It was the common word in the galleries that all the Sections of Paris were assembling in arms in their respective quarters, and that their committee-men had gone to the City Hall to exercise the powers of the Commune of Paris. It was also said that the federates of Marseilles, gathered at the Cordeliers, had sent a patrol into the neighborhood of the Tuileries, and arrested, near the Carousel, a counter-patrol of royalists, among whom were the journalist Suleau, Abbot Bourgon, and an ex-bodyguard named Beau-Viguier. Further it was declared that two thousand former nobles had been called together at the Tuileries, as well as a large number of veteran officers or body-guardsmen, to defend the palace. Some said that the Swiss regiments, re-enforced by those from the barracks of Courbevoie, were at the palace, supported by a formidable battery of artillery, and that Mandat, commander of the National Guard, had announced that he would crush the insurrection. The approaches to the palace were guarded by gendarmes afoot and on horse. Everything pointed to a desperate resistance should a struggle be engaged between the people and the defenders of the Tuileries. About two o'clock in the morning the Representatives, to the number of about two hundred, decided to convene the session. The tocsin, accompanied by the distant din of the drums beating the assembly or the forward march, was still to be heard. In the absence of the president of the Assembly, Citizen Pastoret took the chair, and the secretaries assumed their places at the table. Hardly had the session been opened when the delegates of the Lombards Section appeared. The leader of the deputation, wearing a red cap and carrying his gun, strode forward and cried: "Citizen Representatives, the court is betraying the people! The Lombards Section has joined the insurrection, and at break of day will do its duty in the attack on the Tuileries. We go to meet our brothers." "The people should respect the law and the Constitution," was the answer of Pastoret. At these words of Citizen Pastoret, loud murmurs arose from the extreme Left. Pastoret yielded the chair to Morlot, the president, who had come in; and at the same time there appeared at the bar of the Assembly three officers of the old Municipal Council. "You have the floor," said the president to them. Pale and quavering one of the officers spoke: "The alarm bell sounds in Paris! The ferment is at its height! Everywhere the Sections are gathering in arms. Several of our colleagues, sent to the City Hall to learn how matters stood, have been arrested. The insurgents are preparing to march at daybreak upon the Tuileries." "An act of high justice!" cried one of the members of the Left. "Within the Tuileries' walls resides the bitterest enemy of the public good! He must be annihilated by the sovereign people!"