34 Julia Crciiitt Stoddard 



slept or feigned sleep during the discussion of the matter and on 

 awakening refused his consent to the proposed plan. 1 Whether 

 this act was due to firmness and a fear of provoking an insur- 

 rection of the people by such open defiance, as Mathiez suggests, 2 

 or whether the king really slept in council, as seems quite prob- 

 able in a man like him after a day in the open air, and on awak- 

 ening gave his decision without definite knowledge of the plan 

 or its advisers, the fact remains that he refused, to the conster- 

 nation of all his counselors. And having given this answer, no 

 power could make him retract. "In spite of the queen," it was 

 said, "in spite of M. de Mercy, in spite of the most pressing in- 

 sinuations of a great number of court nobles, the king decided to 

 remain at Versailles." 3 



It is not to be imagined that the motives of all who supported 

 the plan of removal to the .provinces were equally disinterested. 

 The moderates, while anxious to preserve their power in the as- 

 sembly, were without doubt in favor of a representative govern- 

 ment and a stable constitution. 4 The aristocrats, on the other 

 hand, desired the restoration of the monarchy with all its abuses. 

 Their income depended largely on the maintenance of the privi- 

 leges which the revolution would destroy. 



While the court and the moderate parties were scheming to- 

 gether to get the king and the assembly out of the power of the 

 popular party, the patriots were growing more and more uneasy 

 over the situation. Regarding the queen and the court with the 

 most intense hostility, distrusting the ministers and detesting the 

 moderates as traitors .to their country, they feared for the success 

 of the revolution. For a month there had been no progress. 5 

 The 4th of August decrees were the very corner-stone of the 

 free government they hoped to establish. The suppression of 

 feudalism had been unanimously demanded by the call i as. 

 France as a whole favored the revolution. 



1 Revue historique, LXVII, 274. 



*Ibik., LXVII, 276. 



3 Montlosier, Mhnoires, I, 279; Revue historique, LXVII, 276. 



4 De Stael-Holstein, Correspondance diplomatique, 130. 



6 Revue historique, LXVII, 253. 



6 Young, Travels in France, passim. 



300 



