268 
officers would immediately be delivered 
up. Accordingly, the head of the co- 
lumn, into which the king’s regiment 
was formed, filed off trom the town, and 
the Marquis was soon joined by the two 
generals, Malseigne and De Noue. In 
consequence of this pacific arrangement, 
the Marquis suspended the march of his 
troops, and waited only for the depar- 
ture of the garrison, that he might take 
possession of it*himself; it often hap- 
pens, however, that the irritation of a 
populace is not to be controuled; such 
unhappily was the case at present.— 
Several soldiers, who had not followed 
their colours, together with a party of 
the people, began a quarrel with De 
Bouillé’s advanced guard, and were pre- 
paring to fire on them with several 
pieces of heavy ordnance, loaden with 
grape-shot, which they had. placed in 
the entrance of the gate. A young of- 
ficer -of the king’s regiment, named 
Dessiles, prevented them for some time ; 
he placed himself before the mouth of a 
cannon, and when torn from thence, he 
leaped upon a four and twenty pounder, 
and seating himself upon the touch-hole, 
was in that position massacred.* The 
dreadful slaughter which followed is too 
well known to require being detailed 
here. We have dwelt on this affair, in 
justification of the Marquis, from whose 
memoirs of the revolution our account 
is abbreviated, because we think that 
Mr. Adolphus has slurred it over in a 
very hasty and unsatisfactory manner. 
In the account of the king’s flight to 
Varennes, it is said that “ M. de Bouillé, 
who had escaped from France, wrote to 
the assembly, avowing himself the only 
instigator of the journey.’’ Mr. Adol- 
phus does not seem to have been aware, 
that so far from being the author of the 
king’s flight, de Bouillé, when the pro- 
ject was Fest communicated to him, in- 
stantly saw, with that ready penetration 
and sagacity which seldom deserted him, 
the very doubtful success of the measure, 
and the inevitable ruin both to the so- 
vereign and the monarchy which a fai- 
lure would produce: it was decided on 
against his approbation, but the decision 
being made, he obeyed his orders, and 
was the sole conductor of it. The Mar- 
quis made his own escape; and on his 
HISTORY, POLITICS, AND STATISTICS. 
arrival at Luxembourgh wrote a letter 
to the national assembly, which may 
have misled Mr. Adolphus, accusing 
himself as being the person who pers 
suaded the king into the measures he 
adopted. The object of this letter does 
the highest-honor to the Marquis; “ it 
was intended,” says he, “for no other 
purpose than to turn upon myself that 
torrent of popular fury which I feared 
might prove fatal to the king and the 
royal family.” See Bouille’s Memoirs. 
Proceeding in the history to the fatal 
summer of 1792, and the events of the 
10th of August, and the 2d, 3d, and 
4th of September, it is necessary to draw 
the characters of parties and of indivi. 
duals. So difficult is it to form a fair 
estimate of these. from the prejudiced 
sources of hired journalists and interested 
emigrants, that where our opinion on 
the merits of an individual has not coin- 
cided with that of Mr. Adolphus, we 
are far from inferring the inaccuracy of 
his estimate. Our reading on the events 
of the revolution has been casual, and 
in comparison with his confined; Mr. 
Adolphus, who is a cautious and indus- 
trious historian, has nevertheless occa- 
sionally summed up his evidence with- 
out a careful examination of witnesses. 
We were a little shocked to find him 
favouring the suspicion of Roland's 
agency in the massacre of September: 
we had always looked upon Roland as 
an honest and respectable character, and 
Mr. Adolphus surely is not perfectly con- 
sistent with himselt on this subject, In 
one page he représents this minister as an 
“¢ inoffensive old man, endowed with lit- 
tle talent and not much malice, choleric, 
not rancorous, plain in manners and ha- 
bits, brief in speech, fond of reproving 
vice, and fancying himself a model of 
virtue.” Bye and bye it is stated, that 
“he made no vigorous representation 
against these massacres, because he re- 
joiced at the extermination of priests and 
nobles ;”” that he afterwards denounced 
the massacres of September is certainly 
no positive proof that he was, not con- 
cerned in them; but as the murder of 
Roland himself was believed to have 
formed part of the projet of the 2d Sep- 
tember, (see vol. 1, p. 266) le cannot 
be exposed to the suspicion of being con- 
* Ina note to Mr. Adolphus's inadequate narrative of this affair, he tells us, that Dessiles- 
survived ‘* to enjoy the immediate admiration of his country, and to attest aflerwards in 
exile her ingratitude !” 
Our account of this noble instance of heroism is taken verbatim 
from the Murquis de Bouillé’s Memoirs —Rey. 
