At nine o'clock the Constituent Assembly met, calm, yet fully conscious of the momentous state of affairs. The president immediately informed them that M. Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, had come to acquaint them that the king and royal family had been _carried off_, during the night, by some enemies of the nation. These noble men conducted, in this crisis, with their accustomed moderation and dignity. Hesitating to assume that the king had perjured himself by violating the oath he had so solemnly taken to sustain the Constitution, they adopted the more generous idea of his abduction. La Fayette, at eight o'clock, had been informed of the escape, and immediately hastened to the Tuileries, where he found M. Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, and M. Beauharnais, President of the National Assembly. They were both oppressed in view of the momentous posture of affairs, and were lamenting the hours which must elapse before the Assembly could be convoked and a decree issued authorizing pursuit. The course pursued by La Fayette upon this occasion was worthy of his heroic and noble nature. He proved himself a consistent disciple of his great friend and model, Washington. "Is it your opinion," inquired La Fayette, "that the arrest of the king and royal family is absolutely essential to the public safety, and can alone preserve us from civil war?" "No doubt can be entertained upon that subject," both replied. "Well, then," returned La Fayette, "I take upon myself all the responsibility of this arrest." He immediately issued an order to the National Guard throughout France for the arrest of the king.[277] It was placed in the hands of two of his officers, who set out instantly on the pursuit. Leaving the Tuileries, La Fayette hastened on horseback to the Hôtel de Ville. He passed excited crowds, who inveighed bitterly against him, accusing him of traitorous complicity in the king's flight. Arriving at the Place de Grève, in front of the Hôtel de Ville, he found one of his officers, the Duke d'Aumont, in the hands of the infuriate mob, who were on the point of massacring him. La Fayette instantly plunged into the crowd, by his authoritative voice and gesture overawed them, and at the imminent peril of his own life rescued his friend. A moment's hesitation, an emotion of cowardice, and both would inevitably have perished. An infuriate man, almost delirious with rage, approached La Fayette, and, shaking his fist in his face, exclaimed, "You are a traitor. You have permitted the king to escape, and now France is ruined." "How ruined?" La Fayette replied, serenely smiling. "France has twenty-five millions of inhabitants; the salary of the king is twenty-five millions of francs. Every one of us gains twenty sous by Louis XVI. relieving us of this payment."