THE ARRIVAL OF THE MARSEILLAIS

Amongst the mob orators the supporters of the Duc d’Orléans were the most active. “ His creditors,” writes Barbaroux, “ his hirelings, his boon companions, Marat and his Cordeliers, all the swindlers, all the men sunk in debt and dishonour, were seen at work in public places, urging the deposition (of the King), greedy of gold and honours, under a regent who would have been their accomplice and their tool.” [8]

In order to give a popular air to this clamour for the overthrow of Louis XVI. the usual method of deputations was adopted, and, by way of swelling their numbers, men known as “ confederates,” from the camp at Soissons, were enlisted in the service of the Jacobins. “ These petitions,” says Beaulieu, “ these incendiary addresses which demanded the head of Lafayette and the extermination of the King, were not the work of these confederates, all these were concocted at the private committee of the Jacobins ; they (the confederates) only read them aloud so that the deluded people should believe that the overthrow of the throne was desired by the departments.” [9]

At the same time a council, known as the “ Committee of Insurrection,” was formed, which held most of its sittings at a tavern in Charenton known as “ Le Cadran Bleu,” and included amongst its leading members Carra, Santerre, the German Westermann, Fournier l’Américain, and the Pole Lazowski.

On the evening of the 26th of July this committee met at the tavern of the “ Soleil d’Or,” at the entrance of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, for the purpose of organizing a second march on the Tuileries. Every effort was made to excite the people ; placards were displayed ordering them to join the march, and panic news was circulated to the effect that Chabot and Merlin had been assassinated by the chevaliers du poignard, and that the Château was arming itself against the citizens. But, although the agitators worked hard all night, the Faubourg on this occasion absolutely declined to rise. In vain, at four o’clock in the morning, the 400 or 500 confederates, whom the leaders had succeeded in collecting, sounded the tocsin and beat the générale in Saint-Antoine ; only a few inhabitants armed with pikes and guns responded to the summons, whilst Carra, despatched to Saint-Marceau to find out what had happened to prevent the Faubourg arriving on the scene, found the whole quarter wrapped “ in the most perfect tranquillity http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_05.html (5 of 39)5.4.2006 10:40:19

 

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”—that is to say, in slumber. [10]

Throughout the whole of this month the people displayed the same apathy towards the revolutionary movement. “ I am convinced,” writes a contemporary on the 7th of July, “ that our sedition-mongers and enragés are beginning to be afraid, and all that they do denotes this. They would like to stir up the people to commit excesses, but I doubt whether they will succeed. They will work up the scoundrels under their orders whom they pay, but in general, what can be described as ‘ the people,’ the workmen and bourgeoisie, do not think like these gentlemen. They are tired, wearied, and worn out with this wretched revolution, which produces nothing but evils, crimes, disorders, anarchy, and can do no good… . I walk about and observe impartially the groups that assemble, and I can assure you that, except for a few fanatics who preach murder and regicide, I can see no general inclination to insurrection.” [11]

To the revolutionary leaders likewise it was now clearly evident that the people would never be persuaded to co-operate in the dethronement of Louis XVI. Marat, indeed, had long despaired of them altogether ; the Parisians, he said to Barbaroux, were but “ pitiable revolutionaries ( de mesquins révolutionnaires)”—“ give me 200 Neapolitans armed with daggers, and with them I will overrun France and make a revolution.”[12] It

was a perception of the same truth that in the early days of the Revolution had led the Orléaniste conspirators to send for brigands from the South, and later to enlist Italians in the company of the Sabbat. Marat’s advice was not lost on Barbaroux. This young lawyer from Marseilles had been discovered by Roland, and introduced to the deputies of the Gironde. It was thus that Barbaroux came to play an active part in the preparations for the loth of August, and that, acting on the suggestion of Marat, he discussed with Monsieur and Madame Roland the advisability of appealing to the South for aid. The result of these deliberations, Barbaroux relates, was a message to Marseilles asking for “ 600 men who knew how to die ”—that is to say, 600 men who knew how to kill.

It is evident, however, that the celebrated contingent of 500 who arrived in Paris on the 30th of July, were only a small proportion of the number summoned by the Girondins, for thousands had already arrived in the course of the month. An honest deputy of Marseilles named Blanc-Gilli, seeing these bloodthirsty legions arriving in the capital, thereupon published a letter “ to the good citizens of Paris ” revealing the identity of the socalled Marsellais :

“ The town of Marseilles, situated on the Mediterranean …,” wrote Blanc-Gilli on the 5th of July, “ must be considered on account of its port as the sink of vice for a great portion of the globe, where all the impurities of human nature forgather. It is there that http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_05.html (6 of 39)5.4.2006 10:40:19

 

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we constantly see in fermentation the scum of crime, vomited by the prisons of Genoa, of Piedmont, of Sicily, in fact of all Italy, of Spain, of the Archipelago and of Barbary—deplorable fatality of our geographical position and of our commercial relations. This is the scourge of Marseilles, and the first cause of the frenzy attributed to all its citizens… . Every time that the National Guards of Marseilles have set forth on the march outside its walls, the horde of brigands without a country of their own has never failed to throw itself in their wake, and to carry devastation everywhere on their path… . Several thousands of these brigands have for more than a month been arriving in Paris ; a very large number is still on the road. I have sent numerous warnings to the administration.”[13]

Such, then, were the foreign legions that the men who accused Louis XVI. of appealing for aid from abroad saw fit to summon to their own aid for the massacring of their fellow-citizens. The final contingent of 500 that arrived in Paris on the 30th of July,—romantically described by historians as “ the brave band of Marseillais,” “ children of the South and liberty,” “ singing their national hymn, ‘ the Marseillaise,’

”—included the same men who had carried out the horrible massacre of the Glacière d’Avignon, [14] and were to repeat like atrocities in Paris this September. As to the

magnificent melody they had appropriated, it had nothing whatever to do with Marseilles, but had been composed three months earlier at Strasbourg, at the request of the mayor Dietrich, by Rouget de l’Isle, who little dreamt that his “ trumpet call to arms against foreign cohorts ” would become the war-cry of an alien cohort far more terrible than any gathered on the frontier.[15] It seems, indeed, that the Girondins themselves,

seeing the instruments they had summoned to their aid, were overcome with panic, for it was not by Roland or his colleagues that the Marseillais were received, but by Santerre, Danton, and the other leaders of the Orléaniste faction.

“ It was the 30th of July,” writes Thiebault, “ that these hideous confederates, vomited by Marseilles, arrived in Paris… I do not think it would be possible to imagine anything more frightful than these 500 madmen, three-quarters of them drunk, nearly all of them in red caps with bare arms, followed by the dregs of the people, ceaselessly reinforced by the overflow of the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, and fraternizing in tavern after tavern with bands as fearful as the one they formed. It was in this manner that they processed in ‘farandoles’ through the principal streets … and boulevards … to the Champs Élysées, where the orgy to which they had been bidden by Santerre was preceded by satanic dances.” [16]

This orgy was held—evidently with intention—close to a restaurant where about 100

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holding a regimental dinner. The Marseillais, collecting a crowd of women and children, proceeded to pelt the soldiers with mud and stones, and ended by killing one and wounding several others. The Grenadiers thereupon took refuge in the Tuileries, where the Queen dressed their wounds, and this action was immediately interpreted by the revolutionaries as a plot concerted between the Court and the regiment.[17]

 

THE DEPOSITION OF THE KING PROPOSED

 

In vain Louis XVI. implored the factions to unite in face of the peril with which the Manifesto of Brunswick threatened France, to assure them that he was one with his people at this moment of national crisis. “ Personal dangers,” he wrote to the Assembly, “ are nothing compared with public misfortunes. Ah ! what are personal dangers for a king from whom it is desired to take away the love of his people ? That is the sore that rankles in my heart. ( C’est là qu’est la véritable plaie de mon cœur.) One day perhaps the people will know how dear their welfare is to me, how it has always been my only interest and my greatest need. What grief might be dispelled by the least sign of their returning to me ! ”

The response to this appeal was a deputation, headed by Pétion, from the Commune de Paris reiterating the demand for the dethronement of the King, in which, for want of any better grounds of accusation, Louis XVI. was denounced for “ his sanguinary projects against the town of Paris,” “ the aversion he displayed towards the people,” even for his action in the matter of closing the hall of the Assembly on the day of the “ Oath of the Tennis Court ” three years earlier ! But Pétion showed his hand in one significant sentence : “ As it is very doubtful that the nation can have confidence in the existing dynasty, a provisional government must be established.” The words were universally interpreted to signify a change from the Bourbons to the House of Orléans, but they might equally well apply to the proposal for replacing Louis XVI. by a German monarch.

Pétion’s speech was followed next day by a resolution forwarded from the revolutionary section of Paris, known as “ Mauconseil,” likewise demanding the deposition of the King. Forty-seven out of the forty-eight sections of Paris, revolutionary historians assure us, supported this resolution, and in confirmation of their statement they quote the journal of Carra ! [18] As a matter of fact, an examination of the registers of the sections made by M. Mortimer Ternaux reveals the fact that the proposition of Mauconseil was seconded by only fourteen sections of Paris, rejected by sixteen, passed over in silence by ten, whilst the reply of the remaining eight sections is unrecorded.[19] Several

sections, indeed, entered very energetic protests at the Assembly, denouncing the efforts http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_05.html (8 of 39)5.4.2006 10:40:19

 

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made “ to divide the citizens of the Empire, to alight civil war, and to substitute the most horrible anarchy for the Constitution… .”[20] The astonishing fact is that the petition of

Mauconseil was finally annulled as unconstitutional by the Assembly at the proposal of Vergniaud,[21] who only a month earlier had delivered himself of the most violent

diatribe against the King. [22] Brissot likewise at this moment displayed a sudden attachment to the monarchy and Constitution, for although on the 9th of July he had formally asked for the deposition of the King, declaring that “ to strike down the court of Tuileries was to strike down all traitors at a blow,”[23] he came forward on the 25th of July to denounce “ that faction of regicides who would create a dictator and establish a Republic.” “ If that pact of regicides exists,” he exclaimed, “ if men exist who now seek to establish the Republic on the ruins of the Constitution, the sword of the law should strike at them … as at the counter-revolutionaries of Coblentz.”[24]

Again, on the following day, Brissot represented to the Assembly that, as the King’s collusion with the enemies of France had not been clearly proved, it would be premature to depose him. Moreover, might not the nation have something to say in the matter ?

Brissot only voiced the fear that lurked in the minds of all the revolutionary leaders when he described the possible consequences of overthrowing the monarchy and Constitution. “ Do you not see from that moment the gates of the kingdom opened by the French themselves to foreigners ? Do you not see these Frenchmen shaking the hands of these foreigners, and inviting them to join with them in re-establishing their Constitution and maintaining the King on the throne in spite of the efforts of the factions ? ”[25] Thus, in the opinion of one of the most prominent revolutionary leaders, it was not only the Queen and her party who sighed for Brunswick, but many of the French people, who, before the arrival of the Manifesto, would have welcomed even foreign intervention in order to be saved from the intolerable tyranny of the Jacobins.

What was the explanation of the Girondins’ sudden change of front at this crisis ?

Simply that they had perceived the revolutionary movement to be passing out of their hands into those of the Cordeliers and Robespierristes, and were ready to accept any measures that would bring their own party back to power.

It would, indeed, be idle to seek a more exalted policy amongst any of the revolutionary factions at this crisis, for none adhered consistently to any definite scheme of government.

“ Amidst all this chaos, this general confusion,” say the Two Friends of Liberty, “ some wanted the deposition of the monarch, others his suspension ; these, that he should let himself be ruled by them, those, that he should give up the crown to his son ; that one of them should be regent, and that all the offices in the State should be reserved for them.

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A great number called the Duc d’Orléans to the throne, some thought of a foreign prince, and seven or eight people of a republic.” [26]

This wild medley of plans explains the fact that members of each faction in turn became alarmed, and at the last moment, before the monarchy was overthrown, secretly offered their services to the King. In the whirlpool that threatened to engulf them all none knew who would sink and who would swim, and so, struck with panic, they turned and clung to the ark of the Constitution that contained the King and that, as they all knew, was borne on that mighty tide— the will of the people.

It was thus that, at the eleventh hour, Brissot, Vergniaud, and Gensonné, through an intermediary, the painter Boze, warned the King of the impending insurrection, and undertook to quell it if the Girondin ministers were recalled and the decrees they had proposed sanctioned by the King.[27] Louis XVI. rejected this proposal, and so his “ deposition was irrevocably decreed by those who had just declared that the salvation of France lay in the Constitution.” [28]

Robespierre also at this juncture continued to defend the Constitution ; his colleague, the retired comedian, Collot d’Herbois, repeated incessantly : “ Ah ! if the King were really a patriot he would choose his ministers and his agents among the Jacobins.” But Louis XVI. distrusted this faction likewise, and so “ these men obtaining nothing in one direction turned to the other and proclaimed themselves Republicans whilst becoming Anarchists.”[29]

Meanwhile the Cordeliers, the principal instigators of the insurrection, were prepared to go to far greater extremities to save the King, provided they were sufficiently compensated for the enterprise. “ Marat,” says Barbaroux, “ sent me, towards the end of July, a document of several pages, which he asked me to have printed and distributed to the Marseillais at the moment of their arrival… . The work seemed to me abominable, it was a provocation to the Marseillais to fall upon the Legislative Assembly. The Royal Family, it said, must be safeguarded, but the Assembly, evidently anti-revolutionary, exterminated.”[30]

This statement of Barbaroux’ is confirmed by Michaud, who relates that only a few days later—at the beginning of August—another Cordelier, Fabre d’Églantine, the friend and confidant of Danton, made precisely the same proposal to M. Dubouchage, the Minister of the Navy, with whom he had obtained an interview by writing several times to the King. Fabre d’Églantine presented himself at the rendezvous, and “ after great protestations of interest and zeal for the King, of esteem and admiration for the true Royalists, entered into great details on the plots that were being formed against the Château of the Tuileries and on the dangers that surrounded the Royal Family. In http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_05.html (10 of 39)5.4.2006 10:40:19

 

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consequence he proposed a plan which, he said, would be infallible, and would restore to Louis XVI. his former authority. This plan was to bribe the gunners and the leaders of sedition of whom he was sure, and then to fall on the Jacobins and the Assembly in force, and thus deliver France from its greatest enemies. For the execution of this plan he asked for the sum of three millions. M. Dubouchage rendered an account of this conference to the King, who was horrified by the violent measures proposed… .” Beaulieu adds : “ Other propositions of this kind were made to Louis XVI. and the Queen, at the moment when they both knew for certain that the insurrection was about to break forth, and by people in whom they could have confidence ; they rejected them with horror, unable to endure the thought of seeing the innocent sacrificed with the guilty, and these men whom they had spared when they could have annihilated them described them as ‘ monsters, tigers, and cannibals.’ ”[31]

But, whilst unwilling to accede to the sanguinary suggestions of the Cordeliers, Louis XVI., realizing that greed for gold was at the bottom of most of their revolutionary frenzy, resolved once again to conciliate them with gifts of money. A week before the 10th of August Danton received the sum of 50,000 écus, and the Court, convinced that this time the great demagogue would be true to his bargain, felt no further apprehension.

“ Our minds are at rest,” said Madame Elizabeth, “ we can count on Danton.” But the Court had miscalculated on the sum required. Danton pocketed the money and betrayed the King. [32]

The fact is that the Court was now too poor to buy partisans amongst the factions, who saw in the impending upheaval far greater opportunities of enrichment. “Alas !” even the revolutionary Prudhomme is obliged to admit, “ how many pretended Republicans would have been furious Royalists if the Court had been inclined to win them over, and had had enough money to pay them ! But it had not enough for all who asked, all who aspired. The Legislative Assembly was full of men of this kind, Royalists or Republicans, according to the way the wind blew, and it must be said, although to the shame of the Revolution, that these were the elements of the 10th of August, during which the people alone were disinterested and of good faith.” [33]

 

That Danton was the principal organizer of the 10th of August cannot be doubted.

Towards the end of July Prudhomme relates that he received a visit from Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and Fabre d’Églantine. Danton said, “ in the trivial language habitual to him ”:

“ We have come, petit jean-foutre, to consult you as an old patriot, although you are no longer up to the mark ; but as you have often foreseen events and their results, we want your opinion on a plan of insurrection.”

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Prudhomme inquired in what this plan consisted.

“ We wish to overthrow the tyrant,” answered Danton.

“ Which one ? ”

“ The one at the Tuileries. This b—— of a Revolution has brought nothing to patriots.” “ That is to say, messieurs, that you wish to make your fortunes in the name of liberty and equality. How do you think of overthrowing the monarchy ? ”

“ By assault.”

Prudhomme urged the temerity of the proposal. “ Your plan,” he said, “ is the work of a coterie of Jacobins and Cordeliers. You do not know the intentions of the inhabitants of Paris, or of the majority of those in the departments.”

Fabre d’Églantine said, “ We have the promise of a hundred deputies, Girondins and Brissotins and agents in all the popular societies of France.”

“ You wish to overthrow the monarch,” Prudhomme answered. “ Whom will you put in his place ? ”

“ The Duc d’Orléans,” blurted out that enfant terrible, Camille Desmoulins.

But Danton hastily interposed :

“ We will see afterwards what we will do. In revolutions as on the field of battle one must never look forward to the morrow. I undertake to stir up the canaille of the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau. The Marseillais will be at their head—they have not come to Paris for plums.” [34]

But even the canaille needed some incentive to rise, and just now none was forthcoming. It was in a mood of desperation inspired by these reflections that the deputy Chabot one day cried out incontrollably, “ If only the Court would try to murder somebody ! ” An attempt on the life of a “ patriotic ” deputy, he declared to Grangeneuve, would prove an invaluable pretext for stirring up the people.

Unfortunately the Court displayed no intention of carrying out this scheme, but Chabot and Grangeneuve were not to be baffled by so trifling an obstacle. In a fit of “ patriotic ” fervour these two Tartarins thereupon decided to have themselves murdered, in order to provide an accusation against the Court. Chabot undertook to engage assassins who were to waylay and shoot them at the street corner. But on the night appointed Chabot seems to have thought better of the scheme, for neither he nor the assassins were forthcoming, and Grangeneuve, having made his will and waited about a long while to be murdered, returned home indignant to find himself alive. [35]

Thus deprived of any shadow of a pretext for marching a second time on the Tuileries, the leaders were obliged to invent one, and in order to persuade the people to attack the http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_05.html (12 of 39)5.4.2006 10:40:19

 

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Château it was loudly proclaimed that the Château was about to attack the people—“ 15,000 aristocrats are ready to massacre all the patriots.” [36] But in spite of these alarms Paris remained sunk in lethargy. Still, on the evening of the 9th of August, all means had failed to rouse the great mass of the population. So the revolutionary leaders took the law into their own hands, and on this fateful night the terrible council of the “ Commune,” known as the “ Conseil Général Révolutionnaire du 10 Août,” came into being.

 

THE NIGHT OF THE 9TH OF AUGUST

 

The agitators of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine had at first met at the section of the Quinze Vingt in their own district, but finding their efforts to make this the centre of agitation abortive, they issued an appeal at eleven o’clock in the evening to the other forty-seven sections of Paris, asking them each to send their representatives to co-operate in the proposed insurrection with the Commune at the Town Hall.

A great number of sections failed to respond to this appeal ; some indeed protested energetically against the attempt to disturb the peace, whereupon the leaders had recourse to their usual methods of fraud and violence. “ As soon as night draws on,” says Beaulieu, “ the revolutionaries, whose roles had been prepared beforehand, go out into all the sections ( i.e. the halls of the districts) which the peaceful bourgeois had abandoned, either in order to present themselves at the guard-house, or to return to their homes and give themselves up to rest. The revolutionaries, having thus made themselves masters of the debates, declare themselves the sovereign people, usurp their rights, and decree that all constituted authority is in abeyance. This resolution being taken and communicated to each other, the revolutionary sections ring the tocsin in all the churches of Paris ; this alarm heard in the middle of the night strikes terror into all hearts… .” [37]

By methods such as these even sections that had protested against the plan of insurrection were represented as sending delegates to co-operate with the movement,[38]

and so, although twenty sections still remained unrepresented,[39] it was possible to

declare that the majority of the sections had responded to the appeal.

In this way the insurrectional Commune was formed. Prudhomme, at that date in the secret of the leaders, afterwards described the process in these illuminating words : “ On the eve of the famous day (the 10th of August) the confederates, towards ten o’clock in the evening, assemble to the number of twenty or thirty, and at once on their http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_05.html (13 of 39)5.4.2006 10:40:20

 

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own initiative name new members without even collecting the wishes of the majority of the sections. This choice being made, the nominees, or rather the conspirators, arrange to meet at the Commune. They present themselves armed with the power to replace the magistrates then sitting. These hesitate a moment and are secretly threatened ; they give up their seats and all go out with the exception of Pétion and Manuel, who are retained.

All this was arranged in the secret meetings ( conciliabules) which had been held at the Palais Royal or the Rapée, where D’Orléans, Danton, Marat, Pétion, Robespierre, and others were to be found… . Paris changed magistrates without knowing it, and the insurrection took place … without any obstacle ; one would have supposed that every one was in accord.”[40] But with these secret confabulations the rôle of the leaders ended. As usual, when the hour of danger struck, those bold patriots, Danton, Marat, Robespierre, and Camille Desmoulins, retired into hiding. On the eve of this second attack on the Tuileries, Marat, overcome with panic, had implored Barbaroux to smuggle him out of Paris disguised as a jockey,[41] and on Barbaroux’s refusal betook himself once more to his cellar,[42] a course likewise adopted by Robespierre. [43] As to Camille

Desmoulins and Danton, the journal of Madame Desmoulins reveals that they spent most of this night, whilst the insurrection was preparing, asleep at Danton’s house. Just as the tocsin was about to ring, Danton, always prone to slumber, retreated into his bed, from which snug ambush the emissaries of the Commune had some difficulty in dislodging him, and even then he was soon back again, and still sleeping peacefully whilst the mob was marching on the Tuileries.

It was therefore again on this occasion the professional agitators who were left to carry out the plans of the leaders, and for a time it seemed that their efforts were to be rewarded with no success, for the Faubourgs still showed themselves recalcitrant, and as late as 2:30 in the morning of the 10th news was brought to Roederer at the Château that the insurrection would not take place. But at last, towards dawn, the revolutionary army began to muster. Santerre gathered round him the brigands of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine ; Lazowski and Alexandre enlisted a following in Saint-Marceau, and Barbaroux and Fournier led forth the Marseillais.

Meanwhile the Tuileries was preparing its plans of defence. The Marquis de Mandat, commander of the National Guard, warned of the impending insurrection, had sounded the call to arms, and all night his battalions streamed to the Château, where they took up their stand in the courtyards on the Carrousel and the terraces bordering the river and the garden. These battalions, sixteen in all, made up a total of 2400 men, whilst in the Château itself were 950 Swiss and 200 nobles armed with swords and pistols.

As on the 20th of June, the Château was therefore well defended ; moreover, the troops were this time commanded by no feeble Ramainvilliers, but by a leader who could be http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/webster/frenchrev/fr_rev_05.html (14 of 39)5.4.2006 10:40:20

 

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depended on to offer a vigorous resistance. Mandat, the revolutionary leaders well knew, was loyal to the King and, as Pétion, combining the role of spy with that of mayor of Paris, discovered on his wanderings round the Château, really had a plan of campaign, Therefore Mandat must be disposed of.

Accordingly, at seven o’clock in the morning, Mandat was summoned to the Hôtel de Ville, and ordered to give an account of his conduct in organizing the defences of the Château. Mandat replied that he had acted on the order of Pétion to resist attack by force. But all explanations were useless ; Mandat had been sent for to be murdered, not to be judged. Huguenin, the “ orator ” of June 20, now President of the Commune, with a horizontal gesture across his throat, said, “ Let him be led away.” Mandat was taken out, and half an hour later, on his way down the steps of the Hôte1 de Ville to the prison of the Abbaye, a young man named Rossignol, employed by Danton, [44] approached and

shot him through the head. Needless to say, this foul deed was ascribed by Pétion to the people.[45] Pétion himself had a personal reason for desiring the death of Mandat, and undoubtedly acted in collusion with Danton, for the order to resist attack by force had really been given by him to Mandat three days earlier in writing, and it was apparently in order to abstract this compromising document from his pocket that Mandat was assassinated.[46] Pétion’s precise object in writing it is not clearly evident ; possibly, as Montjoie suggests, it was for the sake of giving a pretext to the Marseillais for firing at the troops, but it may also be accounted for by the fact that Pétion had received a large sum of money from the King just before the 10th of August to maintain order, [47] and for

a moment he may have intended to earn his payment honestly. But when he saw that the insurrection was assuming formidable proportions, he was overcome with panic, and resolved to destroy the written evidence of his momentary defection from the revolutionary cause. At any rate, he now did everything in his power to assist the movement. So although, as head of the municipality, he refused during this night to supply the forces at the Tuileries with ammunition for the defence of the Château, he contrived that 5000 ball cartridges should be issued to the Marseillais. Pétion had also arranged with Carra that if the insurrection broke out he should be forcibly prevented from opposing it by a summons to the Town Hall, where he was to be detained during the attack on the Château. Carra omitted to do this, and Pétion spent a very uncomfortable hour or two waiting about in the garden of the Tuileries, shadowed by several loyal grenadiers who shrewdly suspected his perfidy. When the expected summons still failed to arrive he finally adopted the ingenious expedient of sending repeated orders to himself, and in response to these he left his post at 2:30, and after presenting himself at the Assembly placed himself under restraint in his own quarters at the Town Hall with a guard of 400 men to prevent him returning to duty.[48]

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So through the basest treachery the Château was disarmed before its assailants. By the death of Mandat, as the conspirators had anticipated, all the plans for defence were disorganized, and the forces assembled at the Tuileries left without a leader.