g obtains this veto, what will be the use
of a National Assembly? We shall all be slaves "[1427]
Outbursts of this description are not to be resisted, and all is lost.
Already, near the end of September, the remark applies which Mirabeau
makes to the Comte de la Marck:
"Yes, all is lost; the King and Queen will be swept away, and you will
see the populace trampling on their lifeless bodies."
Eight days after this, on the 5th and 6th of October, it breaks out
against both King and Queen, against the National Assembly and the
Government, against all government present and to come; the violent
party which rules in Paris obtains possession of the chiefs of France
to hold them under strict surveillance, and to justify its intermittent
outrages by one permanent outrage.
V.--The 5th and 6th of October.
Once more, two different currents combine into one torrent to hurry the
crowd onward to a common end.--On the one hand are the cravings of the
stomach, and women excited by the famine:
"Now that bread cannot be had in Paris, let us go to Versailles and
demand it there; once we have the King, Queen, and Dauphin in the midst
of us, they will be obliged to feed us;" we will bring back "the Baker,
the Bakeress, and the Baker's boy." --On the other hand, there is
fanaticism, and men who are pushed on by the need to dominate.
"Now that our chiefs yonder disobey us,--let us go and make them obey us
forthwith; the King is quibbling over the Constitution and the Rights of
Man--make him approve them; his guards refuse to wear our cockade--make
them accept it; they want to carry him off to Metz--make him come to
Paris, here, under our eyes and in our hands, he, and the lame Assembly
too, will march straight on, and quickly, whether they like it or not,
and always on the right road."--Under this confluence of ideas the
expedition is arranged.[1428] Ten days before this, it is publicly
alluded to at Versailles. On the 4th of October, at Paris, a woman
proposes it at the Palais-Royal; Danton roars at the Cordeliers;
Marat, "alone, makes as much noise as the four trumpets on the Day of
Judgment." Loustalot writes that a second revolutionary paroxysm is
necessary." "The day passes," says Desmoulins, "in holding councils at
the Palais-Royal, and in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, on the ends of
the bridges, and on the quays... in pulling off the cockades of but one
color.... These are torn off and trampled under foot with threats
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