Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume I.Scott, Walter
History
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume I.
Scott, Walter
France -- History -- 1789-1815; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
Though the insurrection was resolved upon, and thus openly announced,
each faction was jealous of the force which the other was to employ, and
apprehensive of the use which might be made of it against themselves,
after the conquest was obtained. But however suspicious of each other,
they were still more desirous of their common object, the destruction of
the throne, and the erection of a republic, which the Brissotins
supposed they could hold under their rule, and which the Jacobins were
determined to retain under their misrule. An insurrection was at length
arranged, which had all the character of that which brought the King a
prisoner from Versailles, the Jacobins being the prime movers of their
desperate followers, and the actors on both occasions; while the
Girondists, on the 20th June, 1792, hoped, like the Constitutionalists
on the 6th October, 1789, to gain the advantage of the enterprise which
their own force would have been unable to accomplish. The community, or
magistracy, of Paris, which was entirely under the dominion of
Robespierre, Danton, and the Jacobins, had been long providing for such
an enterprise, and under pretext that they were arming the lower classes
against invasion, had distributed pikes and other weapons to the
rabble, who were to be used on this occasion.
[Sidenote: THE TWENTIETH OF JUNE.]
On the 20th of June, the Sans Culottes of the suburbs of Saint Marçeau
and Saint Antoine assembled together, armed with pikes, scythes,
hay-forks, and weapons of every description, whether those actually
forged for the destruction of mankind, or those which, invented for
peaceful purposes, are readily converted by popular fury into offensive
arms. They seemed, notwithstanding their great numbers to act under
authority, and amid their cries, their songs, their dances, and the wild
intermixture of grotesque and fearful revel, appeared to move by
command, and to act with a unanimity that gave the effect of order to
that which was in itself confusion. They were divided into bodies, and
had their leaders. Standards also were displayed, carefully selected to
express the character and purpose of the wretches who were assembled
under them. One ensign was a pair of tattered breeches, with the motto,
"Vivent les Sans Culottes." Another ensign-bearer, dressed in black,
carried on a long pole a hog's harslet, that is, part of the entrails of
that animal, still bloody, with the legend, "La fressure d'un
Aristocrat." This formidable assemblage was speedily recruited by the
mob of Paris, to an immense multitude, whose language, gestures, and
appearance, all combined to announce some violent catastrophe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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