It was the 25th of June, 1791, at seven o'clock in the evening, when this dreadful procession, passing through the Barrier de l'Etoile, entered the city, and traversed the streets, through double files of soldiers, to the Tuileries. At length they arrived, half dead with exhaustion and despair, at the palace. The crowd was so immense that it was with the utmost difficulty that an entrance could be effected. At that moment, La Fayette, who had been adopting the most vigorous measures for the protection of the persons of the royal family, came to meet them. The moment Maria Antoinette saw him, forgetful of her own danger, and trembling for the body-guard who had periled their lives for her family, she exclaimed, "Monsieur La Fayette, save the body-guard." The king and queen alighted from the carriage. Some of the soldiers took the children, and carried them through the crowd into the palace. A member of the Assembly, who had been inimical to the King, came forward, and offered his arm to the queen for her protection. She looked him a moment in the face, and indignantly rejected the proffered aid of an enemy. Then, seeing a deputy who had been their friend, she eagerly accepted his arm, and ascended the steps of the palace. A prolonged roar, as of thunder, ascended from the multitudinous throng which surrounded the palace when the king and queen had entered, and the doors of their prison were again closed against them. [Illustration: THE TUILERIES.] La Fayette was at the head of the National Guard. He was a strong advocate for the rights of the people. At the same time, he wished to respect the rights of the king, and to sustain a constitutional monarchy. As soon as they had entered the palace, Maria Antoinette, with that indomitable spirit which ever characterized her, approached La Fayette, and offered to him the keys of her casket, as if he were her jailer. La Fayette, deeply wounded, refused to receive them. The queen indignantly, with her own hands, placed them in his hat. "Your majesty will have the goodness to take them back," said the marquis, "for I certainly shall not touch them." The position of La Fayette at this time was about as embarrassing as it could possibly have been; and he was virtually the jailer of the royal family, answerable with his life for their safe keeping. He had always been a firm friend of civil and religious liberty. He was very anxious to see France blessed with those free institutions and that recognition of popular rights which are the glory of America, but he also wished to protect the king and queen from outrage and insult; and a storm of popular fury had now risen which he knew not how to control or to guide. He, however, resolved to do all in his power to protect the royal family, and to watch the progress of events with the hope of establishing constitutional liberty and a constitutional throne over France.