constantly urging the King to retire further from Paris. They believed that their troubles would never end until they had the King and the Assembly in their midst. And when, at the end of September, the Government, acting probably in the interests of order, brought up the Flanders regiment to Versailles, and the courtiers made the arrival of the troops the occasion for a great royalist demonstration, the excitement in the capital broke bounds again, and the extraordinary march of the women to Versailles effected the capture of the King. The events of the 5th and 6th October need no description. Their origin is a mystery still. But their result was most important. The royal family and the National Assembly were removed to Paris, and were thenceforward kept in Paris, as hostages in the hands of the strongest party. The fortunes of Paris became decisive of the fortunes of the Revolution in France. But the democratic forces, which had won the day, did not reap the fruits of the victory. The advantage of the movement fell entirely to the party which represented the views and formed the following of Lafayette, the party of middle class reformers, who, by securing the person of the King, finally baffled the forces of reaction, and obtained the control of the Revolution themselves. It was this party which had organised the National Guard. Now that it was triumphant, it honestly wished to consolidate, in its own fashion, liberty and order. But, unfortunately, the charge is with some justice made against it, that, consciously or unconsciously, it did not care for the interests of the class below it, by whose assistance it had achieved its triumph, and by whom it was destined in its turn to be overthrown. The leader of this party was Lafayette; and the more the records of those two days are examined, the more difficult is it to resist the conclusion that Lafayette's action all through them was calculated to promote his own advantage, and that his intention was to use the forces of revolution just enough to frighten the King into submission, then to appear upon the scene as his deliverer, and to turn the King's submission to account. In that intention Lafayette succeeded, and the events of the 5th and 6th October made his views and his authority for a time the dominant influence in the State. CHAPTER IV. THE LABOURS OF THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY.