The king sanctioned the first decree respecting his brother; he put his veto on the other two. A short time before he had disavowed emigration by public measures, and he had written to the emigrant princes recalling them to the kingdom. He invited them to return in the name of the tranquillity of France, and of the attachment and obedience they owed to him as their brother and their king. "I shall," said he, in concluding the letter, "always be grateful to you for saving me the necessity of acting in opposition to you, through the invariable resolution I have made to maintain what I have announced." These wise invitations had led to no result: but Louis XVI., while he condemned the conduct of the emigrants, would not give his consent to the measures taken against them. In refusing his sanction he was supported by the friends of the constitution and the directory of the department. This support was not without use to him, at a time when, in the eyes of the people, he appeared to be an accomplice of emigration, when he provoked the dissatisfaction of the Girondists, and separated himself from the assembly. He should have united closely with it, since he invoked the constitution against the emigrants in his letters, and against the revolutionist, by the exercise of his prerogative. His position could only become strong by sincerely falling in with the first revolution, and making his own cause one with that of the bourgeoisie. But the court was not so resigned; it still expected better times, and was thus prevented from pursuing an invariable line of conduct, and induced to seek grounds for hope in every quarter. Now and then disposed to favour the intervention of foreign powers, it continued to correspond with Europe; it intrigued with its ministers against the popular party, and made use of the Feuillants against the Girondists, though with much distrust. At this period its chief resource was in the petty schemes of Bertrand de Moleville, who directed the council; who had established a _French club_, the members of which he paid; who purchased the applause of the tribunes of the assembly, hoping by this imitation of the revolution to conquer the true revolution, his object being to deceive parties, and annul the effects of the constitution by observing it literally.