his vices. At the time when the king had this revolution before him in
the National Assembly, he had not in his councils one man, not only
capable of resisting but even of comprehending it. Men really strong
prefer in such moments to be rather the popular ministers of the nation
than the bucklers of the king.


XI.

M. de Montmorin was devoted to the king, but had no credit with the
nation. The ministry had neither the initiative nor opposition; the
initiative was in the hands of the Jacobins, and the executive power
with the mob. The king, without an organ, without privilege, without
force, had merely the odious responsibility of anarchy. He was the butt
against which all parties directed the hate or rage of the people. He
had the privilege of every accusation; whilst from the tribune Mirabeau,
Barnave, Pétion, Lameth, and Robespierre, eloquently threatened the
throne; infamous pamphlets, factious journals painted the king in the
colours of a tyrant who was brutalised by wine, who lent himself to
every caprice of an abandoned woman, and who conspired in the recesses
of his palace with the enemies of the nation. In the sinister feeling of
his coming fall, the stoical virtue of this prince sufficed for the
calming of his conscience, but was not adequate to his resolutions. On
leaving the council of his ministers, where he loyally accomplished the
constitutional conditions of his character, he sought, sometimes in the
friendship of his devoted servants, sometimes from the very persons of
his enemies, admitted by stealth to his confidence, the most important
inspirations. Counsels succeeded to counsels, and contradicted one
another in the royal ear, as their results contradicted each other in
their operations. His enemies suggested concessions, promising him a