manifesto the king had left for his people.  He was asked, “How did you receive it?” “The king,” replied M. de Laporte, “had left it sealed, with a letter for me.”  “Read this letter,” said a member.  “No, no,” exclaimed the Assembly, “it is a confidential letter, we have no right to read it.”  They equally refused to unseal a letter for the queen that had been left on her table.  The generosity of the nation, even in this moment, predominated over their irritation.

The king’s manifesto was read amidst much laughter and loud murmurs.

“Frenchmen,” said the king in this address to his people, “so long as I hoped to behold public happiness and tranquillity restored by the measures concerted by myself and the Assembly, no sacrifice was too great; calumnies, insult, injury, even the loss of liberty,—­I have suffered all without a murmur.  But now that I behold the kingdom destroyed, property violated, personal safety compromised, anarchy in every part of my dominions, I feel it my duty to lay before my subjects the motives of my conduct.  In the month of July, 1789, I did not fear to trust myself amongst the inhabitants of Paris.  On the 5th and 6th of October, although outraged in my own palace, and a witness of the impunity with which all sorts of crimes were committed, I would not quit France, lest I should be the cause of civil war.  I came to reside in the Tuileries, deprived of almost the necessaries of life; my body-guard was torn from me, and many of these faithful gentlemen were massacred under my very eyes.  The most shameful calumnies have been heaped upon the faithful and devoted wife, who participates in my affection for the people, and who has generously taken her share of all the sacrifices I have made for them.  Convocation of the States-general, double representation granted to the third estate (le tiers etat), reunion of the orders, sacrifice of the 20th of June,—­I have done all this for the nation; and all these sacrifices have been lost, misinterpreted, turned against me.  I have been detained as a prisoner in my own palace; instead of guards, jailers have been imposed on me.  I have been rendered responsible for a government that has been torn from my grasp.  Though charged to preserve the dignity of France in relation to foreign powers, I have been deprived of the right of declaring peace or war.  Your constitution is a perpetual contradiction between the titles with which it invests me, and the functions it denies me.  I am only the responsible chief of anarchy, and the seditious power of the clubs wrests from you the power you have wrested from me.  Frenchmen, was this the result you looked for from your regeneration?  Your attachment to your king was wont to be reckoned amongst your virtues; this attachment is now changed into hatred, and homage into insult.  From M. Necker down to the lowest of the rabble, every one has been king except the king himself.  Threats have been held out of depriving the king even of this empty title,