The flight was not discovered until about six o’clock in the morning. Then Lafayette hurried to the Tuileries with Bailly. He found that a mob had already gathered there, vowing vengeance on all who had had charge of the King. With difficulty he rescued the officer who had been on guard the night before. He sent messengers in every direction with orders to stop the royal fugitives. He went to the Assembly, and addressed it. At the Jacobin Club, Danton, the fiery orator, declared, “The commander-general promised on his head that the King would not depart; therefore we must have the person of the King or the head of Monsieur the commander-general!” But Lafayette’s reputation was still too great for him to be reached by his enemies. The unfortunate royal family were finally arrested at Varennes and brought back to Paris. Louis was received in an ominous silence by his people. Lafayette met him at the gates and escorted him back to the palace. There Lafayette said, “Sire, your Majesty is acquainted with my personal attachment; but I have not allowed you to be unaware that if you separated your cause from that of the people I should remain on the side of the people.” “That is true,” answered King Louis. “You have acted according to your principles; it is an affair of party. At present, here I am. I will tell you frankly, that up to these last days, I believed myself to be in a vortex of people of your opinion with whom you surrounded me, but that it was not the opinion of France. I have thoroughly recognized in this journey that I was mistaken, and that this opinion is the general one.” When Lafayette asked the King for his orders, the latter laughed and said, “It seems to me that I am more at your orders than you are at mine.” The commander did all that he could to soften the hard position of the royal captives, but he took care to see that the Tuileries was better guarded after that. Some Jacobins now petitioned the Assembly to dethrone the King, and a great meeting was held in the Champs de Mars on the seventeenth of July. As usual the meeting got out of hand and the mob turned to murder and pillage. Lafayette and Bailly rode to the field with some of their soldiers; Bailly proclaimed martial law and ordered the crowd to disperse. Jeers and threats followed, and at last Lafayette had to give his men the command to fire. A dozen of the mob were killed, and the rest took to flight.