So peace was restored for the time. Fifty thousand people marched back to Paris, the King and the royal family in their carriage, Lafayette riding beside them. Close to them marched the royal body-guards, and close to the latter came the National Guards. And the crowd shouted with exultation at having forced their sovereign to do their will.
At the gates of the city the mayor met the procession and made a patriotic address. From there they went to the Hôtel de Ville, where more speeches were made, and it was late in the day before Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette and their children were allowed to take refuge in the Palace of the Tuileries.
Lafayette, who had played with the Queen and her friends in the gardens at Versailles when he was a boy, had stood by her loyally on that day when the mob had vowed vengeance against her. He believed in liberty and constitutional government, but he also believed in order. He wanted to protect the weak and defenseless, and he hated the excesses of the mob. He thought he could reproduce in France what he had seen accomplished in America. But conditions were too different. The people of France had been ground down too long by their nobles. Their first taste of liberty had gone to their heads like strong wine. So, like a boat that has lost its rudder, the ship of state of France plunged on to the whirlpool of the French Revolution.
King Louis XVI., Queen Marie Antoinette, and their children were now virtually prisoners in the Palace of the Tuileries in Paris, the nobles were leaving France for their own safety, and the Assembly was trying to govern the country. But the Assembly was very large and unwieldy, and its members were more interested in making speeches denouncing the present laws than in trying to frame new ones. Lafayette was commander of the National Guard, and so in a way the most powerful man in France, although the most able statesman and leader was Mirabeau. Occasionally Lafayette found time to attend the meetings of the Assembly, and at one of these sessions a deputy demanded that all titles of nobility should be abolished. Another member objected, saying that merit ought to be recognized, and asking what could be put in the place of the words, “Such a one has been made noble and count for having saved the State on such a day.”