"Citizens! neither I nor any member of the Government will adopt the Drapeau Rouge. We would rather adopt that other flag which is hoisted in a bombarded city to mark to the enemy the hospitals of the wounded. I will tell you in one word why I will oppose the red flag with the whole force of patriotic determination. It is, citizens, because the tricolor has made the tour of the world with the Republic and the Empire, with your liberties and your glory; the red flag has only made the tour of the Champ de Mars, dragged through the blood of citizens." Muskets in the crowd were here levelled at the speaker, but were knocked up by the more peaceable of his hearers. There was soon great discontent throughout the departments because of the imposition of a land-tax; but as Lamartine said truly, farmers would have found war or the triumph of Red Republicanism more expensive still. On March 17, about three weeks after the departure of the king, a great Socialist demonstration was made in Paris. Large columns of men marched to the Hôtel-de-Ville, singing the old revolutionary chant of "Ça ira." Ledru-Rollin, in the fulness of his heart, seeing these one hundred and twenty thousand men all marching with some discipline, said to his colleagues in the Council Chamber: "Do you know that your popularity is nothing to mine? I have but to open this window and call upon these men, and you would every one of you be turned into the street. Do you wish me to try it?" Upon this, Garnier-Pagès, the Finance Minister, walked up to Ledru-Rollin, and presenting a pistol, said: "If you make one step toward that window, it shall be your last." Ledru-Rollin paused a moment, and then sat down. The object of the demonstration was to force the Provisional Government to take measures for raising and equalizing wages, and providing State employment for all out of employ. The main body was refused admittance into the Hôtel-de-Ville, but a certain number of the leaders were permitted to address the Provisional Government. To Ledru-Rollin's and Louis Blanc's surprise, they found that half of these leaders were men they had never seen before, more radical radicals than themselves,--that revolutionary scum that rose to the surface in the Reign of Terror and the Commune. A sense of common danger made Ledru-Rollin and Louis Blanc unite with their colleagues in refusing the demand of the deputation that the measures they advocated should be put in force by immediate decrees. Lamartine harangued them; so did Ledru-Rollin and Louis Blanc; and at last the disappointed multitude, with vengeance in their hearts, filed peaceably away.