accorded to so many others to that which now presents itself. He
believes, moreover, that it could not be dispersed without a resort to
martial law and a renewal of the massacre of the Champ-de-Mars. "It
would be insulting to the citizens who are now asking to pay their
respects to you," said he, "to suspect them of bad intentions... The
assemblage doubtless does not claim to accompany the citizens who
desire to present a petition to the King. Nevertheless, as a
precaution, I propose that sixty members of the Assembly shall be
commissioned to go to the King and remain near him until this gathering
shall have been dispersed."

The discussion continues. M. Ramond follows Vergniaud. What is going
to happen? What will the insurrectionary column do? Glance for an
instant at the topography of the Assembly and its environs. The
session-chamber is the Hall of the Riding School, which extends to the
terrace of the Feuillants, and occupies the site where the rue de
Rivoli was opened later on, almost at the corner of the future rue de
Castiglione. It is a building about one hundred and fifty feet long.
In front of it is a long and {189} narrow courtyard beginning very near
the rue de Dauphin. It is entered through this courtyard, which a
wall, afterwards replaced by a grating, separates from the terrace of
the Feuillants. It may be entered at the other extremity, also, at the
spot where the flight of steps facing the Place Vendome was afterwards
built. From the side of the courtyard it can be approached by
carriages, but from the other, only by pedestrians who cross the narrow
passage of the Feuillants, which starts from the rue Saint-Honore,
opposite the Place Vendome, and leads to the garden of the Tuileries.
This passage is bordered on the right by the convent of the Capuchins;
on the left is the Riding School, almost at the spot where the passage
opens into the Tuileries Garden by a door which had just been closed,
and before which had been placed a cannon and a battalion of National
Guards.

On reaching the rue Saint-Honore, the crowd had taken good care not to
enter the court of the Riding School, where they might have been
arrested and disarmed. They preferred to follow the rue Saint-Honore
and take the passage conducting thence to the Assembly and the terrace
of the Feuillants. Three municipal officers who had gone to the
Tuileries Garden, passed through this passage before the crowd, and met
the advancing