THE KING’S FLIGHT.—­EVENTS ON THE CHAMP DE MARS.

In the month of April, 1791, Bailly perceived that his influence over the Parisian population was decreasing.  The king had announced that he should depart on the 18th, and would remain some days at St. Cloud.  The state of his health was the ostensible cause of his departure.  Some religious scruples were probably the real cause; the holy week was approaching, and the king would have no communications with the ecclesiastics sworn in for his parish.  Bailly was not discomposed at this projected journey; he regarded it even with satisfaction.  Foreign courts, said our colleague, looked upon him as a prisoner.  The sanction he gives to various decrees, appears to them extorted by violence; the visit of Louis XVI. to Saint Cloud will dissipate all these false reports.  Bailly therefore concerted measures with La Fayette for the departure of the royal family; but the inhabitants of Paris, less confiding than their mayor, already saw the king escaping from St. Cloud, and seeking refuge amidst foreign armies.  They therefore rushed to the Tuileries, and notwithstanding all the efforts of Bailly and his colleague, the court carriages could not advance a step.  The king and queen therefore, after waiting for an hour and a half in their carriage, reascended into the palace.

To remain in power after such a check, was giving to the country the most admirable proof of devotion.

In the night of the 20th to the 21st of June, 1791, the king quitted the Tuileries.  This flight, so fatal to the monarchy, irretrievably destroyed the ascendency that Bailly had exercised over the capital.  The populace usually judges from the event.  The king, they said, with the queen and their two children, were freely allowed to go out of the palace.  The Mayor of Paris was their accomplice, for he has the means of knowing every thing; otherwise he might be accused of carelessness, or of the most culpable negligence.

These attacks were not only echoed in the shops, in the streets, but also in the strongly organized clubs.  The Mayor answered in a peremptory manner, but without entirely effacing the first impression.  During several days after the king’s flight, both Bailly and La Fayette were in personal danger.  The National Assembly had often to look to their safety.

I have now reached a painful portion of my task, a frightful event, that led finally to Bailly’s cruel death; a bloody catastrophe, the relation of which will perhaps oblige me to allow a little blame to hover over some actions of this virtuous citizen, whom thus far it has been my delight to praise without any restriction.

The flight of the king had an immense influence on the progress of our first revolution.  It threw into the republican party some considerable political characters who, till then, had hoped to realize the union of a monarchy with democratical principles.