36 Julia Crewitt Stoddard 



Commenting on this news Camille Desmoulins said: "The 

 emperor has just made peace with the Turks to be in condition 

 to send forces against us; the queen, certainly, would like to go 

 and join him, and the king, who loves his wife, would not wish 

 to be separated from her; if we permit him to leave the realm 

 it would be necessary that we at least take the dauphin as a hos- 

 tage ; but I believe that we should do better not to be in danger 

 of losing this good king, to send a deputation to him, to get him 

 to shut up the queen in Saint-Cyr, and to bring the king to Paris 

 where we should be surer of his person." 1 



This speech is reported by the Venetian ambassador as a "bar- 

 barous and sanguinary motion," made on "the pretext that the 

 so-called aristocratic party is seeking to get the power in the 

 assembly," 2 and such it doubtless appears from an outside point 

 of view. But the matter of power in the assembly getting into 

 the hands of the aristocrats was looked at more seriously by those 

 who hoped for a free government. The following is from the 

 rough draft of a letter written by Barnave on the 4th and 5th of 

 October : "If you could see with your own eyes that the minis- 

 ters, not excepting Necker, and the majority of our assembly 

 never wished any constitution ; that they have never had a moment 

 of superiority without trying with incredibly bad faith to over- 

 throw all that they had appeared to consent to ; that their relations 

 in the extent of the realm embrace almost every exercise of au- 

 thority ; that since the decrees of August 4 almost all the gov- 

 erning part of the nation has become our enemy and the enemy of 

 liberty ; that to give power to the ancient order in these circum- 

 stances would be most certain to reestablish it, to give it the 

 means of annihilating us almost without a struggle since the gov- 

 ernment and the majority of the assembly would have been for 

 it . . . ready to declare themselves in case the fear or wish 

 of the nation strongly expressed should not restrain them." 3 

 Enough has been quoted to show that Barnave believed the revo- 

 lution in very great danger. The suggestion that the "fear or 



1 Revue historique, LXVII, 253. 



2 Capello, Dispacci degli ambasciatori Veni/i, 60. 



8 Revue historique, LXVII, 272-73. 



362 



