ecutive power. Such
is the defile with two issues in which they have placed the Assembly and
the King. If the King balks at leaving by the first door, the Assembly,
equally nonplused, will leave through the second; in either case, as the
all-powerful ministers of the submissive King or as executive delegates
of the submissive Assembly, the Girondists will become the masters of
France.

II.--Pressure on the King.

Petion and Manual brought to the Hotel-de-ville.--The
Ministry obliged to resign.--Jacobin agitation against the
King.--Pressure on the Assembly.--Petition of the Paris
Commune.--Threats of the petitioners and of the galleries.
--Session of August 8th.--Girondist strategy foiled in two
ways.

With this in mind they begin by attacking the King, and try to make
him yield through fear.--They remove the suspension pronounced against
Petion and Manuel, and restore them both to their places in the
Hotel-de-ville. They will from now on rule Paris without restriction or
supervision; for the Directory of the department has resigned, and no
superior authority exists to prevent them from calling upon or giving
orders as they please to the armed forces; they are exempt from all
subordination, as well as from all control. Behold the King of France
in good hands, in those of the men who, on the 20th of June, refused to
nuzzle the popular brute, declaring that it had done well, that it had
right on its side, and that it may begin again. According to them, the
palace of the monarch belongs to the public; people may enter it as they
would a coffee-house; in any event, as the municipality is occupied
with other matters, it cannot be expected to keep people out. "Is
there nothing else to guard in Paris but the Tuileries and the
King?"[2612]--Another maneuver consists in rendering the King's
instruments powerless. Honorable and inoffensive as the new ministers
may be, they never appear in the Assembly without being hooted at in
the tribunes. Isnard, pointing with his finger to the principal one,
exclaims: "That is a traitor!"[2613] Every popular outburst is imputed
to them as a crime, while Guadet declares that, "as royal counselors,
they are answerable for any disturbances" that the double veto might
produce.[2614] Not only does the faction declare them guilty of the
violence provoked by itself, but, again, it demands their lives for
the murders which it commits. "France must know," says Ve