ays a contemporary eye-witness, smiling
and satisfied, and said no more about raising an anti-popular army, but
that afternoon left London with their families for their country seats or
elsewhere.

"The next morning the Government proclaimed a state of siege in London,--a
thing common enough amongst the absolutist governments on the Continent,
but unheard-of in England in those days. They appointed the youngest and
cleverest of their generals to command the proclaimed district; a man who
had won a certain sort of reputation in the disgraceful wars in which the
country had been long engaged from time to time. The newspapers were in
ecstacies, and all the most fervent of the reactionaries now came to the
front; men who in ordinary times were forced to keep their opinions to
themselves or their immediate circle, but who began to look forward to
crushing once for all the Socialist, and even democratic tendencies,
which, said they, had been treated with such foolish indulgence for the
last sixty years.

"But the clever general took no visible action; and yet only a few of the
minor newspapers abused him; thoughtful men gathered from this that a
plot was hatching. As for the Committee of Public Safety, whatever they
thought of their position, they had now gone too far to draw back; and
many of them, it seems, thought that the government would not act. They
went on quietly organising their food supply, which was a miserable
driblet when all is said; and also as a retort to the state of siege,
they armed as many men as they could in the quarter where they were
strongest, but did not attempt to drill or organise them, thinking,
perhaps, that they could not at the best turn them into trained soldiers
till they had some breathing space. The clever general, his soldiers,
and the police did not meddle with all this in the least in the world;
and things were quieter in London that week-end; though there were riots
in many places of the provinces, which were quelled by the authorities
without much trouble. The most serious of these were at Glasgow and
Bristol.

"Well, the Sunday of the meeting came, and great crowds came to Trafalgar
Square in procession, the greater part of the Committee amongst them,
surrounded by their band of men armed somehow or other. The streets were
quite peaceful and quiet, though there were many spectators to see the
procession pass. Trafalgar Square had no body of police in it; the
people took qu