destruction, are in their very nature irrevocable and irremediable.  The nobility was gone; he had not resisted its suppression.  The Church was gone; he had himself been among the foremost of its assailants.  How, even if he had wished it, could he have undone these acts? and if he could not, how, without those indispensable pillars and supports, could any monarchy endure?  That he was now fully alive to the magnitude of the dangers which encompassed both throne and people, and that he would have labored vigorously to avert them, we may do him the justice to believe.  But it seems not so probable that he would have succeeded, as that he would have added one more to the list of these politicians who, having allowed their own selfish aims to carry them beyond the limits of prudence and justice, have afterward found it impossible to retrace their steps, but have learned to their shame and sorrow that their rashness has but led to the disappointment of their hopes, the permanent downfall of their own reputations, and the ruin of what they would gladly have defended and preserved.  And, on the whole, it is well that from time to time such lessons should be impressed upon the world.  It is well that men of lofty genius and pure patriotism should learn, equally with the most shallow empiric or the most self-seeking demagogue, that false steps in politics can rarely be retraced; that concessions once made can seldom, if ever, be recalled, but are usually the stepping-stones to others still more extensive; that what it would have been easy to preserve, it is commonly impossible to repair or to restore.

He had been laid in the grave only a fortnight, when, as if on purpose to show how utterly defenseless the king now was, the Jacobins excited the mob and the assembly to inflict greater insults on him than had been offered even by the attack on Versailles, or by any previous vote.  As Easter, which was unusually late this year, approached, Louis became anxious to spend a short time in tranquillity and holy meditation; and, since the tumultuousness of the city was not very favorable for such a purpose, he resolved to pass a fortnight at St. Cloud.  But when he was preparing to set out, a furious mob seized the horses and unharnessed them; the National Guards united with the rioters, refusing to obey La Fayette’s orders to clear the way for the royal carriage, and the king and queen were compelled to dismount and to return to their apartments; while, a day or two afterward, the Assembly came to a vote which seemed as if designed for an express sanction of this outrage, and which ordained that the king should not be permitted ever to move more than twenty leagues from Paris.