in the Assembly.

{176}

XVII.

THE PROLOGUE TO JUNE TWENTIETH.

On retiring from the ministry, Dumouriez left his successors a burden
far too heavy for their shoulders, and under which they were to
succumb. The new ministers, Lajard, Terrier de Montciel, and
Chambonas, were almost unknown men who had no definite, decided
opinions, and offered no resistance to disorder: for that matter, they
had no means of doing so. The political system then in power had left
Paris a helpless prey to sedition. By the new laws, the executive
power could take no direct action looking to the preservation of public
order in any French commune. Any minister or departmental
administration that should adopt a police regulation or give a
commander to armed forces, would be guilty of betraying a trust. The
power to prevent or repress disorder belonged exclusively to the
municipal authority, which, in Paris, was composed of a mayor, sixteen
administrators, thirty-two municipal councillors, a council-general of
ninety-six notables, an attorney-general and his two substitutes. This
body of 148 members was the redoubtable power known as the Commune of
Paris. It was not {177} composed entirely of seditious persons, and in
the National Guard, also, there were still battalions fervently devoted
to the constitutional monarchy. But Petion was mayor of Paris; Manuel,
the attorney-general, and Danton his substitute. Seditious movements
were sure to find instigators and accomplices in these three men.

Moreover, the insurrection was regularly organized. It had its
muster-rolls, its officers, sergeants, soldiers; its strategy and plans
of battle. It utilized wineshops as guard-houses, the faubourgs as
barracks, the red bonnet and the _carmagnole_, or revolutionary jacket,
as a uniform. Its agitators distributed wine, beer, and brandy
gratuitously. The Jacobins or the Cordeliers had but to give the
signal for a riot, and a riot sprang out of the ground. The mine was
loaded; the only question was when to fire the train. The Girondins
were of one mind with the Jacobins. Exasperated by the dismissal of
three ministers who shared their opinions, they wanted to intimidate
the court by means of a popular tumult, and thus force the unhappy
sovereign to sanction the two decrees, concerning the deportation of
priests and the camp of twenty thousand men. The populace already
manifested their restlessness by threats and strange rumors. At