The constitution gave him the right of suspending them by the royal _veto_; but to suspend the effects of the national indignation against the armed enemies of the Revolution, was to invoke it on his own head.

The Girondists artfully fomented these elements of discord between the Assembly and the king.

They impatiently awaited until the refusal to sanction the decrees should urge irritation to its height, and force the king to fly or place himself in their hands.
The most monarchical spirit of the Constituent Assembly still reigned in the Directory of the department of Paris.

Desmeuniers, Baumetz, Talleyrand-Perigord, Larochefoucauld, were the principal members.

They drew up an address to the king, entreating him to refuse his sanction to the decree against the nonjuring priests.