Such laws as these are mere outbursts of folly." But the Assembly continued to pass laws of the most sweeping description, assuming the sovereign power, and using it as no monarch of France had ever ventured to do.

Moderate men were shocked at the headlong course of events, and numbers of those who at the commencement of the movement had thrown themselves heart and soul into it now shrank back in dismay at the strange tyranny which was called liberty.
"It seems to me that a general madness has seized all Paris," the marquis said to his wife on his return, "but at present nothing can be done to arrest it.

I have seen the king and queen.

His majesty is resolved to do nothing; that is, to let events take their course, and what that will be Heaven only knows.

The Assembly has taken all power into its hands, the king is already a mere cipher, the violence of the leaders of these men is beyond all bounds; the queen is by turns hot and cold, at one moment she agrees with her husband that the only hope lies in conceding everything; at another she would go to the army, place herself in its hands, and call on it to march upon Paris.
"At anyrate there is nothing to be done at present but to wait.
Already numbers of the deputies, terrified at the aspect of affairs, have left France, and I am sorry to say many of the nobles have also gone.