At the end of June he returned to the army. Daily he heard reports of the growing power of his enemies, the Jacobins. Then he resolved to make one more attempt to save the King and the constitution. He received orders to march his troops by a town called La Capelle, which was about twenty miles from Compiègne, one of the King’s country residences. His plan was that Louis XVI. should go to the Assembly and declare his intention of passing a few days at Compiègne; there Lafayette’s army would meet him, and the King would proclaim that he was ready to send his troops against the enemies of France who had gathered on the frontiers and should reaffirm his loyalty to the constitution. The General thought that if the King would do this it would restore the confidence of the people in their sovereign.
But neither the King nor the nobles who were with him at the Tuileries were attracted by this plan, which meant that Louis would openly declare his hostility toward those emigrant nobles who had gathered on the borders. And when the Jacobins learned that Lafayette had been communicating secretly with the King they used this news as fresh fuel for their fire. So the result of the scheme was only to add to the currents of suspicion and intrigue that were involving Paris in the gathering storm.
The power of the Assembly grew weaker; its authority was more and more openly thwarted; the deputies wanted to stand by the constitution, but it appeared that the country did not care to live under its laws. The government of Paris was now entirely under the control of the Jacobins. They filled the ranks of the National Guards with ruffians in their pay. On July fourteenth the King reviewed soldiers who were secretly ready to tear the crown from his head and was forced to listen to bitter taunts and jibes.
Then, at the end of July, the allied armies of Austria and Prussia, accompanied by a great many French noblemen, crossed the frontier and began their heralded invasion. The general in command, the Duke of Brunswick, issued a proclamation calling on the people of Paris to submit to their king, and threatening all sorts of dire things if they persisted in their rebellion. The proclamation acted like tinder to powder. The invasion united all parties for the moment. If the Duke of Brunswick succeeded, no man who had taken part in the Revolution could think his life or property secure, and France would return to the old feudal despotism, made worse by its dependence on foreign armies.