happiness of a free nation shall depend on the caprice of a king! But should this king have any other will than that of the law? The people will have it so, and the life of the people is as valuable as that of crowned despots. That life is the genealogical tree of the nation, and the feeble reed must bend before this sturdy oak! We complain, gentlemen, of the inactivity of our armies; we require of you to penetrate into the cause of this; if it spring from the executive power, let that power be destroyed!" The assembly answered the petitioners that it would take their request into consideration; it then urged them to respect the law and legal authorities, and allowed them to defile before it. This procession, amounting to thirty thousand persons, comprising women, children, national guards, and men armed with pikes, among whom waved revolutionary banners and symbols, sang, as they traversed the hall, the famous chorus, _Ca ira_, and cried: "Vive la nation!" "Vivent les sans-culottes!" "A bas le veto!" It was led by Santerre and the marquis de Saint Hurugue. On leaving the assembly, it proceeded to the château, headed by the petitioners. The outer doors were opened at the king's command; the multitude rushed into the interior. They ascended to the apartments, and while forcing the doors with hatchets, the king ordered them to be opened, and appeared before them, accompanied by a few persons. The mob stopped a moment before him; but those who were outside, not being awed by the presence of the king, continued to advance. Louis XVI. was prudently placed in the recess of a window. He never displayed more courage than on this deplorable day. Surrounded by national guards, who formed a barrier against the mob, seated on a chair placed on a table, that he might breathe more freely and be seen by the people, he preserved a calm and firm demeanour. In reply to the cries that arose on all sides for the sanction of the decrees, he said: "This is neither the mode nor the moment to obtain it of me." Having the courage to refuse the essential object of the meeting, he thought he ought not to reject a symbol, meaningless for him, but in the eyes of the people, that of liberty; he placed on his head a red cap presented to him on the top of a pike. The multitude were quite satisfied with this condescension. A moment or two afterwards, they loaded him with applause, as, almost suffocated with hunger and thirst, he drank off, without hesitation, a glass of wine presented to him by a half-drunken workman. In the meantime, Vergniaud, Isnard, and a few deputies of the Gironde, had hastened thither to protect the king, to address the people, and put an end to these indecent scenes. The assembly, which had just risen from a sitting, met again in haste, terrified at this outbreak, and despatched several successive deputations to Louis XVI. by way of protection. At length, Pétion, the mayor, himself arrived; he mounted a chair, harangued