The demand of the Cordeliers for the deposition of the King was not the thing to please the assembly. The situation was doubly difficult, for apart from the uncertainty as to the whereabouts of the King and the possibility of civil war, there was a difficulty in regard to the Constitution. For two years past the assembly had been labouring hard to complete the work it had sworn to accomplish by the oath of the _Jeu de Paume_. That work was now nearly completed, but was almost as unpopular with the masses as it was hateful to the King. It had not even been elaborated in a spirit of compromise between the extreme claims of autocracy on the one hand and of democracy on the other, but was frankly middle-class legislation. But the King was an essential part of the constitutional mechanism and his flight had occurred just in time to wreck the Constitution as it was coming into port--that was the prevailing sentiment of the {122} members of the assembly. When on the 24th it was known that Louis had been stopped and was returning to Paris, the relief of the deputies was great,--their long-laboured Constitution was safe after all. It was not till the next day that the royal family reached the capital; and before their arrival more than one exciting scene occurred. The duc d'Orleans was admitted a member of the Jacobin Club. Danton, apparently not unfriendly for the moment to d'Orleans, harangued the Jacobins in favour of the appointment of a regency. But the assembly maintained a negative attitude. It seized control of the administration by ordering the ministers, now little more than chief clerks of departments, to report to it for orders, and for the rest awaited the return of the King. On the 25th Louis and his family reached Paris. The whole population turned out to watch his return, but it gave him no greeting. The crowd, obeying a common instinct, received the King in dead silence. Not a voice was heard, not a hat was raised, as Louis once more passed into his palace of the Tuileries. {123} CHAPTER IX WAR BREAKS OUT From the 25th of June to the 17th of July the conflict between the middle class and the democratic party continued with great intensity. Louis was, in reality, less the object than the pretext of their quarrel. The Cordeliers urged that France, and not the assembly, should pronounce the King's fate, and to effect that it would be necessary to proceed to a referendum, to demand a popular vote. But this was precisely what the Constitution refused to permit, and hence the demand was in reality an attack on the Constitution. Day after day the agitation grew, changing slightly in form. Finally the democrats decided on a monster petition to be signed at the altar of the Champ de Mars on the 17th of July.