(Pétion) to come to the palace-as I was sealing it he came. He gave the King an account of the state of Paris-he then came to me-we chatted upon indifferent subjects, till Mandat, the commandant-general of the national guard,* and Boubé, the secretary-general of the staff, joined us. Mandat complained to the mayor that the Administrators of the municipality had refused him powder-the mayor replied, "You had not taken the preliminary steps to entitle you to have it "-a debate arose on this point-the mayor asked Mandat whether he had not some powder remaining from former deliveries--Mandat said, that "None of his men had more than nine cartridges, and many none at all, and that they naturally complained of this." This conversation ended here. The mayor then said " It is dreadfully hot here-I shall go down and take a little fresh air." I, however, expected news from the Department, which had promised to let me hear from them from hour to hour, and I sat down in a corner.'-p. 394.

This looks as if Pétion, having thus by an insidious question, ascertained the want of the means of defence, hastened away to apprise his fellow-conspirators.

About half-past eleven came a letter from the Department-nothing positive known-the hour for ringing the tocsin was not come-I then went down stairs alone to take the air, and I went into the court-I was stopped by several national guards-I then turned into the garden-there again I met sentinels-I was walking down the centre alley, when I met a group composed of Pétion, some municipal officers, and members of the commune, and about fifteen or twenty young national guards, who were singing and dancing about the mayorthey stopped me, and Pétion proposed to me to take a turn-" With pleasure!"-we walked to the end of the terrace on the river side, till hearing the drums beat to arms at the palace, we went back.'

Let it be here observed, that the two magistrates charged with the defence of the palace reject the application of the military commandant for the ammunition necessary to that defence; and while every quarter of the city confided to their care was in a state of the most alarming excitement, they stroll about the garden for a little fresh air.

'During our walk, I could not but express to the mayor my grief at the general agitation, and my fears for the consequences-the mayor however was more at his ease-"I hope it will end in nothing-commissioners have been sent to the places of meeting--Thomas tells me there will be nothing-Thomas must know." I knew nothing about this Thomas.'-p. 396.

Je ne sais qui est ce Thomas-yet with this reference to a name he never heard before the Procureur-Syndic is satisfied.-Perhaps, we may help M. Roederer to some knowledge of this Thomas,'

* After the resignation of Lafayette the chief command of the National Guards was taken in rotation by the colonels of the six legions which composed the whole body. M. Mandat was colonel of the third legion, and unhappily for him in rotation of command in the month of August, 1792.

upon

upon whose opinions, it seems, the destinies of the world turned. Was he not a certain Jean Jacques Thomas-an active member of the Jacobin Club-assessor to the Jugé de Paris, and first elector of the section des Lombards-residing No. 204, Rue St. Denisand a busy and influential man in that populous district?

After some conversation with some other gentlemen of the group on indifferent subjects, [on indifferent subjects, though the drums were beating to arms!] we reached the palace, and were at the foot of the great stairs when they came to tell Pétion that the Assembly had sent for him--He went, and I ascended to the royal apartments— I passed through the rooms without stopping, and went at once to the king's closet; my place could neither be in the first nor second anteroom. [Equality, with a vengeance!] It was then half an hour past midnight-I had soon after another letter of intelligence from the Department-great agitation in the faubourg St. Antoine, but as yet no assemblage. I acquainted the ministers with this, and the King, Queen, and Madame Elizabeth successively read my letter.

Soon after the King received a verbal report, agreeing with my letter-I know not from whom, for whenever any news arrived, or that the King made a movement, twenty people pressed around him, while I remained where I was.

At three-quarters past twelve the tocsin was heard on all sides— the windows were open-every one went to them to listen-and some would affect to recognise the bell of this church or of that. Another letter from the Department announces that the Faubourg St. Antoine is in motion that there are, however, not above fifteen hundred or two thousand men assembled—but that the gunners are all ready with their cannon, and that the citizens are all standing at their own doors, armed, and ready to join the march. I read this to the ministers, and, I think, to the King and Queen. One of the ministers, I do not remember which, now asked me "if there was not now a case to proclaim martial law?" I replied, "that since the law of the 3d August, 1791, martial law could only be proclaimed when the public tranquillity should be habitually disturbed; but here," said I, " is a very different state of things from a simple disturbance of the public tranquillity-this is a revolt, which is stronger than martial law, or than the power which should proclaim it. It is quite idle to think of such a thing for our present circumstances-moreover, it belongs not to the Department to proclaim martial law even if it were proper, but to the municipality." The minister replies, "We think the Department has the right." I insisted on the negative, and after consulting the text of the law, continued of the same opinion.'

Here M. Roederer thinks it necessary to add a note, which, in his general abstinence from revealing anything like the real motive of his words or actions, becomes an important explanation of the foregoing passage :

If even I had had the legal right to direct the municipality to proclaim martial law, if I had a force stronger than the revolt, and if the national

national guard were unanimous-could I have reasonably hoped that the municipality would have obeyed, they who had the day before formally petitioned the Assembly for the déchéance of the king?—It would have been foolish to expect that they would have displayed the red flag against any one but the king and his party. This brings us back to the undoubted fact, that the Procureur-General Syndic had no force to oppose to the Parisian insurrection.'-p. 397.

This seems to us a clear confession that Roederer was afraid to do his duty; and he justifies that fear by the insufficiency of his force; but we must observe in reply, that this alleged insufficiency is grounded on the supposition that the troops, the Swiss, and even the national guard, would not have done their duty, which we exceedingly doubt; and M. Roederer's shuffling excuses-first as to the law, and then as to his means-only satisfy us that his mission at the palace was to prevent their doing it. He proceeds

I went and sat down on a stool near the door of the bed-chamber --for etiquette was banished ;'—

so it seems-by him at least, who, by his magisterial functions, was bound to have given a good example, even if others had forgotten themselves.

'A moment after, the Queen, Madame Elizabeth, and one or two other women-one tall and thin-came and sat on the other stools (tabourets) in the same line. I then rose-the Queen asked me when the Marseillais intended to go home. I answered, that that very morning the mayor had proposed to the Department to authorise the advance of 20,000 livres to enable them to return, and that the Department had approved the proposition-but that it was not reduced to writing, because we did not like to give as a reason our desire to hasten their departure. The mayor (who was accompanied by M. Osselin) said, that the Marsellais were impatient to be gone that they were even dissatisfied with the Parisians, and that they only asked the 20,000 livres as a loan.'

The very name of Pétion's coadjutor on this occasion is a test of Pétion's real designs. This Osselin was a furious demagogue, and one of the leaders of this very insurrection-in reward for which he became one of the Septembriseur-representatives of Paris. He voted for the death of the king, but was himself sent to the scaffold by Robespierre. He was guillotined on the 26th June, 1794, already half dead from an incomplete attempt at suicide by a rusty nail extracted from his prison wall, and which remained sticking in his side. His mistress, a divorced woman, was respited on account of pregnancy, but she was executed on the birth of her child. We return to Roederer.

• About half-past two in the morning I received accounts rather tranquillising. They told me that the assemblages were forming very slowly-that the artisans of the faubourgs were getting tired, and that probably they would not move forward. A tall man in a grey

coat

coat made a similar verbal report to the King, and the by-standers repeated one expression of his which seemed to give satisfaction, " Le tocsin ne rend pas."-(The tocsin does not bring them out.) The Department in their letter asked me for a reinforcement to protect it. I went down to the commandant-general, who gave orders accordingly.'-p. 358.

It is remarkable that the intelligence which rather tranquillized Roederer should have had no such effect on his colleagues, the Department; and it seems hardly reconcileable with common sense and good faith that M. Roederer should detach from the palace -which is the avowed object of the intended attack,-part of his force already too weak-to defend the Department, who he well knew could be in no kind of danger.

Soon after this accounts were brought that M. Manuel, the procureur of the Commune, had given orders for the removal of the cannon which had been placed on the Pont Neuf, by order of the commandant-general, for the special purpose of preventing the junction of the two faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marcel:-" but, on the contrary," said M. Manuel," these two faubourgs have to-day to do a great piece of business in hand which requires their union." The ministers discussed the propriety of ordering the cannon to be replaced in spite of the orders of M. Manuel.

'We were told at the same time that a deputation of the Commune had just informed the Convention, that the mayor was detained in the palace as a prisoner, and to demand that he be restored to the Commune- that the mayor, however, who had remained at the gardengate of the Assembly, had denied that any violence had been employed to detain him in the palace, but that he would go to the Commune--which he did on foot, and about four o'clock in the morning, his carriage, which had been standing in the great court of the Tuileries, went home empty.'-p. 359.

Yet this LIE about the arrest of the mayor was not only propagated all that night and the next day, but an inscription was painted, and remained for months, on the front of the palace, to commemorate the virtuous Pétion's escape from the violence of the Court.

In these circumstances I wrote to invite the Council of the Department to join me at the palace, stating that the mayor had gone to the Commune; that we were deliberating whether to annul the orders of the Procureur de la Commune (Manuel); that we did not know whether he had issued these orders of his own head or in concert with the Municipality or the Department; that to take measures against the Municipality or Department was not a question of mere police, and that I could not take on myself to decide alone the course to be followed on this emergency. The Department, instead of joining me in a body, sent a deputation of two members, MM. Leveillard and De Faucompret.

They

They, I, and the six ministers then retired to a small room looking towards the garden and next the King's bed-chamber.

'I do not recollect what passed at this consultation; MM. Leveillard and De Faucompret perhaps may supply the deficiency; I only remember that I persisted in desiring that the whole Department should come to the palace, and that when it was observed that it could not change its official station without an order from the King, I went to request the King to give the order: the King said, My minister is not here; when he comes, I will give the order.' It was not yet day.

་

It was about this time that the mayor's carriage drove away. Some one opened a blind of the King's closet to see what the noise of the carriage was. Day was beginning to dawn. Madame Elizabeth went to the window, she looked at the sky, which was very red, and called to the Queen, who was sitting at the back of the room, Come, sister, and see the rising of the dawn." The Queen went ;-that day she saw the sun for the last time!

64

'The King, who had retired into his bed-chamber, now returned to the closet, he probably had lain down on the bed, for the powder and curls had been shaken out on one side of his head, which made a strange contrast with the other side, which was full powdered and curled. Just then, too, the blinds were opened all through the apartments. M. Mandat came to tell me that the Commune had summoned him a second time to attend them. He thought he ought NOT to go. M. de Joly (the minister of the interior) thought his presence at the palace indispensable. I thought that the commandant general was essentially at the orders of the mayor,-that it was possible that the mayor might have resolved to proceed to meet' [or prevent-aller au devant-the expression seems studiously ambiguous] the assemblages of the people, and might need for that purpose the presence of the commandant of the public force. On My advice Mandat went-though with great reluctance. I grounded my opinion, also, on the necessity of clearing up the pretended counter-order given by Manuel about the commune on the Pont Neuf, and of his (Mandat's) stating to the commune his views of what was necessary to insure the public tranquillity. Mandat had rendered himself odious to a great proportion He was of the [national] guard, by his fanatic devotion to the court. always ready "to pledge his life for the good intention of the King." He was always "sure that the court had no ill design." I was ignorant of this prejudice against him; he ought to have taken precautions when going to the commune-it seems he took none;-I was sorry to hear (j'eus le chagrin d'apprendre) that he had been killed by the way. (tué en chemin).'—p. 361.

This is a most important point of the case, and one on which, we regret to say, M. Roederer's own account excites a much stronger suspicion against him than we had before entertained. We are far from accusing him of a participation in the murder of Mandat; but we now see that it was HE who over-persuaded the reluctant victim to leave the post he had been ordered to defend,

and