mpose on
the ill-disposed, the petitioners provide themselves with arms and line
the approaches.[2532]--A popular procession is an attractive thing, and
there are so many workers who do not know what to do with their empty
day! And, again, it is so pleasant to appear in a patriotic opera while
many, and especially women and children, want very much to see
Monsieur and Madame Veto. The people from the surrounding suburbs are
invited,[2533] the homeless prowlers and beggars will certainly join the
party, while the numerous body of Parisian loafers, the loungers that
join every spectacle can be relied on, and the curious who, even in
our time, gather by hundreds along the quays, following a dog that has
chanced to tumble into the river. All this forms a body which, without
thinking, will follow its head.

At five o'clock in the morning on the 20th of June groups are already
formed in the faubourgs St. Antoine and St. Marcel, consisting of
National Guards, pikemen, gunners with their cannon, persons armed with
sabers or clubs, and women and children.--A notice, indeed, just posted
on the walls, prohibits any assemblage, and the municipal officers
appear in their scarves and command or entreat the crowd not to break
the law.[2534] But, in a working-class brain, ideas are as tenacious
as they are short-lived. People count on a civic procession and get up
early in the morning to attend to it; the cannon have been hitched up,
the maypole tree is put on wheels and all is ready for the ceremony,
everybody takes a holiday and none are disposed to return home. Besides,
they have only good intentions. They know the law as well as the city
officials; they are "armed solely to have it observed and respected."
Finally, other armed petitioners have already filed along before the
National Assembly, and, as one is as good as another, "the law being
equal for all," others must be admitted as well. In any event they, too,
will ask permission of the National Assembly and they go expressly.
This is the last and the best argument of all, and to prove to the city
officials that they have no desire to engage in a riot, they request
them to join the procession and march along with them.

Meanwhile, time passes. In a crowd irritated by delay, the most
impatient, the rudest, those most inclined to commit violence, always
lead the rest.--At the head-quarters of the Val-de-Grace[2535] the
pikemen seize the cannon and drag them along; the National Gu