The Insurrection of October, 1789 51 



Orleans should go to England with a kind of mission to justify 

 his departure; but he changed his mind the same evening on the 

 advice of his friends. He informed Lafayette of it; Lafayette 

 gave him a second rendezvous and made him promise to leave 

 within twenty-four hours. . . In the night Orleans changed 

 his mind again, and Mirabeau having taken it upon him to de- 

 nounce in the assembly Lafayette's conduct in giving orders to a 

 representative of the people, he, Orleans, wrote at daybreak that 

 he would not go. A third rendezvous was immediately set by 

 Lafayette . . .; the result of the conversation was that Or- 

 leans went." 1 



If such was the character of the Duke of Orleans, so weak, so 

 cowardly, so irresolute, can we believe that he was the leading 

 spirit in a conspiracy to overthrow the government? Is it not 

 much more probable that he was the willing instrument of bolder 

 men? De Stael-Holstein affirms that the Duke of Orleans, "in- 

 stead of leading his party, allows himself rather to be drawn on 

 by it ; and when the instant to act arrives courage fails him." 2 



From the beginning of the revolution the Duke of Orleans 

 had been very popular with the common people. On the 12th 

 of July they had carried his bust with Necker's in procession 

 through the streets of Paris. 3 He made every effort to gain the 

 good graces of the patriots, even to the extent sometimes of dis- 

 courtesy to the court. Capello speaks thus of his conduct at 

 Versailles on the day of Saint-Louis, the fete day of the king: 

 "For a climax of humiliation, the Duke of Orleans, with an in- 

 solence truly disgusting in a Bourbon and a first prince of the 

 blood, alone, among those who accompanied his majesty, wore 

 the cockade of the third estate." 4 A royal prince who was hated 



1 Lafayette, Mhnoires, II, 357, 358; Morris, Diary and Letters, I, 202, 222, 

 223. Morris reports that Lafayette had said of the Duke of Orleans: "Ses 

 lettres de cr£ance sont des lettres de grace," but afterwards denied that he 

 had used such an expression, "puisqu'il n'y a aucun indice contre le due 

 d'Orleans." Morris thought the friends of the duke were likely to convict 

 him by their zeal in circulating absurd stories, such as that " England gives 

 two millions sterling to make mischief in this country." In November the 

 Duke of Orleans was offering 20 per cent for a loan of 500,000 francs. 



2 De Stael-Holstein, Correspondance diplomatique, 142. 



3 Flammermont, La journte du 14 Juillel, 1789, CLXXVII. 



4 Capello, Dispacci degli ambasciatori Vemti, 58. 



317 



