On the other hand the dalliance with American democracy was regarded by French conservatives as playing with fire.  “When we think of the false ideas of government and philanthropy,” wrote one of Lafayette’s aides, “which these youths acquired in America and propagated in France with so much enthusiasm and such deplorable success—­for this mania of imitation powerfully aided the Revolution, though it was not the sole cause of it—­we are bound to confess that it would have been better, both for themselves and for us, if these young philosophers in red-heeled shoes had stayed at home in attendance on the court.”

=Early American Opinion of the French Revolution.=—­So close were the ties between the two nations that it is not surprising to find every step in the first stages of the French Revolution greeted with applause in the United States.  “Liberty will have another feather in her cap,” exultantly wrote a Boston editor.  “In no part of the globe,” soberly wrote John Marshall, “was this revolution hailed with more joy than in America....  But one sentiment existed.”  The main key to the Bastille, sent to Washington as a memento, was accepted as “a token of the victory gained by liberty.”  Thomas Paine saw in the great event “the first ripe fruits of American principles transplanted into Europe.”  Federalists and Anti-Federalists regarded the new constitution of France as another vindication of American ideals.

=The Reign of Terror.=—­While profuse congratulations were being exchanged, rumors began to come that all was not well in France.  Many noblemen, enraged at the loss of their special privileges, fled into Germany and plotted an invasion of France to overthrow the new system of government.  Louis XVI entered into negotiations with his brother monarchs on the continent to secure their help in the same enterprise, and he finally betrayed to the French people his true sentiments by attempting to escape from his kingdom, only to be captured and taken back to Paris in disgrace.

A new phase of the revolution now opened.  The working people, excluded from all share in the government by the first French constitution, became restless, especially in Paris.  Assembling on the Champs de Mars, a great open field, they signed a petition calling for another constitution giving them the suffrage.  When told to disperse, they refused and were fired upon by the national guard.  This “massacre,” as it was called, enraged the populace.  A radical party, known as “Jacobins,” then sprang up, taking its name from a Jacobin monastery in which it held its sessions.  In a little while it became the master of the popular convention convoked in September, 1792.  The monarchy was immediately abolished and a republic established.  On January 21, 1793, Louis was sent to the scaffold.  To the war on Austria, already raging, was added a war on England.  Then came the Reign of Terror, during which radicals in possession of the convention executed in large numbers