“Yes, we will have the reward of our labor and of our blood. Let us all attest with confidence,—both the representatives elected by the people who have sworn to transact only the duties of the constitution, as we its dangers; and the hereditary representative, the citizen-king, whom the constitution has firmly established upon the throne; and all the other depositories of authority to whom the constitution has delegated power,—let them all believe that the execution of that authority is a duty which the constitution has laid upon them, as obedience is demanded from those who must submit to them; and that any one transgresses the laws in not making them to be obeyed, as they were placed in office that the laws might be defended. “Let us also affirm, all ye National Guard, that the constitution, newly born, shall find us united for its establishment, and that the constitution, in peril, will always find us ready to defend it; for patriotism renders even glorious the calumnies which we may have to endure in support of the constitution. “As for us, furnished with the arms which liberty has consecrated, and with the declaration of rights, let us march towards our enemies!” The central army was assigned to La Fayette, with his headquarters at Metz. War was declared against Austria on the 20th of April, and on the 24th La Fayette was ordered to collect his regiments and report at Metz by the 1st of May. This required such marvellous celerity that his enemies hoped he would fail to accomplish it, but on the appointed day La Fayette was at the post assigned, awaiting further orders. From his camp at Metz La Fayette wrote thus to Washington:— “This is a very different date from that which had announced to you my return to the sweets of private life, a situation hitherto not very familiar to me, but which, after fifteen revolutionary years, I had become quite fit to enjoy. I have given you an account of the quiet and rural mode of living I had adopted in the mountains where I was born, having there a good house and a _late_ manor, now unlorded into a large farm, with an English overseer for my instruction. For as I have relinquished my title of nobility, I manage my estate as a simple country gentleman. I felt myself very happy among my neighbors, no more vassals to me nor anybody, and had given to my wife and rising family the only quiet weeks they had enjoyed for a long time, when the threats and mad preparations of the refugees, and, still more, the countenance they had obtained in the dominions of our neighbors, induced the National Assembly and the king to adopt a more rigorous system than had hitherto been the case.