But the second, or Legislative Assembly, had, on the contrary been captive from the moment of their first convocation. They had never met but in Paris, and were inured to the habit of patient submission to the tribunes and the refuse of the city, who repeatedly broke into their hall, and issued their mandates in the form of petitions. On two memorable occasions, they showed too distinctly, that considerations of personal safety could overpower their sense of public duty. Two-thirds of the representatives joined in acquitting La Fayette, and declared, by doing so, that they abhorred the insurrection of the 20th of June; yet, when that of the 10th of August had completed what was before attempted in vain upon the occasion preceding, the Assembly unanimously voted the deposition of the monarch, and committed him to prison. Secondly, they remained silent and inactive during all the horrors of September, and suffered the executive power to be wrenched out of their hands by the Commune of Paris, and used before their eyes for the destruction of many thousands of Frenchmen whom they represented. It must be, however, remembered, that the Legislative Assembly were oppressed by difficulties and dangers the most dreadful that can threaten a government;--the bloody discord of contending factions, the arms of foreigners menacing the frontier, and civil war breaking out in the provinces. In addition to these sources of peril and dismay, there were three divided parties within the Assembly itself; while a rival power, equally formidable from its audacity and its crimes, had erected itself in predominating authority, like that of the maires du palais over the feeble monarchs of the Merovingian dynasty. FOOTNOTES: [265] Lacretelle, tom. ix., p. 265; Mignet, tom. i., p. 197. [266] Bursau de Pucy, Latour Maubourg, and Alexander Lameth. Their intention was to proceed to the United States of America. [267] "I never saw any countenance that so strongly expressed the violence of brutal passions, and the most astonishing audacity, half-disguised by a jovial air, an affectation of frankness, and a sort of simplicity."--MAD. ROLAND, part i., p. 88. [268] "In 1789, he was a miserable lawyer, more burdened with debts than causes. He went to Belgium to augment his resources, and now had the hardihood to avow a fortune of 1,400,000 livres, (£58,333,) and to wallow in luxury, whilst preaching sans-culottism, and sleeping on heaps of slaughtered men. O, Danton! cruel as Marius, and more terrible than Cataline, you surpass their misdeeds, without possessing their good qualities."--MAD. ROLAND, part ii., p. 59. [269] "Il avait une manière de prononcer _pauvre peuple et peuple vertueux_, qui ne manqua jamais son effet sur de feroces spectateurs."--LACRETELLE, tom. ix., p. 15. [270] Mémoires de Barbaroux, p. 63.