"Ever since the appearance of this bold defiance to the moderate majority in the Provisional Government, and its announcement that 'the gauntlet was thrown down--the death-struggle was at hand,' the city has naturally been in a state of subdued ferment. Various reports, some of the most extravagant kind, were circulated from mouth to mouth. It was said that the majority of the members of the Government intended retreating to the Tuileries, and fortifying their position--that a collision between the violent and moderate parties was imminent--that the Ultras, led by Blanqui, were to profit by a new manifestation in favour of a further delay in the general elections, and against the admission of the military into the city upon the occasion of the great fraternisation _fete_, in order to upset the moderate party in the Government; in fine, that Ledru Rollin, with two or three of his colleagues, was instigating, aiding, and abetting Blanqui in this movement to get rid of that majority of his other colleagues that thwarted his designs. Whatever the truth of all these rumours, the alarm was general. It soon became generally known that a monster meeting of the working classes was to be held in the Champ de Mars on the Sunday, and that Messrs Louis Blanc and Albert, instigated, it was said, by the Minister of the Interior, had convoked this assembly. The Ultra party, it was added, designed to make use of this manifestation in order to forward the schemes already mentioned. This was the state of things on Sunday morning. In the Champ de Mars, a little after noon, the scene was certainly an exciting one. Delegates of all the trades and guilds of Paris were assembled, to the number of nearly 100,000 men. Banners were waving in all directions, and the fermenting crowd filled about a third of the vast space of the plain. It was with difficulty that an explanation could be obtained of the real object of the meeting. Its ostensible object, however, appeared to be the election from among the working classes of fourteen officers for the staff of the National Guard; although other motives, such as the choice of candidates among them for the general elections, and various deputations to the Government upon various matters connected with the endless organisation of work, were also put forward. There is every reason to believe that the greater part of the meeting had in reality no other object in view, and that the other secret intrigues fomented by the Blanqui party were confined, at all events, to but a chosen few. About two o'clock the monster procession began to move towards the Hotel de Ville. Along the outer boulevards, along the esplanade of the Invalides, over the