It is the decisive moment. The vote just taken may serve as the starting-point of a conservative reaction if the King will trust himself to Lafayette. But how will he receive him? The sovereign's greeting will be polite, but not cordial. The King and Queen say they are persuaded that there is no safety but in the Constitution. Louis XVI. adds that he would consider it a very fortunate thing if the Austrians were beaten without delay. Lafayette is treated with a courtesy through which suspicion pierces. When he leaves the palace, a large crowd accompany him to his house and plant a may-pole before the door. On the next day Louis XVI. was to review four thousand men of the National Guard. Lafayette had proposed to appear at this review {236} beside the King and make a speech in favor of order. But the court does not desire the general's aid, and takes what measures it can to defeat this project. Pétion, whom it had preferred to Lafayette as mayor of Paris, countermands the review an hour before daybreak. Perhaps Louis XVI. might have succeeded in overcoming his repugnance to Lafayette and submitted to be rescued by him. But the Queen absolutely refused to trust the man whom she considered her evil genius. She had seen him rise like a spectre at every hapless hour. He had brought her back to Paris a prisoner on the 6th of October. He had been her jailer. His apparition amid the glare of torches in the Court of the Carrousel had frozen her with terror when she was flying from her prison, the Tuileries, to begin the fatal journey to Varennes. His aides-de-camp had pursued her. He was responsible for her arrest; he was present at her humiliating and sorrowful return; the sight of his face, the sound of his voice, made her tremble; she could not hear his name without a shudder. In vain Madame Elisabeth exclaimed: "Let us forget the past and throw ourselves into the arms of the only man who can save the King and his family!" Marie Antoinette's pride revolted at the thought of owing anything to her former persecutor. Moreover, in his latest confidential communications with her, Mirabeau had said: "Madame, be on your guard against Lafayette; if ever he commands the army, he would like to keep {237} the King in his tent." In the Queen's opinion, to rely on Lafayette would be to accept him as regent of the palace under a sluggard King. Protector for protector, she preferred Danton. Danton, who, subsidized from the civil list, accepts money without knowing whether he will fairly earn it; Danton, who, while awaiting events, had made the cynical remark that he would "save the King or kill him." Strange that the orator of the faubourgs inspired the daughter of Cæsars with less repugnance than the gentleman, the marquis. "They propose M. de Lafayette as a resource," she said to Madame Campan; "but it would be better to perish than owe our safety to the man who has done us most harm."