The king had for some time hoped that the wrath of the Revolution would be softened down by its triumph. Those violent acts, those stormy oscillations between insolence and repentance, which had marked the inauguration of the Assembly, had painfully undeceived him. His astonished ministry already trembled before so much audacity, and in the council avowed their incompetency. The king was desirous of retaining men who had given him such proofs of devotion to his person. Some of them, confidants or accomplices, served the king and queen, either by keeping up communications with the emigrants or by their intrigues in the interior. M. de Montmorin, an able man, but unequal to the difficulties of the crisis, had retired. The two principal men of the ministry were M. de Lessart for Foreign Affairs; M. Bertrand de Molleville in the Marine Department. M. de Lessart, placed by his position between the armed emigrants, the impatient Assembly, undecided Europe, and the inculpated king, could not fail to fall under his own good intentions. His plan was to avoid war in his own country by temporising and negotiations--to suspend the hostile demonstration of foreign power: to present to the intimidated Assembly the king, as sole arbiter and negotiator of peace between his people and the foreigner; and he trusted thus to adjourn the final collisions between the Assembly and the throne, and to re-establish the regular authority of the king by preserving peace. The personal arrangements of the emperor Leopold aided him in his plans; he had only to contend against the fatality which urges men and things to their _denouement_. The Girondists, and Brissot especially, overwhelmed him with accusations, inasmuch as he was the man who could most retard their triumph. By sacrificing him they could sacrifice a whole system: their press and their harangues pointed him out to the fury of the people;--the partisans of war marked him down as their victim. He was no traitor--but with them to negotiate was to betray. The king, who knew he was irreproachable and confided all his plans to him, refused to sacrifice him to his enemies, and thus accumulated resentments against the minister. As to M. de Molleville, he was a secret enemy of the constitution. He advised the king to play the hypocrite, acting in the letter, and thus to destroy the spirit, of the law,--advancing by subterranean ways to a violent catastrophe,--when, according to him the monarchical cause must come out victorious. Confiding in the power of intrigue more than in the influence of opinion, seeking everywhere traitors to the popular cause, paying spies, bargaining for consciences, believing in no one's incorruptibility, keeping up secret intelligence with the most violent demagogues, paying in hard money for the most incendiary propositions under the idea of making the Revolution unpopular from its very excesses, and filling the tribunes of the