“To defend the king and the constitution” was La Fayette’s unswerving purpose. There had been a time when he had hoped that France might become a republic like the United States; but as he carefully watched successive events he became convinced that the nation was not prepared for such a change, and henceforth he decided in favor of a constitutional and limited monarchy; and notwithstanding the king’s exasperating blindness, in regarding La Fayette as his enemy rather than his defender, and the queen’s open enmity, La Fayette enacted faithfully and consistently the double and difficult rôle of upholding the rights of royalty at the same time that he was defending the sacred rights of the people. Madame Campan says in her “Memoirs of Marie Antoinette”:— “The queen gave frequent audiences to M. de La Fayette. One day, when he was in her inner closet, his aides-de-camp, who waited for him, were walking up and down the great room where the persons in attendance remained. Some imprudent young women were thoughtless enough to say, with the intention of being overheard by those officers, that it was very alarming to see the queen alone with a rebel and a _brigand_. I was hurt at such indiscretion, which always produced bad effects, and I imposed silence on them. One of them persisted in the appellation _brigand_. I told her that, as to rebel, M. de La Fayette well deserved the name, but that the title of leader of a party was given by history to every man commanding forty thousand men, a capital, and forty leagues of country; that kings had frequently treated with such leaders, and if it was convenient to the queen to do the same, it remained only for us to be silent and respect her actions. On the morrow the queen, with a serious air, but with the greatest kindness, asked what I had said respecting M. de La Fayette on the preceding day, adding that she had been assured I had enjoined her women silence, because they did not like him, and that I had taken his part. I repeated to the Queen what had passed, word for word. She condescended to tell me that I had done perfectly right.” As La Fayette was the commander of the National Guard, and as Louis and Marie Antoinette had been brought forcibly to Paris, and were in some sense under the _surveillance_ of La Fayette and his Guard, they were unable to perceive that he was their best friend, and they at length determined to fly from their enforced restraint in Paris. The plan was made and executed. “And so the royalty of France is actually fled? This precious night, the shortest of the year, it flies and drives! But in Paris, at six in the morning, when some patriot deputy, warned by a billet, awoke La Fayette and they went to the Tuileries? Imagination may paint, but words cannot, the surprise of La Fayette, or with what bewilderment helpless Gouvion rolled glassy Argus’ eyes, discerning now that his false chambermaid had told true!”