Fersen served in America for a time, returning, however, at the
end of three years. He was one of the original Cincinnati, being
admitted to the order by Washington himself. When he returned to
France he was received with high honors and was made colonel of
the royal Swedish regiment.

The dangers threatening Louis and his court, which were now
gigantic and appalling, forbade him to forsake the queen. By her
side he did what he could to check the revolution; and, failing
this, he helped her to maintain an imperial dignity of manner
which she might otherwise have lacked. He faced the bellowing mob
which surrounded the Tuileries. Lafayette tried to make the
National Guard obey his orders, but he was jeered at for his
pains. Violent epithets were hurled at the king. The least
insulting name which they could give him was "a fat pig." As for
the queen, the most filthy phrases were showered upon her by the
men, and even more so by the women, who swarmed out of the slums
and sought her life.

At last, in 1791, it was decided that the king and the queen and
their children, of whom they now had three, should endeavor to
escape from Paris. Fersen planned their flight, but it proved to
be a failure. Every one remembers how they were discovered and
halted at Varennes. The royal party was escorted back to Paris by
the mob, which chanted with insolent additions:

"We've brought back the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's
boy! Now we shall have bread!"

Against the savage fury which soon animated the French a foreigner