Mirabeau, a short time before his death, having heard this projected flight spoken of, said to Cabanis:  “I have defended monarchy to the last; I defend it still, although I think it lost....  But, if the king departs, I will mount the tribune, have the throne declared vacant, and proclaim a Republic.”

After the return from Varennes, the project of substituting a republican government for a monarchical government was very seriously discussed by the most moderate members of the National Assembly, and we now know that the Duke de La Rochefoucauld and Dupont (de Nemours) for example, were decidedly in favour of a republic.  But it was chiefly in the clubs that the idea of such a radical change had struck root.  When the Commission of the National Assembly had expressed itself, through M. Muguet, at the sitting of the 13th of July, 1791, against the forfeiture of Louis XVI., there was a great fermentation in Paris.  Some agents of the Cordeliers (Shoemakers’) Club were the first to ask for signatures to a petition on the 14th of July, against the proposed decision.  The Assembly refused to read and even to receive it.  On the motion of Laclos, the club of the Jacobins got up another.  This, after undergoing some important modifications, was to be signed on the 17th on the Champ de Mars, on the altar of their country.  These projects were discussed openly, in full daylight.  The National Assembly deemed them anarchical.  On the 16th of July it called to its bar the municipality of Paris, enjoining it to have recourse to force, if requisite, to repress any culpable movements.

The Council of the Commune on the morning of the 17th placarded a proclamation that it had prepared according to the orders of the National Assembly.  Some municipal officers went about preceded by a trumpeter, to read it in various public squares.  Around the Hotel de Ville, the military arrangements, commanded by La Fayette, led to the expectation of a sanguinary conflict.  All at once, on the opening of the sitting of the National Assembly, a report was circulated that two good citizens having dared to tell the people collected around their country’s altar, that they must obey the law, had been put to death, and that their heads, stuck upon pikes, were carried through the streets.  The news of this attack excited the indignation of all the deputies, and under this impression, Alexander Lameth, then President of the Assembly, of his own accord transmitted to Bailly very severe new orders, a circumstance which, though only said en passant, has been but recently known.

The municipal body, as soon as it was informed, about eleven o’clock, of the two assassinations, deputed three of its members, furnished with full powers, to reestablish order.  Strong detachments accompanied the municipal officers.  About two o’clock it was reported that stones had been thrown at the National Guard.  The Municipal Council instantly had martial law proclaimed on the Place de Greve,