The conspiracy of the court with all the courts and aristocracies abroad, with all the aristocracies of the emigres, with their relations, of the king with his brothers, had no need of being carried on in writing.  Louis XVI. himself, the most really revolutionary of all the monarchs who have occupied the throne, had no thought of treachery to the people or to the revolution, when he implored the armed succour of the other powers.  This idea of an appeal to foreign forces, or even the emigrated forces, was not his real desire; for he dreaded the intervention of the enemies of France, he disapproved of emigration, and he was not without a feeling of offence at his brothers intriguing abroad, sometimes in his name, but often against his wishes.  He shrank from the idea of passing in the eyes of Europe for a prince in leading-strings, whose ambitious brothers seized upon his rights in adopting his cause, and stipulated for his interests without his intervention.  At Coblentz a regency was openly spoken of, and bestowed on the Comte de Provence, the brother of Louis XVI.; and this regency, that had devolved on a prince of the blood by emigration, whilst the king maintained a struggle at Paris, greatly humiliated Louis XVI. and the queen.  This usurpation of their rights, although clothed in the dress of devotion and tenderness, was even more bitter to them than the outrages of the Assembly and the people.  We always dread most that which is nearest to us, and the triumph of the emigration only promised them a throne, disputed by the regent who had restored it.  This gratitude appeared to them a disgrace, and they knew not whether they had most to hope or to apprehend from the emigres.

The queen, in her conversations with her friends, spoke of them with more bitterness than confidence.  The king loudly complained of the disobedience of his brothers, and dissuaded from flight all those who demanded his advice; but his advice was as changeable as events; like all men balancing between hope and fear, he alternately bent and stood erect beneath the pressure of circumstances.  His acts were culpable, but not his intentions; it was not the king who conspired, but the man, the husband, the father, who sought by foreign aid to ensure the safety of his wife and children; and he alone became criminal when all seemed desperate.  The “tangled thread” of negotiation was incessantly broken off and renewed:  that which was resolved yesterday was to-morrow disavowed; and the secret negotiators of these plots, armed with credentials and powers which had been recalled, yet continued to employ them, in spite of the king’s orders, to carry on in his name those plans of which he disapproved.  The prince de Conde, the Comte de Provence, and the Comte d’Artois had each his separate line of policy and court, and abused the king’s name in order to increase his own credit and interest.  Hence arises the difficulty, to those who write the history of that period, of