La Fayette was at the head of the National Guard. He was a strong advocate for the rights of the people. At the same time, he wished to respect the rights of the king, and to sustain a constitutional monarchy. As soon as they had entered the palace, Maria Antoinette, with that indomitable spirit which ever characterized her, approached La Fayette, and offered to him the keys of her casket, as if he were her jailer. La Fayette, deeply wounded, refused to receive them. The queen indignantly, with her own hands, placed them in his hat. "Your majesty will have the goodness to take them back," said the marquis, "for I certainly shall not touch them."
The position of La Fayette at this time was about as embarrassing as it could possibly have been; and he was virtually the jailer of the royal family, answerable with his life for their safe keeping. He had always been a firm friend of civil and religious liberty. He was very anxious to see France blessed with those free institutions and that recognition of popular rights which are the glory of America, but he also wished to protect the king and queen from outrage and insult; and a storm of popular fury had now risen which he knew not how to control or to guide. He, however, resolved to do all in his power to protect the royal family, and to watch the progress of events with the hope of establishing constitutional liberty and a constitutional throne over France.
The palace was now guarded, by command of the Assembly, with a degree of rigor unknown before. The iron gates of the courts and garden of the Tuileries were kept locked. A list of the persons who were to be permitted to see the royal family was made out, and none others were allowed to enter. At every door sentinels were placed, and in every passage, and in the corridor which connected the chambers of the king and queen, armed men were stationed. The doors of the sleeping apartments of the king and queen were kept open night and day, and a guard was placed there to keep his eye ever upon the victims. No respect was paid to female modesty, and the queen was compelled to retire to her bed under the watchful eye of an unfeeling soldier. It seems impossible that a civilized people could have been guilty of such barbarism. But all sentiments of humanity appear to have fled from France. One of the queen's women, at night, would draw her own bed between that of the queen and the open door, that she might thus partially shield the person of her royal mistress. The king was so utterly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the calamities in which he was now involved, that his mind, for a season, seemed to be prostrated and paralyzed by the blow. For ten days he did not exchange a single word with any member of his family, but moved sadly about in the apathy of despair, or sat in moody silence. At last the queen threw herself upon her knees before him, and, presenting to him her children, besought him, for her sake and that of their little ones, to rouse his fortitude. "We may all perish," she said, "but let us, at least, perish like sovereigns, and not wait to be strangled unresistingly upon the very floor of our apartments."