3° Julia Cravitt Stoddard 



Citizens were you not a few days ago on the eve of famine and 

 of civil war? A prompt revolution, a moment of activity, a 

 choice loudly expressed between death and liberty, stifled the 

 conspiracy in its cradle." 1 



Capello, in his despatch for October 12 asserts that it "is pub- 

 lished and reported that a counter-revolution was preparing to 

 kill off the regular troops of Paris and to burn and sack a great 

 many houses. Some suspected persons were imprisoned, and 

 day before yesterday two men were arrested who were marking 

 houses. Certainly a great number of houses were marked." 2 



It is not possible to determine the exact amount of truth in 

 these reports. It seems most probable that fear of what the 

 aristocrats might do, together with the knowledge of what they 

 most, certainly would like to do, caused much exaggeration. But 

 it is beyond question that their interests were promoted by the 

 action of the conservative deputies in the assembly. 



The moderates were sincere patriots, but were alarmed at the 

 reckless destruction of old customs and privileges on the night 

 of August 4, and began to draw back. They were afraid that a 

 revolution made in such haste would be neither legitimate nor 

 secure. Although they saw the evils of feudalism, they were not 

 blind to the dangers of anarchy. Mounier led the opposition 

 against the suppression of feudal rights without indemnity. 

 "These rights," he said, "have been bought and sold for centuries; 

 it is in good faith that they have been placed on sale and have 

 been made the foundation of several establishments ; to annihilate 

 them would be to annihilate contracts, ruin entire families, and 

 overthrow the first foundations of public welfare." 3 Other dep- 

 uties held the same opinions, some fearing to compromise the 

 revolution by precipitous measures, others, less disinterested, be- 

 cause their income was affected by the decrees of August 4. They 

 favored the English plan of having two houses, and would have 

 given all necessary executive power to the monarch. 4 They de- 



1 Revolutions de Paris, No. XII, 1, 2. 



2 Capello, Dispacci degli ambasciatori Veniti, 75. 

 3 Revue historiqne, IyXVII, 264. 265. 



4 Lafayette, Mcmoires, II, 299; Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence and. 

 Miscellanies, III, 39. 



296. 



