the minister talked over the different factions. Dumouriez spoke to Marie Antoinette of the faults and crimes of each; he tried to convince her that she was misled by those who surrounded her, and the Queen appeared to be convinced. When he was obliged to call her attention to the clock, as the hour for the Council had arrived, she dismissed him most affably. If we may credit Madame Campan, who has also given an account of this interview, the impression Marie Antoinette received from it was scarcely a {155} good one. "One day," says Madame Campan, "I found the Queen extremely troubled. She said she no longer knew where she stood; whether the Jacobin chiefs were making overtures to her through Dumouriez, or Dumouriez, abandoning the Jacobins, was acting on his own account; that she had given him an audience; that, when alone with her, he had fallen at her feet and said that although he had pulled the red bonnet down to his ears, yet he was not and could not be a Jacobin; that the Revolution had been allowed to fall into the hands of a rabble of disorganizers who, seeking only for pillage, were capable of everything, and could furnish the Assembly with a formidable army, ready to undermine the support of a throne already too much shaken. While speaking with extreme warmth, he had seized the Queen's hand, and, kissing it with transport, cried, 'Permit yourself to be saved!' The Queen said to me that the protestations of a traitor could not be believed, and that his entire conduct was so well known that undoubtedly the wisest thing would be not to trust him." Meantime, the danger constantly increased. Even the gates of the Tuileries were no longer fastened. Hawkers of vile pamphlets and sanguinary satires on the Queen cried their infamous wares under the very windows of the palace; and the National Assembly, sitting close beside, and hearing them--the National Assembly, terrorized by Jacobins and pikemen--dared not even censure such baseness. On June 4, {156} a deputy named Ribes, till then unknown, cited from the tribune the titles of the following articles in Fréron's journal, _l'Orateur du Peuple_: "The crowned porcupine, a constitutional animal who behaves unconstitutionally."--"Crimes of M. Capet since the Revolution."--"Decree to be passed forbidding the Queen to sleep with the King."--"The royal tigress, separated from her worthy spouse, to serve as a hostage." "Rouse up!" cried the indignant deputy. "There is still time. Join with me in proclaiming war on traitors and justice for the seditious, and the country is safe!" Ribes preached in the desert. The Assembly shrugged their shoulders and treated him as a fool.