at Montmartre collect 17,000 paupers; in the Market, where the bakers
want to hang the flour commissioners, and at the doors of the bakers,
of whom two, on the 14th of September and on the 5th of October, are
conducted to the lamp post and barely escape with their lives.--In this
suffering, mendicant crowd, enterprising men become more numerous every
day: they consist of deserters, and from every regiment; they reach
Paris in bands, often 250 in one day. There, "caressed and fed to the
top of their bent,"[1415] having received from the National Assembly
50 livres each, maintained by the King in the enjoyment of their
advance-money, entertained by the districts, of which one alone incurs
a debt of 14,000 livres for wine and sausages furnished to them, "they
accustom themselves to greater expense," to greater license, and are
followed by their companions. "During the night of the 31st of July the
French Guards on duty at Versailles abandon the custody of the King and
betake themselves to Paris, without their officers, but with their arms
and baggage," that "they may take part in the cheer which the city of
Paris extends to their regiment." At the beginning of September, 16,000
deserters of this stamp are counted.[1416] Now, among those who commit
murder these are in the first rank; and this is not surprising when we
take the least account of their antecedents, education, and habits. It
was a soldier of the "Royal Croat" who tore out the heart of Berthier.
They were three soldiers of the regiment of Provence who forced the
house of Chatel at Saint-Denis, and dragged his head through
the streets. It is Swiss soldiers who, at Passy, knock down the
commissioners of police with their guns. Their headquarters are at the
Palais-Royal, amongst women whose instruments they are, and amongst
agitators from whom they receive the word of command. Henceforth, all
depends on this word, and we have only to contemplate the new popular
leaders to know what it will be.
III.--The new popular leaders.
Their ascendancy.--Their education.--Their sentiments.
--Their situation.--Their councils.--Their denunciations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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