This letter was received by the national guard with an enthusiasm rather feigned than sincere. They wished to strike a last blow against the factious by adhering to the principles of their general, and voted to him a sword forged from the bolts of the Bastille, and a marble statue of Washington. La Fayette hastened to enjoy this premature triumph, and resigned the dictatorship at the moment when a dictatorship was most necessary to his country. On his retirement to his estates in Auvergne, he received the deputation of the national guard, who brought him the _proces verbal_ of the debate. "You behold me once more amidst the scenes where I was born," said he; "I shall not again quit them, save to defend and confirm our new-formed liberty should it be menaced." The different opinions of parties followed him in his retirement. "Now," said the _Journal de la Revolution_, "that the hero of two worlds has played out his part at Paris, we are curious to know if the ex-general has done more harm than good to the Revolution. In order to solve the problem, let us examine his acts. We shall first see that the founder of American liberty does not dare comply with the wishes of the people in Europe, until he had asked permission from the monarch. We shall see that he grew pale at the sight of the Parisian army on its road to Versailles--alike deceiving the people and the king; to the one he said, 'I deliver the king into your power,' to the other, 'I bring you my army.' We should have seen him return to Paris, dragging in his train those brave citizens who were alone guilty of having sought to destroy the keep of Vincennes as they had destroyed the Bastille, their hands bound behind their backs. We see him on he morrow of the _journee des poignards_, touch the hands of those whom he had denounced to public indignation the yesterday. And now we behold him quit the cause of liberty, by a decree which he himself had secretly solicited, and disappear for a moment in Auvergne to re-appear on our frontiers. Yet he has done us some service, let us acknowledge it. We owe to him to have accustomed our national guards to go through the civic and religious ceremonies; to bear the fatigue of the morning drill in the Champs Elysees; to take patriotic oaths and to give suppers. Let us then bid him adieu! La Fayette, to consummate the greatest revolution that a nation ever attempted, we required a leader, whose mind was on an equality with so great an event. We accepted you; the pliability of your features, your studied orations, your premeditated axioms--all those productions of art that nature disavows, seemed suspicious to the more clear-sighted patriots. The boldest of them followed you, tore the mask from your visage, and cried--Citizens, this hero is but a courtier, this sage but an impostor. Now, thanks to you, the Revolution can no longer bite, you have cut the lion's claws; the people is more