hands are arms? In the hands of traitors. Who command your troops?
traitors! Who hold the keys of your strong places? traitors, traitors,
traitors, everywhere traitors; and in this palace of treason, the king
of traitors! the inviolable traitor, the king! They tell you that he
loves the constitution,--humbug! he comes to the Assembly,--humbug; the
better he conceals his flight. Watch! watch! a great blow is preparing,
is ready to burst; if you do not prevent it by a counter-blow more
sudden, more terrible, the people and liberty are annihilated."

These declarations were not wholly void of foundation. The king, honest
and good, did not conspire against his people, the queen did not think
of selling to the House of Austria the crown of her husband and her son.
If the constitution now completed had been able to restore order to the
country and security to the throne, no sacrifice of power would have
been felt by Louis XVI.: never did prince find more innate in his
character the conditions of his moderation: that passive resignation,
which is the character of constitutional sovereigns, was his virtue. He
neither desired to reconquer nor to avenge himself. All he desired was,
that his sincerity should be appreciated by the people, order
re-established within and power without; that the Assembly, receding
from the encroachments it had made on the executive power, should raise
the constitution, correct its errors, and restore to royalty that power
indispensable for the weal of the kingdom.

The queen herself, although of a mind more powerful and absolute, was
convinced by necessity, and joined the king in his intentions; but the
king, who had not two wills, had nevertheless two administrations, and
two policies, one in France with his constitutional ministers, and
another without with his brothers, and his agents with other powers.
Baron de Breteuil, and M. de Calonne, rivals in intrigue, spake and