events.  Whether from lack of boldness or ambition, he never assumed the appearance of the part which public opinion assigned to him.  He did not then appear to push things beyond the conquest of a constitution for his country, and the character of a great patriot for himself.  He respected or despised the throne.  One or other of these feelings gave him importance in the eyes of history.  All the world was of his party except himself.

Impartial men did honour to his moderation, the revolutionists imputed shame to his character.  Mirabeau, who was seeking a pretender to personify the revolt, had had secret interviews with the Duc d’Orleans; had tested his ambition, to judge if it aspired to the throne.  He had left him dissatisfied; he had even betrayed his dissatisfaction by angry phrases.  Mirabeau required a conspirator; he had only found a patriot.  What he despised in the Duc d’Orleans was not the meditation of a crime, but the refusal to be his accomplice.  He had not anticipated such scruples; he revenged himself by terming this carelessness about the throne the cowardice of an ambitious man.

La Fayette instinctively hated in the Duc d’Orleans an influential rival.  He accused the prince of fomenting troubles which he felt himself powerless to repress.  It was asserted that the Duc d’Orleans and Mirabeau had been seen mingled with groups of men and women, and pointing to the chateau.  Mirabeau defended himself by a smile of contempt.  The Duc d’Orleans proved his innocence in a more serious manner.  An assassination which should kill the king or queen would still leave the monarchy, the laws of the kingdom, and the princes inheritors of the throne.  He could not mount to it except over the dead bodies of five persons placed by nature between himself and his ambition.  These steps of crime could only have incurred the execrations of the nation, and must have even wearied the assassins themselves.  Besides, he proved by numerous and undeniable witnesses that he had not gone to Versailles either on the 4th or 5th of October.  Quitting Versailles on the 3rd, after the sitting of the National Assembly, he had returned to Paris.  He had passed the day of the 4th in his palace and gardens at Mousseaux.  On the 5th, he again was at Mousseaux; his cabriolet having broken down on the boulevard, he had gone on foot by the Champs Elysees.  He had passed the day at Passy with his children and Madame de Genlis.  He had supped at Mousseaux with some intimate friends, and slept again in Paris.  It was not until the 6th, in the morning, that, informed of the events of the previous evening, he had gone to Versailles, and that his carriage had been stopped at the bridge of Sevres, by the mob carrying the bleeding heads of the king’s guard.[17] If this was not the conduct of a prince of the blood, who flies to the succour of his king and places himself at the foot of the throne, between the threatened sovereign and the people, neither was it that of an audacious usurper who tempts revolt by occasion, and at least presents to the people a completed crime.