their carriage at eleven o’clock in the evening.  The immense crowd that surrounded them as if in one popular embrace,—­the cries of Vive le Roi!  Vive la Reine!  Vive le Dauphin!—­hats flung in the air, the gestures of enthusiasm and respect, made for them a triumph on the very spot over which they had passed two months previously in the midst of the outrages of the multitude, and deep murmuring of the excited populace.  The nation seemed desirous of redeeming these threatening days, and to prove to the king how easy it was to appease the people, and how sweet to it was the reign of liberty!  The national acceptance of the laws of the Constituent Assembly was the counterproof of its work.  It had not the legality, but it had really the value, of an individual acceptance by primary assemblies.  It proved that the will of the public mind was satisfied.  The nation voted by acclamation, what the wisdom of its Assembly had voted on reflection.  Nothing but security was wanting to the public feeling.  It seemed as if it desired to intoxicate itself by the delirium of its happiness; and that it compensated, by the very excess of its manifestations of joy, for what it lacked in solidity and duration.

The king sincerely participated in this general joyous feeling.  Placed between the recollections of all he had suffered for three years, and the lowering storms he foresaw in the future, he endeavoured to delude himself, and to feel persuaded of his good fortune.  He said to himself, that perhaps he had mistaken the popular opinion; and that having at least surrendered himself unconditionally to the mercy of his people—­that people would respect in him his own power and his own will:  he swore in his honest and good heart fidelity to the constitution and love to the nation he really loved.

The queen herself returned to the palace with more national thoughts:  she said to the king, “They are no longer the same people;” and, taking her son in her arms, she presented him to the crowd who thronged the terrace of the chateau, and seemed thus to invest herself in the eyes of the people with the innocence of age and the interest of maternity.

The king gave, some days afterwards, a fete to the people of Paris, and distributed abundant alms to the indigent.  He desired that even the miserable should have his day of content, at the commencement of that era of joy, which his reconciliation with his people promised to his reign.  The Te Deum was sung in the cathedral of Paris, as on a day of victory, to bless the cradle of the French constitution.  On the 30th of September, the king closed the Constituent Assembly.  Before he entered the chamber, Bailly, in the name of the municipality; Pastoret, in the name of the departments, congratulated the Assembly on the conclusion of its work:—­“Legislators,” said Bailly, “you have been armed with the greatest power that men can require.  To-morrow you will be nothing.  It is not, therefore interest or flattery which praises you—­it is your works.  We announce to you the benedictions of posterity, which commence for you from to-day!” “Liberty,” said Pastoret, “had fled beyond the seas, or taken refuge in the mountains,—­you have raised her fallen throne.  Despotism had effaced every page of the book of nature; you have re-established the decalogue of freemen!”