He armed himself with fresh distrust from their conversations, and entered the council with a more frowning brow and more resolute determination: the king's frankness disarmed him--Dumouriez discouraged him by his gaiety--power softened him by its influence.

He wavered between the two great difficulties of the moment, the double sanction required from the king for the decrees which were most repugnant to his heart and conscience, the decree against the emigrants, and the decree against the nonjuring priests; and he wavered as to war.
During this tergiversation of Roland and his colleagues, Dumouriez acquired the favour of the king and the people, the secret of his conduct being comprised in what he had said a short time before to M.de Montmorin, in a secret conversation he had with that minister.

"If I were king of France, I would disconcert all parties by placing myself at the head of the Revolution." This sentence contained the sole line of policy capable of saving Louis XVI.

In a time of revolution every king who is not revolutionary must be inevitably crushed between the two parties: a neutral king no longer reigns--a pardoned king degrades the throne--a king conquered by his own people has for refuge only exile or the scaffold.

Dumouriez felt that his first step was to convince the king of his personal attachment, and take him into his confidence, or indeed make him his accomplice in the patriotic part he proposed to play; constitute himself the secret mediator between the will of the monarch and the exactions of the cabinet, to control the king by his influence over the Girondists, and the Girondists by his influence over the king; the part of the favourite of misfortune and protector of a persecuted queen pleased alike his ambition and his heart.