The anguish of the unhappy monarch had reached its height. Four councils were held without his returning the decrees submitted to him for consideration. The National Assembly grew impatient. The Jacobins were in a rage. At last the King concluded to take up in the Council the decree relative to the camp of twenty thousand federates. "I think," said Dumouriez, "that the decree is dangerous to the nation, the King, the National Assembly, and above all to its authors, whose chastisement it {162} will turn out to be; and yet, Sire, it is my opinion that you cannot refuse it. It was proposed by profound malice, debated with fury, and decreed with enthusiasm; everybody is blinded. If you veto it, it will none the less be passed." The hesitation of Louis XVI. redoubled. As to the decree concerning the clergy, he declared that he would never sanction it. This was the only time that Dumouriez ever saw "the character of this gentle soul somewhat changed for the worse." Meanwhile, Madame Roland, more impatient and vindictive than ever, wrote the famous letter supposed to issue from her husband, which was to echo in the ears of royalty like a funeral knell. She says of it:-- "The letter was written at one stroke, like nearly all matters of the sort which I have done; for, to feel the necessity, the fitness of a thing, to apprehend its good effect, to desire to produce it, and to give form to the object from which this effect should result, was to me but a single operation." This letter, a veritable arraignment of the King, was much more like a club speech or a newspaper article than a letter from a minister of state to his sovereign. Such sentences as these occur in it: "Sire, the existing state of things in France cannot long continue; it is a crisis whose violence is attaining its highest point; it must end by an outbreak which should interest Your Majesty as seriously as it affects the entire kingdom.... It is no longer possible to draw back. The Revolution is {163} accomplished in men's minds; it will end in blood and be cemented by blood if wisdom does not avert the evils which it is still possible to prevent.... Yet a little more delay, and the afflicted people will behold in their King the friend and accomplice of conspirators. Just Heaven! hast Thou stricken with blindness the powerful of this earth, and will they never heed other counsels than those which drag them to destruction! I know that the austere language of truth is rarely welcomed near the throne; I know, also, that it is because it so rarely obtains a hearing there that revolutions become necessary; I know, above all, that I am bound to employ it to Your Majesty, not merely as a citizen submissive to the law, but as a minister honored with your confidence, or vested with functions which imply this."