In the month of June, just at the time of the opening of the primary meetings, the king has fled to Varennes, the Revolution seems compromised, civil war and a foreign war loom up on the horizon like two ghosts; the National Guard had everywhere taken up arms, and the Jacobins were making the most of the universal panic for their own advantage.

To dispute their votes is no longer the question; it is not well to be visible: among so many turbulent gatherings a popular execution is soon over.

The best thing now for royalists, constitutionalists, conservatives and moderates of every kind, for the friends of law and of order, is to stay at home--too happy if they may be allowed to remain there, to which the armed rabble agrees; on the condition of frequently paying them visits.
Consider their situation during the whole of the electoral period, in a calm district, and judge of the rest of France by this corner of it.

At Mortagne,[2126] a small town of 6,000 souls, the laudable spirit of 1789 still existed up to the journey to Varennes.

Among the forty or fifty noble families were a good many liberals.