Robbery preceded murder. It was a veritable raid. The Commune caused the palaces, national property, the Garde-Meuble, the houses and mansions of the _émigrés_ to be pillaged. One saw nothing but carts and wagons transporting stolen goods to the Hôtel-de-Ville. All the plate was stolen from the churches likewise. "Millions," says Madame Roland in her Memoirs, "passed into the hands of people who used it to perpetuate the anarchy which was the source of their domination." When will the men of the Commune render their accounts? Never. Who are the accomplices of Danton and Marat in organizing the massacres? A band of defaulting accountants, faithless violators of public trusts, breakers of locks, swindlers, spies, and men overwhelmed with debts. What interest have they in planning the murders? That of perpetuating the dictatorship they had assumed on the eve of August 10, and, above all, of having no accounts to render. A few weeks later on, Collot d'Herbois will say at the Jacobin Club: "The 2d of September is the chief article in the creed of our liberty." {363} The jailors were forewarned. They served the prisoners' dinner earlier, and took away their knives. There was a disturbed and uneasy look in their faces which made the victims suspect their end was near. Toward noon the general alarm was beaten in every street. The citizens were ordered to return at once to their dwellings. An order was issued to illuminate every house when night fell. The shops were closed. Terror overspread the entire city. It was agreed that at the third discharge of cannon the cut-throats should set to work. The first blood shed was that of prisoners taken from the mayoralty to the Abbey prison. The carriages containing them passed along the Quai des Orfèvres, the Pont-Neuf and rue Dauphine, until it reached the Bussy square. Here there was a crowd assembled around a platform where enlistments were going on. The throng impeded the progress of the carriages. Thereupon one of the escort opened the door of one of them, and standing on the step, plunged his sabre into the breast of an aged priest. The multitude shuddered and fled in affright. "That makes you afraid," said the assassin; "you will see plenty more like it." The rest of the escort followed the example set them. The carriages go on again, and so do the massacres. They kill along the route, and they kill on arriving at the Abbey. Towards five o'clock, Billaud-Varennes presents himself there, wearing his municipal scarf. "People," says he--what he calls {364} people is a band of salaried assassins--"people, thou immolatest thine enemies, thou art doing thy duty." Then he walks into the midst of the dead bodies, dipping his feet in blood, and fraternizes with the murderers. "There is nothing more to do here," exclaims Maillard; "let us go to the Carmelites."