26 Laura B. Pfciffcr 



undiplomatic move and proved to be disastrous to the constitu- 

 tional party. In this letter Lafayette attacked the Jacobin socie- 

 ties, as the authors of all disorders, and advised their suppression. 

 He represented them as an empire having its metropolis and affil- 

 iations, as a distinct corporation in the midst of the French people 

 of which it usurped the powers and subjugated the representa- 

 tives. He denounced the ministry just fallen, especially Servan 

 and Dumouriez, condemned the efforts then being made to over- 

 throw the constitution and proclaimed his intention to enforce that 

 instrument and so to carry out the supreme will of the people. 

 Finally, he advised the assembly to suppress all foreign and in- 

 ternal enemies, asserting that France was able to protect herself, 

 if she would.'* 



The letter was read in the assembly June i8 and was received 

 with great applause. It was voted that it be printed and that 

 copies be sent to the eighty-three departments. This entire appro- 

 bation seemed to show that the assembly was Feuillant in its sym- 

 pathies. The Left was greatly excited. \'ergniaud made a vigor- 

 ous speech in which he distinguished between petitions presented 

 by simple citizens and those presented by the general of an army, 

 asserting that the advice of a general to a legislative assembly 

 amounted to dictation. Gaudet insisted that the letter could not 

 have been written by Lafayette because it spoke of an event which 

 occurred in Paris on June i6, and which could not have been 

 known to Lafayette at Maubeuge on the same day.^ The letter, 

 he asserted, must have been fabricated or signed in blank. He 

 then moved that it be sent to the committee of twelve and the 

 motion was carried unanimously although this vote was entirely 

 contradictory to the former vote of the assembly transmitting the 

 letter to the departments.'' 



This letter caused the greatest excitement in Paris' spreading, 



* Moniteur, XII, 698; Histoire parlementaire, XV, 69-74; Roederer, 

 Chronique de cinquanie jours, 10; Chaumette, Memoires, 3, 8. 



' This event was the dismissal of Dumouriez as minister of war. 



'Moniteur, XII, 692-93. 



'Roederer, Chronique de cinquanie jours, 16; Memoires du comte de 

 Paroy, 297; Journal d'une bourgeoise, 130, letter to her husband, June 



222 



