interrupted a virago, hardier than her companions, “but on the 14th of July you would have besieged and bombarded the city; and on the 6th of October you wanted to flee to the frontier.”  She answered, in the gentlest tone, that “these were idle stories, which they were wrong to believe; tales like these were what caused at once the misery of the people and that of the best of kings.”  Another woman addressed her in German.  Marie Antoinette declared that “she did not understand what she said; that she had become so completely French that she had forgotten her native language;” and the compliment to their country fairly vanquished them.  They received it with shouts of “Bravo,” and with loud clapping of their hands.  They begged the ribbons and flowers of her bonnet.  She took them off with her own hand and distributed them among them; and they divided the spoils with thankful exultation, smiling, waving their hands, and crying out, “Long live Marie Antoinette!  Long live our good queen![3]”

For a time it seemed as if the fortunes of the king and country were being weighed in an uncertain balance.  One day some circumstances seemed to hold out a prospect of the re-establishment of tranquillity, and of the return of the masses to a better feeling.  The next day these favorable appearances were more than counterbalanced by fresh evidences of the increasing power of the factious and unscrupulous demagogues.  It was greatly in favor of the crown that the triumph of the mob on the 6th of October had led to violent quarrels between the Duc d’Orleans, La Fayette, and Mirabeau.  La Fayette had charged the duke with having entered into a plot to assassinate him, and threatened to impeach him formally if he did not at once quit the kingdom.[4] The duke trembled and consented, easily procuring from the ministers, who were glad to get rid of him, a diplomatic mission to England as a pretext for his departure; and Mirabeau, who despised both the duke and the marquis, full of contempt for the pusillanimity which the former had shown in the quarrel, abandoned all idea of placing him on his cousin’s throne.  “Make him my king!” he exclaimed; “I would not have him for my valet.”

Emboldened by his success with the duke, La Fayette, who had great confidence in his own address, next tried to win over or to get rid of Mirabeau himself.  He proposed to obtain an embassy for him also.  The suggestion of what was clearly an honorable exile in disguise was at once declined.[5] He then offered him a large sum of money, for at that moment he had the entire disposal of the civil list; but he found that the great orator was disinclined to connect himself with him in any way, much more to lay himself under any obligation to him.  In fact, Mirabeau was at this moment hoping to obtain a post in the home administration, where, if he could once succeed in procuring a footing, he had no doubt of soon obtaining the entire mastery; and the royal family was hardly settled at the Tuileries