THREE:The king, undeterred, descended into the court, and passing along the ranks, addressed them from time to time, telling them he relied on their attachment, and that in defending him they defended their wives and children. He then proceeded through the vestibule, intending to go to the garden, when he was assailed by fierce cries from some of the soldiers: "Down with the veto!" "Down with the traitor!" "Vive la nation!" Madame Campan, who was at a window looking into the garden, saw some of the gunners go up to the king, and thrust their fists in his face, insulting him in the most brutal language. He was obliged to pass along the terrace of the Feuillants, which was crowded with people, separated from the furious multitude merely by a tricolour line, but he went on in spite of all sorts of menaces and abuse. He saw the battalions file off before his face, and traverse the garden with the intention of joining the assailants in the Place du Carrousel, whilst the gensdarmes at the colonnade of the Louvre and other places did the same. This completely extinguished all hope in the unhappy king. The Viscomte Du Bouchage, seeing the situation of Louis from the palace, descended in haste with[403] another nobleman, to bring him in before some fatality happened to him. He complied, and returned with them. When the gunners thrust their fists in his face, Madame Campan says Louis turned as pale as death; yet he had shown no want of courage, had it been of the right sort. He had, indeed, refused to wear a kind of defensive corset which the queen had had made for him, saying, on the day of battle it was his duty to be uncovered, like the meanest of his servants. When the royal family came in again, Madame Campan says, "The queen told me all was lost; that the king had shown no energy, and that this sort of review had done more harm than good." The royal family, amidst insults and reproaches, walked on fast to the Assembly, and placed themselves under its protection. Vergniaud, the president, assured them of safety.Whilst the nation was growing every day more Jacobinical, and the danger was becoming more imminent, the queen sent a secret agent to London to sound Pitt. She hoped to win him to an announcement of supporting the throne of France in conjunction with the Continental sovereigns; but Pitt showed his usual reserve. He declared that England would not allow the Revolutionary spirit to put down the monarchy, but he said nothing expressly of supporting the monarch himself; and the queen, who was always suspicious that the Duke of Orleans was aiming at the Crown, and that he had made himself a party in England, was filled with alarm, lest Pitt's words only concealed the idea of such a king. Still the attitude of the Continental Powers became more menacing. The troops of the Emperor, in Belgium and Luxembourg, pressed upon the very frontiers of France, and the numbers of the Emigrants were constantly increasing in the territories of the Electors of Treves, Mayence, and Spires. Two hundred thousand men, in fact, formed a line along the French frontiers from Basle to the Scheldt.