At half-past three Louis XVI. left the Hall of the Manège, in the midst of joyful applause from the Assembly and the galleries. During the evening session discord reappeared. The following letter from the King was read: "I have just been handed the departmental decree which provisionally suspends the mayor and the procureur of the Commune of Paris. As this decree is based on facts which personally concern me, the first impulse of my heart is to beg the Assembly to decide upon it." Does any one believe that the Assembly will have the courage to condemn Pétion and the 20th of June? Not a bit { 246} of it. It makes no decision, but passes unanimously from the King's letter to the order of the day. And what occurs at the clubs? Listen to Billaud-Varennes at the Jacobins: "They embrace each other at the Assembly," he exclaims; "it is the kiss of Judas, it is the kiss of Charles IX., extending his hand to Coligny. They were embracing like this while the King was preparing for flight on October 6. They were embracing like this before the massacres of the Champ-de-Mars. They embrace, but are the court conspiracies coming to an end? Have our enemies ceased their advance against our frontiers? Is Lafayette the less a traitor?" And thereupon the cry broke out: "Pétion or death!" The next day, June 8, at the Assembly, loud applause greeted the orator from a section who said, concerning the department: "It openly serves the sinister projects and disastrous conspiracies of a perfidious court. It is the first link in the immense chain of plots formed against the people. It is an accomplice in the extravagant projects of this general, who, not being able to become the hero of liberty, has preferred to make himself the Don Quixote of the court." A deputy exclaimed: "The acclamations with which the Assembly has listened to this petition authorize me to ask its publication: I make an express motion to that effect." And the publication was decreed.
O poor Lamourette! humanitarian abbé, rose-water revolutionist, of what avail is your democratic holy water? What have you gained by your sentimental { 247} jargon? what do your dreams of evangelical philosophy and universal brotherhood amount to? Poor constitutional abbé, people are scoffing already at your sacerdotal unction, your soothing homily! The very men who, to please you, have sworn to destroy the republic, will proclaim it two and a half months later. Your famous reunion of parties, people are already shrugging their shoulders at and calling it the "_baiser d'Amourette, la réconciliation normande_": the calf-love kiss, the pretended reconciliation. They accuse you of having sold yourself to the court. They ridicule, they flout, and they will kill you. January 11, 1794, Fouquier-Tinville's prosecuting speech will punish you for your moderatism. You will carry your head to the scaffold, and, optimist to the end, you will say: "What is the guillotine? only a rap on the neck."