the Palais Royal—of late a favorite rendezvous of patriots of his type—noisy and blustering, believing in copious libations as the most efficacious proof of patriotism. Desmoulins, on hearing the news, rushed out, pistol in hand, and, jumping on an orange-tree tub, proceeded to harangue the assembled multitude. He was afflicted with a painful stuttering in his speech, but this impediment appears to have been no hindrance to the effect of his oratory; on the contrary, it gave it a more vehement character, impelling him to wild and passionate gesticulation, by way of helping out his defective utterance. He spoke with his eyes, his teeth, every member of his body; he would shake out his hair in lion-like fashion, stamp his feet, toss his arms with clenched fists above his head to supply the word his tongue refused to articulate, and the energetic pantomine elicited the sympathy, while it fired the passions, of his hearers. “Citizens!” he cried, “I come from Versailles.” (He came from a neighboring _café_, as we have seen, but what of that?) “Necker is dismissed. This dismissal is the tocsin of S. Bartholomew for all patriots. Before the sun has gone down, we shall see the Swiss and German battalions marching from the Champs de Mars to murder us like dogs. One chance yet remains to us. To arms! Let us choose a cockade whereby we may know each other.” This exordium was covered with thundering salvos by the patriots. “What color shall we choose?” continued the orator. “Speak, patriots! Select your own flag. Shall it be green, the emblem of hope, or blue—the color of free America, of liberty, and democracy?” A voice from the patriots cried out: “Green, the color of hope!” But the choice was negatived by the voice of popular prejudice. Green, it was said, was unlucky. No; they would not have green.