to bend the king to their wishes.  The queen herself was for a long time powerless.  At last the king seemed to hesitate, and gave Dumouriez a private meeting in the evening.  In this conversation he ordered Dumouriez to present to him three ministers, to succeed Roland, Claviere, and Servan.  Dumouriez at once named Vergennes for finance, Naillac for foreign affairs, Mourgues for the interior.  He reserved the war department for himself:  dictatorial minister at the moment when France was becoming an army.  Roland, Claviere, and Servan, stung to the quick at a dismissal they had provoked the more because they had not anticipated it, hastened to carry their complaints and accusations to the Assembly.  They were received there as martyrs to their patriotism; they had filled the tribunes with their partisans.

III.

Roland, Claviere, and Servan were present, under pretence of rendering an account of the grounds of their dismissal.  Roland laid before the Assembly the celebrated confidential letter dictated by his wife, and which he had read to the king in his cabinet.  He affected to believe that the dismissal of ministers was the punishment of his own courage.  The advice he gave to the king in this letter thus turned into accusations of this unfortunate prince.  Louis XVI. had never received from the malcontents a more terrible blow than that now given by his minister.  Passions trouble the conscience of the people, and there are days when treachery passes current for heroism.  The Girondists made a hero of Roland.  They had his letter printed, and circulated it in the eighty-three departments.

Roland left the chamber amidst loud applauses.  Dumouriez entered it in the midst of uproar.  He displayed in the tribune the same calmness as in the field of battle.  He began by announcing to the Assembly the death of General Gouvion.  “He is happy,” he said, with sadness, “to have died fighting against the enemy, and not to have been the witness of the discords which rend us to pieces.  I envy his death.”  The deep serenity of a powerful mind was felt in his every tone—­a mind resolute to contend against factions unto death.  He then read a memorial relating to the ministry of war.  His exordium was an attack upon the Jacobins, and a claim for the respect due to the ministers of the executive power.  “Do you hear Cromwell!” exclaimed Guadet, in a voice of thunder.  “He thinks himself already so sure of empire, that he dares to inflict his commands upon us.”  “And why not?” retorted Dumouriez, proudly, and turning towards the Mountain.  His daring imposed on the Assembly.  The Feuillant deputies went out with him to the Tuileries.  The king announced to him his intention to give his sanction to the decree for the 20,000 men.  As to the decree of the priests, he repeated to the ministers that he had resolved, and begged them to take to the president of the Assembly a letter in his own writing, which contained the motives for his veto.  The ministers bowed, and separated in consternation.