The bold tone he assumed the july following was far from being a proof of his innocence; because it was not very probable, that a cunning man should take his measures in such a critical affair without due precaution.—On the contrary, he would labour to sink so entirely into the back-ground of the plot, as to render it difficult, if not impossible, for him to be perceived. And this was practicable to a man, who was willing, in the promotion of his purpose, to dissipate the most splendid fortune. To a disposition for low intrigue was added also a decided preference of the grossest libertinism, seasoned with vulgarity, highly congenial with the manners of the heroines, who composed the singular army of the females. Having taken up his abode in the centre of the palais royal, a very superb square, yet the last in which a person of any delicacy, not to mention decorum, or morality, would choose to reside; because, excepting the people in trade, who found it convenient, it was entirely occupied by the most shameless girls of the town, their hectoring protectors, gamesters, and sharpers of every denomination. In short, by the vilest of women; by wretches, who lived in houses from which the stript bodies, often found in the Seine, were supposed to be thrown[33]—and he was considered as the grand sultan of this den of iniquity. Living thus in the lap of crime, his heart was as tainted as the foul atmosphere he breathed.—Incapable of affection, his amours were the jaundiced caprices of satiety; and having proved in the affair of Keppel and d’Orvilliers, that he wanted the courage of a man, he appears to have been as fit for dark under-hand assassinations as he was unequal to any attempt flowing from virtuous ambition. That a body of women should put themselves in motion to demand relief of the king, or to remonstrate with the assembly respecting their tardy manner of forming the constitution, is scarcely probable; and that they should have undertaken the business, without being instigated by designing persons, when all Paris was dissatisfied with the conduct and the procrastination of the assembly, is a belief which the most credulous will hardly swallow, unless they take into their view, that the want of bread was the bye word used by those, who in a great measure produced it; for perceiving the turn the public mind was taking, they drove the mob on to perpetrate the mischief long designed, under the sanction of national indignation. It is evident, that the court was not concerned, however desirous the cabinet might have been to render the people discontented with the new order of things; for they seem to have been entirely occupied with the scheme, on which they built the most sanguine expectation, of prevailing on the king to retire to Metz. Besides, the course the project took is a circumstantial evidence, that, designed against Versailles, it was not meditated there.