are careful now to treat it politely and avoid the galleys."[2509]--But
this does not suffice. They must become Jacobins; otherwise the high
court of Orleans will be for them as for M. Delessart, the ante-room
to the prison and the guillotine. "Terror and dismay," says Vergniaud,
pointing with his finger to the Tuileries, "have often issued in the
name of despotism in ancient times from that famous palace; let them
to-day go back to it in the name of law."[2510]
Even with a Jacobin Minister, terror and dismay are permanent. Roland,
Clavières, and Servan not only do not shield the King, but they give
him up, and, under their patronage and with their connivance, he is more
victimized, more harassed, and more vilified than ever before. Their
partisans in the Assembly take turns in slandering him, while Isnard
proposes against him a most insolent address.[2511] Shouts of death
are uttered in front of his palace. An abbé or soldier is unmercifully
beaten and dragged into the Tuileries basin. One of the gunners of the
Guard reviles the queen like a fish woman, and exclaims to her, "How
glad I should be to clap your head on the end of my bayonet!"[2512] They
supposed that the King is brought to heel under this double pressure
of the Legislative Body and the street; they rely on his accustomed
docility, or at least, on his proven lethargy; they think that they
have converted him into what Condorcet once demanded, a signature
machine.[2513] Consequently, without notifying him, just as if the
throne were vacant, Servan, on his own authority, proposes to the
Assembly the camp outside Paris.[2514] Roland, for his part, reads
to him at a full meeting of the council an arrogant, pedagogical
remonstrance, scrutinizing his sentiments, informing him of his duties,
calling upon him to accept the new "religion," to sanction the decree
against unsworn ecclesiastics, that is to say, to condemn to beggary,
imprisonment, and transportation[2515] 70,000 priests and nuns guilty of
orthodoxy, and authorize the camp around Paris, which means, to put his
throne, his person, and his family at the mercy of 20,000 madmen, chosen
by the clubs and other assemblages expressly to do him harm;[2516] in
short, to discard at once his conscience and his common sense.--Strange
enough, the royal will this time remains staunch; not only does the King
refuse, but he dismisses his ministers. So much the worse for him, for
sign he must, cost what it will; if he insists on remaining athwart
their path, they will march over him.--Not because he is dangerous, and
thinks of abandoning his legal immobility. Up to the 10th of August,
through a dread of action, and not to kindle a civil war, he rejects
all plans leading to an open rupture. Up to the very last day he resigns
himself even when his personal safety and that of his family is at
stake, to constitutional law and public common sense. Before dismissing
Roland and Servan, he desires to furnish some striking proof of his
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