Page:Historyoffranc00yong.djvu/192

 f68 HIS'JORY OF FRANCE. [chap. emigrant nobility and an armed force from Germany to wreak vengeance for all they had suffered, and trample on the people. So they were watched more closely than ever, and were made to feel to the utmost the recoil of the crimes of their forefathers. A new constitution was framed, vesting the government in the king and a single legislative chamber. The king kept the right of "Vefo" that is, of refusing the royal assent to a measure. He was to bear the old title of A'/;/_^ of the French instead of King of France, and was left just power enough in the veto and in the right of appointing ministers, to embroil him with the revolutionary party. If the king transgressed the new conditions, or called in the army against the nation, he was to be deposed. However, on the 14th September, 1791, he made oath to observe the new constitution, and the National Assembly dissolved itself soon afterwards. , g. The Legislative Assembly, 1 791, 1792. — The new assembly, called the Legislative Assembly, met ist October, 1 79 1. Some of the members of this Assembly wished to see the king continue to exercise power : among those who wished to make the government more republican, the moderate party were called Girondins, because the chief of them came from the department of the Gironde, the country round the estuary of the Garonne. Their favourite place of meeting was at the house of the beautiful, eager, and brilliant Manon Roland, the wife of a Girondin m.ember who afterwards became a minister. Like all this party Madame Roland had filled her mind with stories of the heroes of classical times, drawn from Plutarch's lives. There was a more violent party which aimed at the overthrow of all existing institutiohs to build fresh ones. In the hall of Assembly they occupied the upper benches called the .^lountain.. Their lead"er was Maximilian Robespierre. He was not himself a member of this Assembly, but constantly spoke at the Jacobins' club. 10. Fall of the Monarchy, 1792. — The king was a closely-watched captive in his own capital, and the emi- grant nobility took up arms to deliver him, hoping to gain the help of Ki?ig Frederick IVilliarn II. of Prussia, and the Emperor Leopold, brother of the queen. But this was, in truth, a fatal step, since the nation only saw in it an endeavour to bring back all they had pined under. War was declared on Austria. Full of a fiery spirit of patriotism, the Girondins required the king to pronounce