Marie Antoinette's Feelings on her Return.--She sees Hopes of Improvement.--The 17th of July.--The Assembly inquire into the King's Conduct on leaving Paris.--They resolve that there is no Reason for taking Proceedings.--Excitement in Foreign Countries.--The Assembly proceeds to complete the Constitution.--It declares all the Members Incapable of Election to the New Assembly.--Letters of Marie Antoinette to the Emperor and to Mercy.--The Declaration of Pilnitz.--The King accepts the Constitution.--Insults offered to him at the Festival of the Champ de Mars.--And to the Queen at the Theatre.--The First or Constituent Assembly is dissolved. It was eminently characteristic of Marie Antoinette that her very first act, the morning after her return, was to write to De Fersen, to inform him that she was safe and well in health; but though she had roused herself for that effort of gratitude and courteous kindness, for some days she seemed stupefied by grief and disappointment, and unable to speak or think for a single moment of any thing but the narrow chance which had crushed her hopes, and changed success, when it had seemed to be secured, into ruin; and, if ever she could for a moment drive the feeling from her mind, her enemies took care to force it back upon her every hour. Before they reached the Tuileries, La Fayette had obtained from the Assembly authority to place guards wherever he might think fit; and no jailer ever took more rigorous precautions for the safe-keeping of the most desperate criminals than this man of noble birth, but most ignoble heart[1], now practiced toward his king and queen. Sentinels were placed along every passage of the palace, and, that they might have their prisoners constantly in sight, the door of every room was kept open day and night. The queen was not allowed even to close her bed-chamber, and a soldier was placed so as at all times to command a sight of the whole room; the only moment that the door was permitted to be shut being a short period each morning while she was dressing. But after a time she rallied, and even began again to think the future not wholly desperate. She always looked at the most promising side of affairs, and the first shock of the anguish felt at Varennes had scarcely passed away, when, with irrepressible sanguineness, she began to look around her and search for some foundation on which to build fresh hopes. She even thought that she had found it in the divisions which were becoming daily more conspicuous in the Assembly itself. She had yet to learn that at such times violence always overpowers moderation, and that the worse men are, the more certain are they to obtain the upper hand.