Monarchy had a firm hold on
liberal nobles like Mirabeau and Lafayette, on adventurers like
Dumouriez, and even on lawyers like Danton who shrank from excessive
cruelty. Had the pure Royalists been capable of enough intellectual
flexibility to keep faith upon any reasonable basis of compromise, even
as late as 1792, the Revolution might have been benign. In June, 1792,
Lafayette, who commanded the army of the North, came to Paris and not
only ventured to lecture the Assembly on its duty, but offered to take
Louis to his army, who would protect him against the Jacobins. The court
laughed at Lafayette as a Don Quixote, and betrayed his plans to the
enemy. "I had rather perish," said the Queen, "than be saved by M. de
Lafayette and his constitutional friends." And in this she only
expressed the conviction which the caste to which she belonged held of
their duty. Cazales protested to the Assembly, "Though the King perish,
let us save the kingdom." The Archduchess Christina wrote to her sister,
Marie Antoinette, "What though he be slain, if we shall triumph," and
Conde, in December, 1790, swore that he would march on Lyons, "come what
might to the King.
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