The Constitutional party, or those who desired a democratical government with a king at its head, had reason to hope that Louis, being in Paris, must remain at their absolute disposal, separated from those who might advise counter-revolutionary steps, and guarded only by national troops, embodied in the name, and through the powers, of the Revolution. Every day, indeed, rendered Louis more dependent on La Fayette and his friends, as the only force which remained to preserve order; for he soon found it a necessary, though a cruel measure, to disband his faithful gardes du corps, and that perhaps as much with a view to their safety as to his own. The Constitutional party seemed strong both in numbers and reputation. La Fayette was commandant of the national guards, and they looked up to him with that homage and veneration with which young troops, and especially of this description, regard a leader of experience and bravery, who, in accepting the command, seems to share his laurels with the citizen-soldier, who has won none of his own. Bailli was Mayor of Paris, and, in the height of a popularity not undeserved, was so well established in the minds of the better class of citizens, that, in any other times than those in which he lived, he might safely have despised the suffrages of the rabble, always to be bought, either by largesses or flattery. The Constitutionalists had also a strong majority in the Assembly, where the Republicans dared not yet throw off the mask, and the Assembly, following the person of the King, came also to establish its sittings in their stronghold, the metropolis.[119] They seemed, therefore, to assume the ascendency in the first instance, after the 5th and 6th of October, and to reap all the first fruits of the victory then achieved, though by their connivance rather than their active co-operation.