entirely with La Fayette and the Constitutionalists. Was it not possible, that the king and monarchy should be preserved, and at the same time the cause of freedom? Long and bloody wars, foreign and domestic, were sure to ensue if the king and monarchy were destroyed; and the same, in all probability, if the Revolution was to be put down for a time by foreign interference; at least, such a termination of so distinguished a struggle for the liberties of France, would in itself be considered by every friend to humanity as the greatest of calamities. Was it not possible, therefore (how devoutly was it to be wished), that the king and the monarchy, and at the same time the cause of the Revolution, might be made to exist together, might be made mutually to contribute to the best interests of each other, and that this happy result of the whole might be accomplished by the patriotic efforts of Frenchmen themselves, not by the interference of foreigners?

Now you will observe, that a very great effort, as we have just seen, was made to this effect by Dumourier, a man of very extraordinary powers; but it failed. What was then to ensue? The foreign armies were approaching, the popular or republican party in Paris becoming every day more violent; the king, and the monarchy, and the constitution of 1789, placed on an isthmus between, exposed to the storm that was on either side resounding every moment with louder and fast-increasing fury. Dumourier had failed. The next effort then was made by La Fayette, who on this occasion united himself to Lally Tollendal and some of the more early patriots.

"It was about this time (June, 1792)," says Bertrand de Moleville, "that M. de Lally Tollendal, who had become an English subject, returned to France with the hope of serving the unfortunate Louis XVI. He informed me that the basis of the plan which had been entered into by himself and his friends was to crush the Jacobins; to render his majesty the mediator between France and the rest of Europe, and between the French and the French; then to reform the constitution, limit the popular power by means of the people themselves, and ensure to Louis XVI. the happiness he so much desired, of uniting the liberty of the nation with the prerogatives of the monarch. Though I admired the plan," says Bertrand de Moleville, "I doubted the means proposed for effecting it, when I heard that it depended on M. La Fayette; who, M. de Lally endeavoured to convince me, was both willing and able to put it into execution. The project was afterwards transmitted by me to the king.

"In a subsequent conversation, M. de Lally completely removed my doubts respecting the sentiments and intentions of M. La Fayette."

Paragraphs to the same effect with those I have now quoted from the Annals appear also in the Memoirs of Bertrand de Moleville.

"Justice and truth," says he, "compel me to acknowledge, that from the end of March, 1792, M. La Fayette's eyes seemed to have become open to his past errors (his present situation and the misfortunes of his family forbid any harsher expression); the dreadful progress of the Revolution alarmed him, and he seemed sincerely resolved to try every means to save the king."

Bertrand de Moleville then subjoins the following remarkable paragraph :—“ Although he did not possess all the firmness requisite for such an attempt, perhaps he would have succeeded, had it not been for the extreme reluctance of their majesties to every vigorous measure, and their unwillingness to owe such an important service to a man whom they had so long considered as their enemy."

This paragraph is remarkable on many accounts; amongst others, on this: that it may serve as a sort of explanation of the failure of La Fayette at this period of the Revolution, whilst he was endeavouring to support the monarchy. Of all the desiderata connected with the story of the French Revolution, there is none greater than the want of memoirs from La Fayette. He acted a most distinguished part. On many critical and delicate occasions, his conduct has been variously censured his intentions, his understanding, each have been questioned; yet has he never given the world any explanation of his views and motives; what he conceived to be the circumstances under which he acted, or what the reasons of his disappointments; nor do I understand that he has any work of the kind in contemplation. No doubt, when a man has been unsuccessful, whether in life or in politics, reminiscences are not pleasant. No doubt La Fayette may be aware, that he can depend upon being considered by posterity as a man of integrity and honour, as a man of benevolence, and as a real friend to liberty; but he is probably entitled to much more than this, great as his praise may be; and to be silent, is not to show sufficient respect either to mankind or to himself.

On the occasion now before us there is something of mystery, as it appears to me, and something unknown, and Bertrand de Moleville gives us no proper explanation.

Some plan was talked of by Lally Tollendal; it was communicated to M. Malouet; it was transmitted to the king, but all that followed was a letter from La Fayette to the Assembly: something more must surely have been originally intended. Observe what appears to have passed in the conversation between Lally Tollendal and Bertrand de Moleville. "All this is very

fine," said the latter; "but for the execution of the first step, the king's deliverance, what means have you?"

"La Fayette with his national guards," was the answer, with his army, or with both."

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Now, any measure of this kind was very different from the one adopted by La Fayette,-a letter from his camp. Any distinct measure of energy and decision would have been far more creditable to his understanding; nothing can be less so than the letter; and there must be something here for La Fayette to explain, if he would but condescend to do so. As this letter, however, is all that appears on the face of history, it is all that we can now consider. This letter was dated on the 16th of June, and read in the Assembly on the 18th.

The letter appears to me to be loaded with sentences of a vague and general nature, and therefore objectionable in point of composition; but I will select such paragraphs as will, I think, give you the meaning of the whole.

"Your situation," says the letter, addressing the Assembly, "is an arduous one. France is threatened abroad and agitated at home. Whilst foreign powers avow the intolerable project of assailing your national sovereignty, and thus declare themselves the enemies of France, internal enemies, intoxicated with fanaticism or pride, cherish a chimerical hope, and still tease us with their insolent malice. Gentlemen, you ought to repress them; and you will not be able but by being constitutional and just. You, no doubt, intend it; but turn your eyes on what is passing in your bosom and about you: can you dissemble to yourselves that a faction, and that I may avoid all vague denominations, that the Jacobin faction have caused all the disorders? I openly accuse them. Organized as a separate empire in its head and in its members, blindly directed by some ambitious leaders, this party forms a distinct corporation in the midst of the French nation, whose power it usurps by subjugating their representatives."

So far the letter. Foreign powers, therefore, you see, according to the letter, were to be put down; their project was declared to be intolerable; but the Jacobin club was denounced as the origin of all the disorders. Again. "I stand forth," says

La Fayette, "to declare, that the French nation, if it is not the vilest in the universe, can and ought to resist the conspiracy of kings which has been projected against it.

"But to enable us, the soldiers of liberty, to combat for her with effect, it is necessary that the number of the defenders of the country should be immediately proportioned to that of its adversaries," &c. &c..

"Above all, it is necessary that the citizens, rallied round the constitution, should be assured, that the rights it guarantees will be respected with a religious fidelity, that shall strike its enemies, private or public, with despair. . . . Let no encroachment be made on the royal power, for it is guaranteed by the constitution: let it be independent, for that independence is one of the springs of our liberty: let the king be revered, for he is invested with the national majesty. . In fine, let the reign of clubs, annihilated by you, give place to the reign of the law; their usurpations to the firm and independent exercise of the constituted authorities; their disorganizing maxims, to the true principles of liberty; their wild fury, to the calm and persevering courage of a nation, that knows its rights and defends them. Such, gentlemen, are the representations and petitions, submitted to the National Assembly as they have been to the king, by a citizen, whose love of liberty no one will seriously dispute."

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These are, I think, the important paragraphs selected from a composition, in other respects far too vague and too long, yet in the sentiments and intention very creditable to La Fayette.

The letter was very much applauded by all the côté droit, and by a considerable number of the côté gauche. The order for printing it was passed by a great majority, but the motion for sending it to the eighty-three departments produced the most violent remonstrances from the heads of the Gironde party, and was at last not carried.

It was not difficult for some of the able and eloquent men, of whom the party was composed, to destroy the effect of it, by asking what the counsels of the general of an army were, if they were not laws; by historical references to our own Cromwell; and by availing themselves of some awkward additions to the letter, that had been injudiciously made, not by La Fayette, but subsequently by La Fayette's friends in Paris, on the subject of Dumourier and his ministry: and as this part could not have been written by La Fayette, they questioned the authenticity of the letter altogether, and they inveighed against it, and endeavoured to expose it, as if it had been an impudent forgery, the author of which ought instantly to be punished.

In the result, as I have said, the letter was not sent to the departments; and La Fayette must be considered as having failed in this attempt to control the Jacobin party. Certainly this was not a party likely to be disposed of by any effort of this kind, by any paper bullets of this description. The truth was, that this measure of La Fayette, though generous in itself, and honourable to his patriotic feelings, was vain and insignificant, and amid the violent excitement of the minds of men at the time, was not likely to be otherwise.

What was worse, the general from that instant became unpopular. Men of sense, the Girondists themselves, could not indeed suppose that La Fayette was capable of betraying his country, because he had by a letter from his camp attacked the Jacobins; but the multitude did, particularly after hearing it asserted so repeatedly in the clubs, the journals, and in public places. To the alarm which the court of itself inspired, was now added the new alarm, that arose from the supposed treachery of La Fayette; and it became the object of the popular party to strike at the court by some immediate and desperate effort, before its plans, or those of the general, could be matured. An insurrection had been for some time meditated: the materials for the insurrection were abundant. Many powerful, and many ambitious, and many furious men were now found in this popular and republican party; some desperate and atrocious, some eloquent and respectable, some young and enthusiastic; all animated in the most extraordinary degree by what they considered to be the situation of the country; and amid a thousand wild and conflicting opinions, all united in a resolution to beat back all foreign invaders, and as a preparation, and in the first place, to sweep away the present government and all its upholders.

Robespierre had already become distinguished at the Jacobin club, Danton with the Cordeliers. In the faubourgs was seen the brewer, Santerre, who, by his popular qualities, had acquired a perfect domination over the tremendous faubourg of St. Antoine: the butcher, Legendre, and others were in motion. By men like these, it was at any moment easy for the chiefs of the revolutionary party to create a popular movement, exasperate it into an insurrection, and give it what direction they pleased.

It is at this point of our progress, that I may again remind you of a young man, whom I mentioned when adverting to the Memoirs of Me. Roland; I mean Barbaroux: he has written Memoirs, and to them we may now again turn. In his fourth chapter he describes what were about this period his ideas of the situation of France. "Three parties," he says, "divided us;