I will willingly sacrifice my petty existence, and this sacrifice has long ago been made; but it is important to the whole empire that your sittings be undisturbed by any popular tumult in the critical state of affairs at present, and in consequence I second all the measures for preserving order and tranquillity that have just been proposed." At length, on the motion of several members, the Assembly decided, that in the king's absence, all power should be vested in themselves, and that their decrees should be immediately put in execution by the ministers without any further sanction or acceptance.
The Assembly seized on the dictatorship with a prompt and firm grasp, and declared themselves permanent.
XVII.
Whilst the Assembly, by the rights alike of prudence and necessity, seized on the supreme power, M.de La Fayette cast himself with calm audacity amidst the people, to grasp again, at the peril of his life, the confidence that he had lost.

The first impulse of the people would naturally be to massacre the perfidious general, who had answered for the safe custody of the king with his life, and had yet suffered him to escape.

La Fayette saw his peril, and, by braving, averted the tempest.
One of the first to learn the king's flight, from his officers, he hurried to the Tuileries, where he found the mayor of Paris, Bailly, and the president of the Assembly, Beauharnais.

Bailly and Beauharnais lamented the number of hours that must be lost in the pursuit before the Assembly could be convoked, and the decrees executed.

"Is it your opinion," asked La Fayette, "that the arrest of the king and the royal family is absolutely essential to the public safety, and can alone preserve us from civil war ?" "No doubt can be entertained of that," returned the mayor and the president.