A.D. 1792.]

-gendre, the butcher; Chabot, Hurugue, and others—to hold meetings in different quarters of the city. At these meetings they called on all the citizens to be ready, with their pikes and other arms, on the 20th, to celebrate the anniversary of the Jeu de Paume, by presenting a memorial to the assembly and another to the king; by erecting a Mai, or maypole, the Tree of Liberty, on the terrace of the Feuillants, and by other acts of demonstration. A demand for this fête was made to the commune, but Petion did not make any communication to the assembly, or even to the departmental directory, till the 18th. The directory, on receiving his communication, immediately issued an order forbidding any such meeting on the 20th, and enjoined Petion and the national guards to do everything possible to prevent it. On the next day, the 19th, the directory informed the assembly of the proposed demonstration on the morrow, and Barbaroux, at the head of a deputation of citizens of Marseilles, appeared at the bar of the house, and demanded that the patriotic men of the south should be summoned in arms to Paris; that the revolution was in danger from traitors, and that it must be finished and for ever established. The proposal was received with acclamations, and thus another measure of the jacobins and Girondists was accomplished. Barbaroux had been put on this movement by them and Petion. Petion-now called the virtuous Petion-and Robespierre made up their differences, and thus all the instigators of mob rule were, for the moment, combined for a great blow at the monarchy. Amid the cheering for Barbaroux's proposition, the letter of the departmental directory was introduced. Jacobins and Girondists united to oppose its being read. In this they failed; but they succeeded in inducing the assembly to pass to the order of the day, and thus Paris was left to the mercy of the furious populace, without any preparations for the defence of the palace and the royal family.

That night Petion, instead of being engaged in taking measures to insure the peace of the city the next day, hastened to the house of Santerre, the brewer, in the Faubourg St. Antoine, where soon arrived Robespierre, Manuel, procureursyndic of the commune; Sillery, the husband of madame Genlis; Alexandre, commandant of the Faubourg St. Marceau; Legendre, the butcher; Sergent and Panis, whose names, at a later period, were connected with a terrible event; Rossignol, a journeyman goldsmith, of rabid republican character, and others of the same stamp. There were numbers of desperate jacobins, too, summoned by Santerre from the neighbouring towns and villages. At midnight Petion wrote to the directory, soliciting it to authorise the assemblage by permitting the national guards to receive the citizens into its own ranks. The directory replied, at five o'clock in the morning, to this extraordinary demand, by refusing it. Petion then, according to his own statement, doubled the guard at the Tuileries; but he did nothing more, and he knew very well that the majority of these guards would not lift a hand against the people. Chabot went and harangued the section of the Quinze-Vingts, and declared that the assembly was waiting for them with open

arms.

At dawn of day the drums beat in the Faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marcel; these districts were all in commo

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tion, and at eight o'clock they were formed into column. At about eleven Santerre put himself at their head, attended by a strong force of invalids, and the march commenced towards the Tuileries. This sans-culotte army was interspersed with women and children, uttering ferocious cries, and nearly all were armed with pikes or other weapons. They carried standards, bearing many such mottoes as " 'Tremble, tyrants: the sans-culottes are coming!" "Down with all tyrants!" One standard consisted of a pair of black silk breeches extended on a pole, with the motto, "Without breeches, but free!" A bullock's heart was carried on a pike, to represent an aristocrat's heart. And this was the style in which Frenchmen in 1792 pretended to be on their way to present a petition to the assembly.

Before they reached that body, Roederer, the procureursyndic of the department, entered, and warned the members of the style in which this armed rabble was approaching. He reminded them of the laws enacted against armed assemblages, and of the standing resolution not to admit more than twenty to present petitions, and entreated them to close their doors. But the jacobins and Girondists declared that, as they only wanted to present a petition, they ought to be received with all respect. Vergniaud contended that this was not the first time that armed petitioners had not only been received, but allowed to file through the hall, and that they could not, on this occasion, be excluded. Dumolard opposed their admission, as tending to establish a monstrous abuse, and render both the king and assembly the merest slaves in the eyes of all Europe. But the mob was already at the door, with fierce shouting and beating of drums. A letter was handed in by Santerre to the president, stating that the petitioners wanted to be admitted to the bar of the assembly to confront their caluminators, and prove themselves still the men of the 14th of July, 1789. Vergniaud urged their immediate admission, saying they were uneasy about the future, and wanted to show that they were ever ready to defend it. There were cries of, "They are only eight thousand in number!" To which Calvet replied, "And we are only seven hundred and forty-five!" But the debate was cut short by the noisy crowd bursting into the hall, with Santerre and Hurugue at its head, with drawn swords in their hands. Santerre then read, in a loud voice, the petition, which was couched in the most insolent and violent terms. It complained of the perfidious château of the Tuileries, of the dismissal of the patriot ministers, Roland, Servan, and Clavieres; of the inaction in the armies on the frontiers; and it denounced revenge and the death of all traitors. It justified its proceedings by the second article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, commanding resistance to oppression; called for the guillotine, and intimated that “th people would be obliged to take the sword of the law into their own hands, and exterminate, by one terrible blow, not only all the state prisoners, but all those who would not execute the laws upon them."

This bloodthirsty petition was loudly applauded by the assembly, and then the sovereign mob filed through the hall, thirty thousand men, women, and children, so that the place was not clear of them till four o'clock in the afternoon. As they left the assembly, they marched to the Place

du Carrousel, and there collected for an assault on the palace. They marched along by the railing inclosing the court of the Tuileries, with the so-called heart of the aristocrat on the pike. Seeing all the gates closed, and battalions of national guards drawn up within, they marched round to the front of the palace in the gardens. There they saw detachments of national guards, extending from the Feuillants to the river. They had intended to plant their tree of liberty on the terrace of the Feuillants; but the appearance of the troops prevented them. Searching all the side gates in vain for entrance, the king at length ordered the garden-gate to be opened to them. They rushed in,

Santerre, who had staid some time behind at the assembly, arrived, and assured them that the municipal guards were secretly their friends. He assured them that, if they would not open the gate, he would blow it open with the piece of cannon they had dragged thither.

As for defence within, there was no body of troops that could be depended upon. A number of the king's friends, of the aristocratic class, had flocked to the palace, as on the day of poignards; but the king had feared that their presence might excite a repetition of the outrages of that day, and had prevailed on most of them to go away again. Almost every regiment well disposed to the king had, on one

and they filed off under the windows of the palace, before the national guards, but without making any hostile demonstrations, only crying, "Down with the veto! The sans culotte for ever!" They then moved off by the garden-gate leading to the Pont Royal, along the quay, and through the wickets of the Louvre to the Place du Carrousel again. This place, now so spacious, was then intersected by numerous streets. Instead of that immense court, extending from the body of the palace to the gate, and from one wing to the other, there were small courts separated by walls and houses. Ancient wickets opened from each of them into the Carrousel. They crowded round the royal gate, but were refused entrance. Some of the municipal officers addressed them, and had just prevailed on them to retire, when

the

pretence or other, been sent by the assembly to a distance from the capital. It was hoped that the gendarmes and the national guards would stand firm, but it was soon found that they were resolved not to fire on the people. No sooner was the mob aware of this, than the "ça ira" was struck up, Carmagnole was danced, and, on the repeated demand for entrance, about five o'clock two municipal officers suddenly threw open the gates. The crowd streamed in, and, Santerre and the cannon at their head, made for the door of the palace. A number of respectable citizens, surrounding Santerre, endeavoured to persuade him not to force an entrance, assuring him that he should be held responsible for it. Santerre appeared for a moment alarmed; but, encouraged by the butcher Legendre, he exclaimed, "Gentle

men, bear witness that I refuse to go into the king's apartments." But the crowd well understood what this meant; they pushed on Santerre, by their mass, before them; they poured into every part of the palace, dragged their piece of cannon up the main staircase, and commenced a furious attack with hatchets and butt-ends of pikes on the doors closed against them. The door to the room in which Louis was, he ordered to be opened, and advanced boldly to meet the in-rushing multitude, followed by the old marshal de Mouchy Acloque, chef de bataillon M. de Bougainville, and others. The officers of the national guards present also closed around him to defend him. "What is it you want?" demanded Louis, calmly; and, at sight of him, some of the foremost ragamuffins recoiled, but they were soon forced forward again by the throng behind, and Louis was carried forcibly back into the room. De Bougainville commanded some grenadiers, who entered at a side door, to form betwixt his majesty and the mob; and, conducting the king to an embrasure of a window, they made a barricade, in front of him, with benches and tables. "Sire," said one of the grenadiers, "fear nothing!" Taking the man's hand, and placing it on his heart, Louis said, "Feel whether I fear." The fact was that Louis XVI. had no want of personal courage; had he had as much moral courage and promptitude, he would never have been reduced to this situation. The queen, who was with the children in an adjoining apartment, could not reach the king before he was thus imprisoned by the mob, and continued in a state of extreme alarm; but the princess Elizabeth, who was present, endeavoured to rush to her brother to reassure him. The mob.mistook her for the queen, and assailed her with a volley of the most terrible curses and epithets. "Let them think it is the queen," said this courageous and devoted woman, "so that she may have time to escape!" Not being able to reach the king, and being surrounded on all sides by the ferocious mob, the grenadiers, assisted by the courtiers, made an effort, and succeeded in getting her into the council chamber, where the queen and children were. There, placed in an embrasure of a window, like the king, these ladies, and the princess Lamballe, the princess Tarente, and three other ladies, remained imprisoned during this fearful scene. A grenadier handed to the queen a tricolour cockade, which she placed in her cap, and which probably saved her life.

Meantime, the king was surrounded by the infuriated patriots, shouting, "No veto!" "no priests!" "no aristocrats!" One of these fellows poked at the king a red nightcap on the point of a pike, the symbol of liberty. Louis took it, and put it on his head; and, to appease the rabid mass, joined in the cry of "Vive la liberté !" "Vive la nation!" shouted they, and Louis cried, "Yes; vive la nation! I am its best friend!" The heat and stench of the chamber, from the dense press of so unclean a multitude, and from the hot weather, were overwhelming. Louis complained of it, and a man handed him a bottle of wine that he had brought with him. Though he had long lived in fear of being poisoned, he took a good draught-to the health of the nation. This produced a burst of loud applause. But this was but for a moment; a tall man mounted on a table in front of the king, and began a fierce harangue, every word

of which was violent accusation. He demanded, in the name of the hundred thousand souls which surrounded him, that the patriot ministers should be instantly recalled; that the decrees against the priests, and for the camp of twenty thou sand men, near Paris, should be sanctioned. Louis, standing on a chair, assured them that he would do everything that was proper, but that was not the place or manner of expressing his consent. He would stand by the constitution. This only produced a fresh torrent of threats from butcher Legendre and others, who told him, that, if he did not instantly yield his assent, he should perish.

In this most humiliating and perilous condition Louis continued for more than two hours, when mayor Petion arrived, and affirmed that he had only just learned the situation in which the king was. Louis replied, "That is very astonishing, for I have been in this situation these two hours." Every one who has attended to this narrative, and has seen Petion preparing all the steps of this outrage, must be astonished at the deliberate falsehood of the man. He had held very different language as he crossed the court to the palace. Addressing the mob, he said, "The eighty-three departments will follow your example; the king will not be able to avoid acquiescing in the manifest will of the people." When in the presence of the king, and an eye and earwitness of the violence, insult, and menace used towards him, Petion did nothing, till some of the constitutionalists present told him to look to his conduct, for he would be called to account for it. He then warned them that they had come to petition, and the petition having been read, amid the confusion, by Huguenin, he desired them to depart, lest their enemies should misrepresent their conduct. The assembly now, too—its members having first gone to dinner, well aware of what was doing at the palace-sent a deputation to demand the evacuation of the palace. By the joint efforts of the mayor and these members of assembly, the mob was at length induced slowly to retire; but not before poor Louis had been four mortal hours in that condition of insult and violence. All this time, too, the queen, her ladies, and the children, had been under similar circumstances. The mob had crowded upon them, and vilified them. The most scurrilous and obscene language was applied to the queen. To a woman who was thus casting filth and curses upon her, she asked whether she had ever done her any injury? The jacobiness said, "No, but that she was the curse of the nation, and the cause of all its troubles." "You have been told so," said Marie Antoinette; "but you have been deceived. I am the wife of the king of France; I am mother of the dauphin; I am, therefore, a Frenchwoman. Never shall I see my own country again; never can I be happy or unhappy but in France. I was happy when you all loved me." The woman was melted by this appeal; she burst into tears; said she saw that the queen was really a good woman, and went away.

During this terrible time a jacobin had thrust a red cap on the dauphin's head. Santerre, as he was helping to clear the apartment, saw the child smothering under the heat and the cap, and snatched it from his head. These were all the little touches of human nature that marked this cruel scene. So soon as the royal family could meet after the departure of the mob, they sate down, and shed torrents