faces; faces stamped with the degradation of centuries, whose inherited hatred flashed in deadly looks from innumerable eyes, stabbing the King's soul with thrusts more terrible than are dealt the body with weapons of steel.
This progress through an inimical people by a sovereign who had violated his oath was in reality that King's déchéance, or, more truly, his moral decapitation. It was impossible that Louis XVI. could recover a shred of authority after so signal a collapse; although one cannot help wishing that he had made good his escape across the Rhine. Madame Roland and Brissot hoped for nothing better. On the 22nd of June she wrote to Bancal: "The King and his family are gone; it is far from a misfortune, if we act with good sense, energy, and union. The mass of the people in the capital feel this, for the mass is sound and has accurate perceptions; so much so that yesterday the indignation against Louis XVI., the hatred of kings, and the word Republic, might be heard on all sides." Madame Roland in writing to Bancal says that to replace the King on the throne would be sheer folly and absurdity: that now is the time to amend the errors of the Constitution: that they could never elect Monsieur, d'Artois, Condé, or the vicious and despised Orleans as Regent: that the King should be deposed and detained in safe keeping, the people indicted who assisted in his flight, and that, in order to insure the regular working of the Executive power, a national President should be temporarily elected.
Her life-long aspiration after the Republic seemed about to be fulfilled. She and her friends were ardently looking forward to its establishment. The people now began loudly clamouring for the déchéance,
