DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

( 30 ) of all classes before the law. A wild panic seized the upper classes. The queen’s intimate friend, the Duchess de Polignac, the king’s brother, the Comte d’Artois, and his cousin the Prince de Condé, led a general stampede across the frontier. The Comtesse de Brionne, a distant connexion of the queen, informed Talleyrand, the future Minister of Napoleon, of her intention to emigrate. ‘Why do you take such a sudden resolution 2’? he inquired. ‘Because I will neither be a victim nor a witness of scenes which horrify me.’ ‘Then why not go and spend some little time in a small country town eae sN small country town ?’ she exclaimed: ‘Fie! I will be a peasant if you like, but a provincial never.’ With the same levity with which they had entered into the Revolution, the nobles deserted their sovereign in the hour of need. Some left from sheer disgust at the democratic turn of affairs, many fled for personal safety, others, chiefly officers whom the revolutionary spirit among the men had forced to quit the army, imagined that, on the frontier, a royalist army would be formed to crush the revolution and save the king. To remain behind was considered a sign of cowardice, and ladies sent distaffs to the laggards as a mark of contempt. From the Assembly itself, as yet, there was no danger to the throne. It was composed of com- paratively moderate men, and busied itself with