the king’s arrest, Drouet, son of the post-master of Sainte Menehould, appeared before it, and gave the following evidence:—­“I have served in Conde’s regiment of dragoons, and my comrade, Guillaume, in the Queen’s dragoons.  The 21st of June, at seven in the evening, two carriages and eleven horses arrived at Sainte Menehould, and I recognised the king and queen; but, fearful of being deceived, I resolved to ascertain the truth of this by arriving at Varennes, by a bye-road, before the carriages.  It was eleven o’clock, and quite dark, when I reached Varennes; the carriages arrived also, and were delayed by a dispute between the couriers and the postilions, who refused to go any farther.  I said to my comrade, ’Guillaume, are you a good patriot?’ ‘Do not doubt it,’ replied he.  ’Well, then, the king is here; let us arrest him.’  We overturned a cart, filled with goods, under the arch of the bridge; and when the carriage arrived, demanded their passports.  ‘We are in a hurry, gentlemen,’ said the queen.  However, we insisted, and made them alight at the house of the procureur of the district; then, of his own accord, Louis XVI. said to us, ’Behold your king—­your queen—­and my children!  Treat us with that respect that Frenchmen have always shown to their king.’  We, however, detained him; the national guards hastened to the town, and the hussars espoused our cause; and after having done our duty, we returned home, amidst the acclamations of our fellow-citizens, and to-day come to offer the homage of our services to the National Assembly.”

Drouet and Guillaume were loudly applauded after this speech.

The Assembly then decreed that immediately after the arrival of Louis XVI. at the Tuileries, a guard should be given him, under the orders of La Fayette, who should be responsible for his security.  Malouet was the only one who ventured to remonstrate against this captivity.  “It at once destroyed inviolability and the constitution; the legislative and executive powers are now united.”  Alexandre Lameth opposed Malouet’s motion, and declared that it was the duty of the Assembly to assume and retain, until the completion of the constitution, a dictatorship, forced upon it by the state of affairs, but that the monarchy being the form of government necessary to the concentration of the forces of so great a nation, the Assembly would immediately afterwards resume a division of powers, and return to the forms of a monarchy.

XXV.

At this moment the captive king entered Paris.  It was on the 25th of June, at seven o’clock in the evening.  From Meaux to the suburbs of Paris, the crowd thickened in every place as the king passed.  The passions of the city, the Assembly, the press, and the clubs worked more intensely, and even closer in this population of the environs of Paris.  These passions, written on every countenance, were repressed by their very violence.  Indignation and contempt controlled their rage.  Insult escaped them only in under tones; the populace was sinister, and not furious.  Thousands of glances darted death into the windows of the carriages, but not one tongue uttered a threat.