The court took advantage of the agitation in Paris to realise other projects. For some time it had influenced the king's mind. At first, he had refused to sanction the decrees of the 4th of August, although they were constitutive, and consequently he could not avoid promulgating them. After accepting them, on the remonstrances of the assembly, he renewed the same difficulties relative to the declaration of rights. The object of the court was to represent Louis XVI. as oppressed by the assembly, and constrained to submit to measures which he was unwilling to accept; it endured its situation with impatience and strove to regain its former authority. Flight was the only means, and it was requisite to legitimate it; nothing could be done in the presence of the assembly, and in the neighbourhood of Paris. Royal authority had fallen on the 23rd of June, military power on the 14th of July; there was no alternative but civil war. As it was difficult to persuade the king to this course, they waited till the last moment to induce him to flee; his hesitation caused the failure of the plan. It was proposed to retire to Metz, to Bouillé, in the midst of his army; to call around the monarch the nobility, the troops who continued faithful, the parliaments; to declare the assembly and Paris in a state of rebellion; to invite them to obedience or to force them to it; and if the ancient system could not be entirely re-established, at least to confine themselves to the declaration of the 20th of June. On the other hand, if the court had an interest in removing the king from Versailles, that it might effect something, it was the interest of the partisans of the revolution to bring him to Paris; the Orleans faction, if one existed, had an interest in driving the king to flight, by intimidating him, in the hope that the assembly would appoint its leader _lieutenant-general of the kingdom_; and, lastly, the people, who were in want of bread, wished for the king to reside at Paris, in the hope that his presence would diminish, or put a stop to the dearth of provisions. All these causes existing, an occasion was only wanting to bring about an insurrection; the court furnished this occasion. On the pretext of protecting itself against the movements in Paris, it summoned troops to Versailles, doubled the household guards, and sent for the dragoons and the Flanders regiment. All this preparation of troops gave rise to the liveliest fears; a report spread of an anti-revolutionary measure, and the flight of the king, and the dissolution of the assembly, were announced as at hand. Strange uniforms, and yellow and black cockades, were to be seen at the Luxembourg, the Palais Royal, and at the Champs Élysées; the foes of the revolution displayed a degree of joy they had not manifested for some time. The behaviour of the court confirmed these suspicions, and disclosed the object of all these preparations.