"You speak true, sister, you speak true. Too long has the vengeance of heaven spared these scoundrels. Let now the sword of the people fall upon them!" "Aye, brother, justice shall not be less terrible for having been delayed! Retribution will recall to life none of the dead we mourn; but our enemies, annihilated or struck with terror, will hesitate to create new victims! In avenging the past, we safeguard the future. The instinct of the people can be trusted--its history is ours! It does not know the details of its age-long martyrdom, but it feels itself the representative of martyrs; it is conscious of being the living legend of the miseries and tortures of generations past. It is in their name that it will judge and execute." Before I could reply, one of my companions in arms, a workman like myself, the son of our neighbor Jerome, and like myself belonging to the Section of the Pikes, called to me, without: "John, hear you not the drum? They have just posted placards in the street that the nation is in danger. Longwy is taken! The Prussians are marching upon Paris. They are sounding the assembly everywhere--come, come, let us to our place in the fray." Fearing I should be lacking in duty should I further delay joining my Section, I bade my sister farewell and left our dwelling. My comrade and I directed our steps towards Vendome Place, the Section's assembly-ground. It were useless to attempt to portray the thousand aspects presented by the multitude that packed the street corners and the crossings; for it was in these places that were posted by preference the placards issued by the patriot press or the clubs, as well as the decrees, issued almost hourly by the National Assembly, or by the Commune of Paris, elected by the insurgent Sections on the night of the 9th of August. How could one hope to describe the aspects, so diverse, presented by those surging masses, or convey an idea of the tumultuous sentiments of the population?--now dumbfounded and seemingly crushed by the approach of grave public danger; now shrieking maledictions and cries of death against the royalists and the foreign despots; and again, carried away by a burst of patriotism, shouting: "To the frontiers!" All Paris oscillated in turn between terror, hatred and blind vengeance. A reading of the placards and decrees alone can explain the downheartedness, the fury, and the recurring ferocious appetites of the delirious crowd. The following placard is from the _Courier of the Departments_, published by the Girondin Gorsas: PLAN OF THE ALLIES AGAINST PARIS.