the court, the Feuillans, and the Jacobins." He describes their different views much in the manner you would expect. La Fayette he considers as leagued with the court; the refusal of the king to sanction the decree for a camp, as a proof that the intention was, to leave the way open for the advance of the Austrians. The Jacobins he considers as alone defending the people; the counter-revolution as advancing fast upon them from all sides; "and under these frightful circumstances," he says, we turned our eyes towards the south, where we sought for a point from which resistance could be made."

Whilst occupied with these notions, he had a conference with Roland and his wife; and while under the apprehension of the approaching fall of liberty, they interchanged, as I have already mentioned, their mutual feelings, and dissolved into tears amid the enthusiasm of their mingled emotions of patriotism and despair.

I did not allude before, nor do I now, to a scene like this, for any unworthy purpose of deriding any paroxysms of sentiment like these in the cause of liberty, but to note the nature of the feeling, and to mark its possible excesses.

"But all this time," continues Barbaroux, (6 we meant not to leave Paris and the north to their fate. We were resolved, on the contrary, to attempt every thing for their preservation. The surest way was, to take care that the decree for the camp should be carried into effect, in despite of the veto of the king, of the petition of the Etat Major of Paris, and of the opposition of Robespierre.

"I lost not an instant," he says; "I wrote to Marseilles to send us up to Paris six hundred men who knew how to die.' I wrote, and Marseilles did send them."

Such are the notices to be found in Barbaroux. The first body of these Marseillois seems to have arrived at Paris on the 19th of June, the day before the insurrection, and just after the Girondists and Jacobins had got rid of the letter of La Fayette, and foiled him in his attempt to overthrow them.

This desperate band of Marseillois was instantly made use of against the king and his supporters. They came forward with a petition, and presented themselves before the Assembly.

"Legislators," said these addressers, "the French liberty is in danger; the freemen of the south are ready to march to defend it: the day of the people's wrath is at length arrived; that people, whom it has always been the plan to butcher or enslave, is tired of parrying blows-they will strike them, and annihilate

the conspirators. It is time for the people to rise; that generous lion, provoked too far, is going to rouse from his slumber and spring upon the pack of conspirators. The popular force constitutes your force; make use of it: give no quarter, as you have none to hope. The French people ask of you a decree, which shall authorize them to march in more formidable forces than those you have as yet decreed: give the word, and we will march towards the capital and towards the frontiers. The people are determined to conclude a revolution, that is to ensure their happiness, their safety, and their glory; they are determined to save you in saving themselves. You will not refuse the authority of the law to those who would die to defend it."

Such was the address of these terrible men, an address which was immediately sent by the Assembly to all the departments, and which must have become an alarm bell through the kingdom. The minds of men must have been from that moment prepared for some approaching attempt against the authority of the king, an attempt which the Assembly seemed to sanction, by printing and circulating the address. We are now to observe the progress of this insurrection. So far the Girondists and Jacobins had succeeded, and succeeded even with the Assembly. They met, however, opposition amongst the constituted authorities of Paris, and in the following manner. Some pretext was to be made use of by the conspirators, and the pretext adopted was resisted. For instance; the workmen of the faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marceau requested permission from the commune to assemble on the 20th of June (the anniversary of the day of the Tennis Court in 1789): this was the pretext under which they were to assemble, and with their arms go and present petitions to the National Assembly and the king. This, however, the council general very properly refused. The direc tory of the department, however, were informed that preparations for this armed assembling were, notwithstanding, still going on in the faubourgs; and they therefore became apprehensive, that this would ripen into some insurrection, would be assisted by the Marseillois, and that the most serious outrages would

ensue.

They therefore came to a resolution that the mayor, the municipality, and the commander-in-chief of the national guard, should take proper measures to prevent all assembling contrary to law. Finally, they printed their resolution, and sent it to the Assembly. And now, if the Assembly had behaved with proper spirit, and with a due interest in the public peace, the

Girondists and Jacobins would have been, for the time at least, foiled, and some other pretext must have been resorted to.

But the Assembly did not; and on the day of the 20th of June, an irruption of the mob into the king's palace took place. The Assembly did not behave with proper spirit; for when this resolution of the directory of the department was brought to them, instead of its being received with applause, and proper measures carried to support it, the Girondists and Jacobins did not suffer it to be read at all, till after the most violent opposition. It gave rise to no discussion, and the Assembly passed to the order of the day.

Now this indifference in a regular legislative assembly, this indifference to the exertions of the department to maintain the peace of the community, on the very eve of an insurrection (for it broke out the next day, the 20th), must be considered as a conduct most indecent and most culpable. And it is inconceivable how the Constitutionalists in the Assembly could have been so supine, and not have instantly exerted themselves to the utmost, and patronised and sanctioned by all expedients in their power, every appearance in the constituted authorities of regard for peace and order, the proper execution of the law, and resistance to all armed assembling of the people. It is true that the municipality of Paris were not so faithful to their duty as was the directory; still there was a sufficient demonstration of proper feeling for the Constitutionalists to have availed themselves of. But they made no exertions till the next day, when it was too late.

We will now enter a little more into particulars. Unfortunately Pétion was mayor, Pétion, who, even whilst returning with the royal family from Varennes, could calmly declare, that for his part, he was for a republic. But it must now be remembered, that it was the court that had made him mayor, in preference to La Fayette, with their usual intolerance of freedom, and they were now to suffer the punishment of their fault. The Jacobins and the violent party had also contrived, under various pretences, to dismiss in the month of May, the guard of one thousand eight hundred men, which the constitution had allowed the king. They had evidently been long meditating some violent measures. Their intention was, the subversion of the throne; and the king's deposition, or forced abdication, in some way or other, was to be accomplished. The mob was their means; and if in the course of any resistance that might arise, if amid the fortunes of an insurrection the king was killed, no

great anxiety was felt on that subject; the republic, or some new dynasty or mode of government, some popular alteration of the system, was but the more immediate consequence, and their success the more speedy. There can be no doubt that Pétion participated in a general way with these views; and it is quite evident, that not only he, and the Jacobins, and the Anarchists, but the Girondists, were ready to expose the king, the royal family, and the community, to the irregular violence of the people, and that they were disposed to defend their Revolution by such unlicensed means, rather than trust to their armies, or any regular efforts of the constituted authorities; that is, they had no proper horror of anarchy and bloodshed.

These were the unfortunate circumstances on the one side; but on the other, in the first place, the law was clear, that the citizens could not assemble and go armed to present petitions; and the directory of the department insisted that the law should be maintained; but the municipality deserted them, and they and Pétion contented themselves with an expedient, and it was this: they called upon the battalions of the national guard to turn out and join in this procession. The citizens, as they were denominated (that is, the conspirators), were then required to fall in under their colours, and the whole (thus neutralized and made orderly) were to proceed in an united mass. After this disposition of things and disposal of difficulties, Pétion, it seems, could see no further inconveniences, and no infringement of the law; and the project of the conspirators was rescued from its difficulties. The Constitutionalists, however, appear to have been at last roused from their trance of carelessness and folly, and to have exerted themselves on the morning of the 20th, though now too late.

Great debates arose in the Assembly, when these armed petitioners were to be received. But it was in vain that the Procureur Syndic, in the name of the directory, addressed himself to the Assembly, reminding them that the law forbade all armed assemblings of the people for the purpose of petitioning; that to-day armed men assemble on civic motives, but that to-morrow the ill-designing may assemble. Vergniaud, the most distinguished orator of the Gironde party and of the Assembly, debased himself so far, as to oppose these prudent remonstrances in favour of the law. 66 Why should we wonder," he said, "that a collection of armed men should request admission into the hall, when we have already admitted several sections; when yesterday we received a battalion? The example was set

you by the Constituent Assembly. It would be wronging the citizens, who now request to pay their homage to you, to suppose that they have ill designs. It is said that they intend to present an address to the king: it is my opinion, that they will not ask to be admitted to him in arms, but that, conformably to the law, they will appear before him without arms, and as simple petitioners. But if the king is thought in danger, you ought to protect him, and I move that you send sixty commissioners to the palace.'

“Thus Belial, with words clothed in Reason's garb,
Counselled ignoble Ease and peaceful Sloth."

"Ease and sloth," when the question was, whether the mob was to rule or the Assembly; whether the law and the constituted authorities were, or were not, to be supported; whether the king was, or was not, to be assailed by an insurrection, and very probably massacred in his palace.

You will easily conceive the violence of the debates on the one side and the other, particularly as these armed petitioners approached, and were at last collected in force at the very gates of the hall, to the number of eight thousand. Of the sentiments of these petitioners you may judge from a few sentences taken from their address.

"In the name of the nation," they said, "whose eyes are fixed upon this city, we come to assure you, that the people are alert; that they are equal to the situation of things, and ready to make use of grand means to avenge the majesty of the outraged nation. Vigorous means are authorized by the second article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, resistance to oppression.'

"How unfortunate, however, is it for free men, who have committed all their powers to you, to see themselves reduced to the cruel necessity of steeping their hands in the blood of conspirators! We can no longer deceive ourselves; the plot is discovered; the hour is come; blood shall flow, or the tree of liberty, which we are going to plant, shall flourish in peace." This you will see was a menace sufficiently distinct and dreadful.

"We complain, gentlemen, of the inaction of our armies : we require of you to find out the cause; and if it be owing to the executive power, let it be annihilated: the blood of patriots shall not be shed to gratify the pride and ambition of the perfidious palace of the Tuileries. What then can stop us? If the first defenders of liberty had thus temporized, would you