4° Julia Crewitt Stoddard 



become known in that city, and he wrote a letter to Saint-Priest 

 informing him of the plan which the French guards had for a 

 moment entertained of going to Versailles, but assuring him that 

 all danger was over, that the idea had been given up. 1 



Doubtless Lafayette sincerely believed there was no longer any 

 real danger; but the public mind was too much on the alert, and 

 circumstances were too suspicious to justify any assurance of 

 peace and quiet. It was known that the body-guard, whose three 

 months of service ended the ist of October, were retained to- 

 gether with those who entered the service at that time. 2 The 

 number of the guards was in this way doubled. For some reason 

 this body of troops had not yet taken the oath to the nation, nor 

 changed the white cockade of the Bourbons for the tri-color of 

 the revolution. 3 



It was currently reported, moreover, that this guard was about 

 to be reinforced, that a new corps was being recruited to fill the 

 place left vacant by the defection of the French guards, 4 that 

 there was "a list of 30,000 names including old officers, cheva- 

 liers de St. Louis, and gentlemen who have agreed to join the 

 body-guard," and "that the plan of the aristocratic leaders is to 

 carry off the king to Metz in order to be able to make war in his 

 name upon his people." 5 These rumors were only too well 

 founded. By the confession of the Abbe Douglas before the com- 

 mittee of investigation of the national assembly on the 6th of 

 October, the facts came to light. A regiment of volunteers was 

 to replace the French guards in the service of the king, under 

 the name of guard of the royal household. Fontainebleau was 

 fixed upon as the recruiting place. The officers were to be cho- 

 sen from the old French guards. Fifteen hundred men were 

 bound by agreement to accompany the king to Metz. Four 



Lafayette, Memoires, II, 333. 

 2 Revolutions de Paris, No. XIII, i. 



8 Deux amis de la liberty, Histoire de la revolution de France, III, 127. 

 *Ibid., Ill, 121; Revue historique, LXVIII, 287. 

 5 Revolutions de Paris, No. XIII, 6. 



B Revue historique, LXIX, 64. From the " Interrogatoire de l'abbe de 

 Douglas, coniite" des recherches de l'assemblee nationale." 



306 



