* * * * * Early in midsummer the wildest rumors reached Paris that the Versailles government intended to put down the discontents by weight of sword. Armies were advancing on the city, 'twas averred--cannon and arms were being parked in the commanding squares; the King's faithful Allemands and Swiss were about to attack the representatives of the people and mow them down. As a beehive, stirred by over-curious bear or by an invader's stick, seethes and swarms in milling fury before the myriads of angry occupants attack and overwhelm the intruder with their stings, so the seething populace mills in widening and ever widening circles, out to destroy--burn--slay. The ominous drum murmurs to the people of their ancient wrongs. Artisans pick up their nearest implements, the butcher his axe, the baker his rolling pin, the joiner his saw, the iron worker his mallet or crowbar, rushing to join the homicidal throngs. Vengeful leaders like Forget-Not urge them on, directing the milling masses to the central places of the city. At the Palais Royal gardens, later from the Cafe de Foy, Camille Desmoulins is in his glory. See him rushing out, sibylline in face; his hair streaming, in each hand a pistol! He springs to a table: the police satellites are eyeing him; alive they shall not take him; not they alive, him alive. [Illustration: DANTON WELCOMES LAFAYETTE AND JEFFERSON, THE REPRESENTATIVES OF AMERICA'S NEW-WON FREEDOM.] "'Friends, shall we die like hunted hares? Us, meseems, only one cry befits: To arms! Let universal Paris, universal France, as with the throat of the whirlwind, resound: To arms! Friends (continues Camille) some rallying sign! Cockades, green one; the color of hope!' As with the flight of locusts, these green leaves; green ribands from the neighboring shops; all green things are snatched and made cockades of.... And now to Curtius' image shop there; to the boulevards; to the four winds, and rest not until France be on fire!" Ancient flint-locks, pikes and lances are replevined, and dance high, minatory, over the heads of the mob. Storerooms of powder and musketry are broken into and swept clean. Behold, now, a still more astonishing sight; a rushing tide of women, impetuous, all-devouring, equipped with brooms and household tools, descending like a snowbreak from all directions upon the Hotel de Ville. "And now doors fly under hatchets; the Judiths have broken the armory; have seized guns and cannon, three money-bags," and have fired the beautiful City Hall of King Henry the Fourth's time! ... And where the Storm breaks fiercest and the cry "Down with Tyrants!" most loudly sounds, there Danton the revolutionist, the pock-marked Thunderer, leads the way, whipping up new fury and moulding them to his will with his appeal 'gainst "Starvation--oppression--ages of injustice--vile prisons where innocent ones die under autocracy!" Danton's voice shakes the world.