"On the morning of the 19th, Louis XVI. laughed at his oath and enjoyed beforehand the alarm his flight would cause you. The Austrian woman has seduced La Fayette. Louis XVI., disguised in a priest's robe, fled with the dauphin, his wife, his brother, and all the family. He now laughs at the folly of the Parisians, and will soon swim in their blood. Citizens! this escape has been long prepared by the traitors of the National Assembly. You are on the brink of ruin; hasten to provide for your safety. Instantly choose a dictator. Let your choice fall upon the citizen who has, up to the present, displayed most zeal, activity, and intelligence, and do all he bids you to do to strike at your foes. This is the time to lop off the heads of Bailly, La Fayette, and all the scoundrels of the staff, all the traitors of the Assembly. A tribune, a military tribune, or you are lost without hope." Similar impassioned appeals were issued from all the Jacobin journals, and the nation was roused to phrensy. The popularity of the king was now gone, and he was almost universally regarded as a traitor, plotting to deluge the kingdom in blood. At ten o'clock in the evening of the 22d of June a courier arrived in Paris with a letter from the municipality of Varennes announcing the arrest of the king. The cry resounded from street to street, "He is arrested! he is arrested!" Three commissioners were immediately appointed, Latour Maubourg, Pétion, and Barnave, invested with authority to secure the return of the king and the royal family, and they were enjoined to observe all the respect due to their rank. The Assembly also issued an address to the French nation, containing the following sentiments: "The king swore, on the 14th of July, to protect the Constitution; he has therefore consented to perjure himself. The changes made in the Constitution of the kingdom are attributed to a _few_ of the factious. We are _twenty-six millions_ of factious. We have preserved the monarchy because we believe it useful to France. We have doubtless reformed it, but it was to save it from its abuses and its excesses. We have granted the yearly sum of fifty millions of francs ($10,000,000) to maintain the legitimate splendor of the throne. We have reserved to ourselves the right of declaring war, because we would not that the blood of the people should belong to the ministers.[280] Frenchmen, all is organized. Every man is at his post. The Assembly watches over all. You have naught to fear save from yourselves, should your just emotion lead you to commit any violence or disorders. The people who seek to be free should remain unmoved in great crises. "Behold Paris, and imitate the example of the capital. All goes on as usual. The tyrants will be deceived. Before they can bend France beneath their yoke, the whole nation must be annihilated. Should despotism venture to attempt it, it will be vanquished; or even though it triumph, it will triumph over naught but ruins."