The fête of the Federation was celebrated in 1792 amidst extremely tragical preoccupations. Things had changed very greatly since the fête which had excited such enthusiasm two years earlier. On July 14, 1790, the Champ-de-Mars was filled at four o'clock in the morning by a crowd delirious with joy. At eight o'clock in the morning of July 14, 1792, it was still empty. The people were said to be at the Bastille witnessing the laying of the first stone of the column to be erected on the ruins of the famous fortress. On the Champ-de-Mars there was no magnificent altar served by three hundred priests, no side benches covered by an innumerable crowd, none of that sincere and ardent joy which throbbed in every heart two years before. For the fête of 1792, eighty-three little tents, representing the departments of the kingdom, had been erected on hillocks of sand. {250} Before each tent stood a poplar, so frail that it seemed as if a breath might blow away the tree and its tri-colored pendant. In the middle of the Champ-de-Mars were four stretchers covered with canvas painted gray which would have made a miserable decoration for a boulevard theatre. It was a so-called tomb, an honorary monument to those who had died or were about to die on the frontiers. On one side of it was the inscription: "Tremble, tyrants; we will avenge them!" The Altar of the Country could hardly be seen. It was formed of a truncated column placed on the top of the altar steps raised in 1790. Perfumes were burned on the four small corner altars. Two hundred yards farther off, near the Seine, a large tree had been set up and named the Tree of Feudalism. From its branches depended escutcheons, helmets, and blue ribbons interwoven with chains. This tree rose out of a wood-pile on which lay a heap of crowns, tiaras, cardinals' hats, Saint Peter's keys, ermine mantles, doctors' caps, and titles of nobility. A royal crown was among them, and beside it the escutcheons of the Count de Provence, the Count d'Artois, and the Prince de Condé. The organizers of the fête hoped to induce the King himself to set fire to this pile, covered with feudal emblems. A figure representing Liberty, and another representing Law, were placed on casters by the aid of which the two divinities were to be rolled about. Fifty-four pieces of cannon bordered the Champ-de-Mars on the side next the Seine, and the Phrygian cap crowned every tree. {251}