The fête took place on Sunday, April 15. It was the triumph of anarchy, the glorification of indiscipline and revolt. On that day the galley slaves were treated like heroes. The emblems adopted were a colossal galley, ornamented with flowers, and the convicts' head gear, that hideous red bonnet in which Dumouriez had already played the buffoon, and which was presently to be set on the august head of Louis XVI. The soldier galley slaves, whose chains were kissed with transports by a swarm of harlots, came forward wearing civic crowns. What a difference between the Constituent Assembly and the Legislative Assembly! Under the one, a grand expiatory ceremony on the Champ-de-Mars had honored the soldiers slain at Nancy, and the National Guards had worn mourning for these martyrs of duty. Under the other, it was not the victims who were lauded, but their assassins. A goddess of Liberty in a Phrygian cap was borne in a state chariot. The procession halted at the Bastille, the Hôtel de Ville, and the Champ-de-Mars. The mayor and municipality of Paris were present in their official capacity. The _Ça ira_ was sung in a frenzy of enthusiasm. Soldiers and public women embraced each other. It was David who had {119} designed the costumes, planned the chariot, and organized the whole performance,--David, the revolutionary artist who was destined by a change of fortune to paint the portrait of a Pope and the coronation of an Emperor. In 1791, André Chénier and David, then friends, and saluting together the dawn of the Revolution, had celebrated with lyre and pencil the "_Serment du Jeu de Paumé_"[1] Consecrating an ode to the painter's magnificent tableau, the poet exclaimed:-- Resume thy golden robe, bind on thy chaplet rich, Divine and youthful Poesy! To David's lips, King of the skilful brush, Bear the ambrosial cup. How he repented his enthusiasm now! What ill-will he bore the artist who placed his art, that sacred gift, at the service of anarchical passions! With what irony the same pen passed from dithyramb to satire! Arts worthy of our eyes, pomp and magnificence Worthy of our liberty, Worthy of the vile tyrants who are devouring France, Worthy of the atrocious dementia Of that stupid David whom in other days I sang! On the very day of the fête the young poet had the courage to publish in the _Journal de Paris_ an avenging satire, which branded the shoulders of the ex-galley slaves as with a new hot iron. The sweet {120} and pathetic elegiast, the Catullus, the Tibullus of France, added a bronze chord to his lyre:-- Hail, divine triumph! Enter within our walls! Bring us these warriors so famed For Desilles' blood, and for the obsequies Of many Frenchmen massacred... One day alone could win so much renown, And this fair day will shine upon us soon! When thou shalt lead Jourdan to our army, And Lafayette to the scaffold!