On the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, July 14, 1790, a great celebration was held in Paris. A vast crowd of more than three hundred thousand persons, including the court, the Assembly, the National Guard, and men from the provinces as well as from the city, met in the amphitheatre of the Champs de Mars to swear obedience to the new constitution which was to govern them all. First Louis XVI. took the oath, and then Lafayette, who was made for that day commander-in-chief of all the armed forces of France, stepped forward, placed the point of his sword on the altar, and took the oath as the representative of the French people. A great roar of voices greeted the commander’s words. But although Lafayette meant to remain faithful to the principles of a constitutional monarchy, the mass of his countrymen soon showed that they had no such intention. Disorder and rioting grew more frequent, the people demanded more of the Assembly than the latter felt it could grant, the Guards grew increasingly unpopular as the symbol of a law and order the mob did not like. Within the Assembly itself there were many quarrels and wrangles; sometimes the mob vented its feelings on an unpopular member by attacking his house. And as often as not the National Guards, when they were sent to protect property, joined with the crowd and helped to destroy it instead. In February, 1791, a crowd from Paris attacked the fortress of Vincennes, which had once been a state prison, but had been unused for some time. Lafayette, with his staff and a considerable number of National Guards, marched out to the place, quelled the disturbance, and arrested sixty of the ringleaders. When he brought his prisoners back to the city he found the gates of the Faubourg St. Antoine closed against him, and he had to threaten to blow the gates open with cannon before the people would allow him to enter. All the way to the Conciergerie, where he took his prisoners, the General and his soldiers were targets for the abuse of the crowds. On the same day some of the nobles who lived in the neighborhood of the royal palace of the Tuileries, hearing of the attack at Vincennes, thought that the King might also be in danger, and went to the palace, armed with pistols and daggers. This angered the National Guards who were posted about the Tuileries and who thought that the noblemen were poaching on their territory. The King had to appear in person to settle the dispute, and even then some of the nobles were maltreated by the soldiers. Immediately revolutionary orators made use of the incident to inflame the people’s mind, representing that the King’s friends had planned to murder officers of the Guards.