The people wondered what all this meant. At an early hour the garden of the Palais Royal was filled with an anxious and inquiring crowd. About ten o'clock an unknown person announced that Necker was dismissed, and that a new ministry was organized, composed of members of most determined hostility to popular reform. These tidings explained the formidable military display, and excited universal alarm and indignation. A young man, Camille Desmoulins, sprung upon a table, his dress disarranged, his hair disheveled, his face flushed, his eyes gleaming with indignation and tears, and, with a pistol in each hand to protect himself from the police, shouted, "To arms! to arms! This dismissal is but the precursor to another St. Bartholomew. This night the Swiss and German troops are to march to our massacre. We have but one resource; it is to defend ourselves." The impassioned cry was immediately echoed by the multitude, "To arms! to arms!" A rallying sign was needed. Desmoulins plucked a green leaf from a tree and attached it to his hat. Instantly all the chestnut-trees which embellished the garden were stripped of their foliage, and the leaf became the pledge of union. The flash of a moment had brought the whole body of the populace into a recognized uniform and a rude organization. An army of more than a hundred thousand souls was in an hour enlisted, inspired with deathless enthusiasm, and crying out for leaders and for weapons. The movement was now in progress which was to scatter like chaff the battalions of foreign mercenaries, and to prostrate in dust and ashes the court and the throne. But alas for man! the flame which cheers the fireside may lay palaces and temples and happy homes in ruins. A new power had arisen, and it proved to be as blind and ignorant as it was resistless. Had the populace been imbued with Christian principles and intelligence, blessings only would have resulted from their sway. [Illustration: CAMILLE DESMOULINS IN THE PALAIS ROYAL.] In this wild hour of turmoil the multitude were bewildered, and knew not what to do. They had no arms, and no recognized leaders except the National Assembly at Versailles, from whom they were now cut off by detachments of troops.