The Jacobin Club, it will be remembered, in a stormy midnight debate, had drawn up a petition to the Assembly demanding the deposition of the king as a perjured traitor. They wished, by a demonstration of popular enthusiasm, to terrify the Assembly into obedience to their mandate. Accordingly, the whole populace of Paris were summoned to meet on the Field of Mars, to sign, with much parade, the petition on the Altar of Federation, which had not yet been taken down. At an early hour on the morning of the 17th of July the multitude began to congregate. It was the Sabbath-day. Every scene in the drama of the Revolution seems to have been arranged on the sublimest scale. Soon from fifty to one hundred thousand, including the lowest of the population of Paris, were thronging the field, and clambering over the gigantic altar.[292] Two men were seized, under the absurd accusation that they were intending to blow up the altar and all upon it by means of a barrel of gunpowder. The cry of "Aristocrats!" which passed like a tornado through the crowd, precluded any trial, and settled their doom. The two unhappy men were literally torn to pieces, and their heads were borne about on pikes by brutal wretches who were now beginning to emerge from dens of obscurity into confidence and power. The rumor of these murders and of the threatening attitude of the mob spread through the city and reached the ears of the Assembly. The principal ringleaders of the Jacobins were nowhere to be found, and it was asserted and generally believed that they were in a secret place, that they might escape responsibility, while, through their agents, they were rousing the mob to a demonstration which should overawe the Assembly. In the midst of the wildest imaginable scene of tumult and uproar, the _mandate_ of the Jacobins--for it could with no propriety be called a _petition_--was placed upon the altar upon many separate sheets of paper, and speedily received six thousand signatures. This was a new order, drawn up at the moment, for the original document could not be found. It read as follows: "Representatives of the people! your labors are nearly ended. A great crime has been committed. Louis has fled, abandoning his post. The country is on the verge of ruin. The king has been arrested, brought back to Paris, and the people demand that he be tried. You declare that he shall be king. The people do not wish it, and therefore annul your decree. The king has been carried off by the two hundred and ninety-two _aristocrats_ who have themselves declared that they have no longer a voice in the National Assembly. Your decree is annulled, because it is in opposition to the voice of the people, your sovereign. Repeal it. The king has abdicated by crime. Receive his abdication."