means of two separate agents in whom alone he confided.

The history of the unhappy journey to Varennes is well known. On the night between the 19th and 20th of August, Louis and his Queen, with their two children, attended by one lady, and escorted by three gentlemen of the Gardes du Corps, set out in disguise from Paris. The King left behind him a long manifesto, inculpating the Assembly for various political errors, and solemnly protesting against the acts of government to which he had been compelled, as he stated, to give his assent, during what he termed his captivity, which he seemed to have dated from his compulsory residence in the Tuilleries.

The very first person whom the Queen encountered in the streets was La Fayette himself, as he crossed the Place du Carousel. A hundred other dangers attended the route of the unfortunate fugitives, and the hair-breadth escapes by which they profited, seemed to intimate the favor of fortune, while they only proved her mutability.

An escort placed for them at the Pont du Sommeville, had been withdrawn, after their remaining at that place for a time had excited popular suspicion. At Saint Menehould they met a small detachment of dragoons, stationed there by Bouille also for their escort. But while they halted to change horses, the King, whose features were remarkable, was recognised by Drouet, a son of the postmaster. The young man was a keen Revolutionist, and resolving to prevent the escape of the sovereign, he mounted a horse and pushed forward to Varennes to prepare the municipality for the arrival of the King.

He reached Varennes, and found a ready disposition to