She, on her part, had made an equally favorable impression on him.  She had adroitly flattered his high opinion of himself by saying that “if she had been speaking to persons of a different class and character she should have felt the necessity of being guarded in her language, but that in dealing with a Mirabeau there could be no need of such caution;” and he told his confidant, La Marck, that till he knew “the soul and thoughts of the daughter of Maria Teresa, and learned how fully he could reckon on that august ally, he had seen nothing of the court but its weakness; but now confidence had raised his courage, and gratitude had made the prosecution of his principles a duty;[7]” and in some subsequent letters he speaks of every thing as depending on the queen, and describes in brief but forcible language his appreciation of the dangers which surrounded her, and of the magnanimous courage with which he sees that she is prepared to confront them.  “The king,” he says, “has but one man about him, and that is his wife.  There is no safety for her but in the reestablishment of the royal authority.  I love to believe that she would not desire to preserve life without the crown.  What I am quite certain of is, that she will not preserve her life unless she preserves her crown.”

In his interview with her, as she reported it to the emperor, he had recommended, as the first step to be adopted by the king and herself, a departure from Paris; and, in reference to that plan, which he at all times regarded as the foundation of every other, he tells La Marck:  “The moment will soon come when it will be necessary to try what can be done by a woman and a child on horseback.  For her it is but the adoption of an hereditary mode of action.[8] But she must be prepared for it, and must not suppose that one can extricate one’s self from an extraordinary crisis by mere chance or by the combinations of an ordinary man.”

The hopes with which the acquisition of such an ally inspired the queen at this time nerved her to bear her part in the festival with which the Assembly had decided on celebrating the demolition of the Bastile.  The arrangements for it were of a gigantic character.  Round the sides of the Champ de Mars a vast embankment was raised, so as to give the plain the appearance of an amphitheatre, and to afford accommodation to three hundred thousand spectators.  At the entrance a magnificent arch of triumph was erected.  The centre was occupied by a grand altar; and on one side a gorgeous pavilion was appropriated to the king, his family, and retinue, the members of the Assembly, and the municipal magistrates.  They were all to be performers in the grand ceremony which was to be the distinguishing feature of the day.  The Constitution was scarcely more complete than it had been when Louis signified his acceptance of it five months before; but now, not only were he, the deputies, and municipal authorities of Paris to swear to its maintenance, but the same oath was to be taken by the National Guard, and by a deputation from every regiment in the army; and it was to bind the soldiers throughout the kingdom to the new order of things that the ceremony was originally designed.[9]