e replied, "the excitement is
great." And he {280} enlarged upon the measures he claimed that he had
taken, and his pretended haste to wait upon the King. In going out, he
came face to face with M. de Mandat, who, as general-in-chief of the
National Guard, was in command of all military forces. "Why,"
exclaimed he, "have the police refused cartridges to the National Guard
when they have wasted them on the Marseillais? My men have only four
charges apiece; some of them have not one. No matter; I answer for
everything; my measures are taken, providing I am authorized, by an
order signed by you, to repel force by force." Not daring to avow his
complicity with the riot, Petion signed the order demanded. Then he
made his escape under pretext of inspecting the gardens, and fell
amongst some royalist National Guards, who reprimanded him severely.
He began to fear being kept at the Tuileries as a hostage, to guarantee
the palace against the attempts of the populace, and went to the
Assembly. It had adjourned at ten o'clock the evening before, but on
account of the crisis had met again at two in the morning. The
Assembly knew the gravity of the danger as well as the King did; but
through a ridiculous and culpable point of honor, it affected not to
recognize it, and devoted to the reading of a colonial report the
moments it should have employed in saving that Constitution it had
sworn to maintain. Petion merely put in an appearance in the Hall of
the Manege. But he took good care not to return to the Tuileries. At
half-past three in the morning the {281} rolling of a carriage was
heard from the palace. It was that of the mayor, going back empty. He
had not dared to get into it, and had only sent his coachman an order
to return when he found himself in safety at the mayoralty, whither he
had made his way on foot.

Meanwhile, some hundred unknown individuals, who gathered at the
Hotel-de-Ville, and surreptitiously made their way into one of the
halls, had formed an insurrectionary Commune. On their own authority
they appointed commissaries of sections, and dismissed the staff of the
National Guard, who were very much in their way; but retained in office
Manuel as procurator and Petion as mayor. This new municipality, whose
very existence was unknown at the palace, had just learned that Mandat,
general-in-chief of the National Guard, had a document in his pocket by
which Petion authorized him to oppose force to force