In the mean while the crowd began to congregate in vast masses in the Champ-de-Mars--agitated, but inoffensive--the national guard, every battalion of whom La Fayette had ordered out, were under arms. One of the detachments which had arrived that morning in the Champ-de-Mars, with a train of artillery, withdrew by the quays, in order that the appearance of an armed force might not irritate the people. At twelve o'clock the crowd assembled round the "altar of the country" (_autel de la patrie_), not seeing the commissioners of the Jacobin club, who had promised to bring the petition to be signed, of their own accord chose four commissioners of their number to draw up one. One of the commissioners took the pen, the citizens crowded round him, and he wrote as follows:-- "On the altar of the country, July 13th, in the year III. Representatives of the people, your labours are drawing to a close. A great crime has been committed; Louis flies, and has unworthily abandoned his post--the empire is on the verge of ruin--he has been arrested, and has been brought back to Paris, where the people demand that he be tried. You declare he shall be king. This is not the wish of the people, and the decree is therefore annulled. He has been carried off by the two hundred and ninety-two _aristocrates_, who have themselves declared that they have no longer a voice in the National Assembly. It is annulled because it is in opposition to the voice of the people, your sovereign. Repeal your decree: the king has abdicated by his crime: receive his abdication; convoke a fresh constitutive power; point out the criminal, and organise a new executive power." This petition was laid on the altar of the country, and quires of paper, placed at the four corners of the altar, received six thousand autographs.