Robespierre turned pale. The _fête_ had certainly not opened auspiciously. Then, in spite of himself, an instinctive and uncontrollable desire to lean on some one, which always took possession of him in hours of suffering, mastered him. As he looked round in search of a sympathising glance, his eyes fell on a fair, rosy child, in its young mother's arms, trying to play with bouquets of corn and wild flowers which its mother kept from him. Robespierre recognised the bouquet which in his excitement he had left on the tribune, and which the young woman now held out to him. This delicate attention fell on his parched soul like refreshing dew, and he gratefully accepted the simple homage offered with such charming frankness. Robespierre now headed the procession, preceded by trumpets and drums, followed by the Convention through the line of National Guards, who kept back the curious crowd on either side of the garden, as the line wound its way towards the swing-bridge which opened on to the Place de la Révolution. The deputies were all there, dressed in official garb: dark blue coat, red collar and cuffs, tight-fitting knee breeches of doeskin, high boots, broad tricolour sashes across the breast, fastened on the left shoulder, and tricolour plumes in their hats. Each member carried in his hand a bouquet of flowers and ears of corn. Robespierre was conspicuous by the difference in his attire, which was of a lighter blue. He walked well ahead of his colleagues, as if to accentuate the distance between himself and them in the eyes of the crowd, who, with keen curiosity, were climbing on stools, on ladders, on the bases of statues, on gates, and even on the trees, to get a better view of him. Thus Robespierre, whose serenity had now returned, advanced towards the Place de la Révolution, where he knew that the greater mass of the people were assembled to receive him with thunders of applause. The sound of "_Vivat! Vivat!_" was heard in the distance, accompanied by the roll of the Champ-de-Mars cannon, which fired a resounding salute at regular intervals. Those vivas were welcoming on the Place de la Révolution the _cortège_ which had preceded Robespierre and the members of the Convention; the delegates from the different sections of Paris, who entered amidst the beat of drums and blare of brass instruments, headed by a standard-bearer. The procession had no sooner reached the square than they parted into two lines; on one side women and young girls, dressed in white and crowned with roses; on the other, old men and youths, carrying branches of oak and laurel. The crowd, kept back by a rope of tricolour ribbons, received the procession with enthusiastic shouts, chanting with the choirs the choruses of the _Chant du Départ_. To the passionate strains of Mehul's national anthem succeeded soon after a hymn appropriate to the occasion, Gossec's composition calling down the benediction of the Supreme Being on France and on humanity.