them. Petion himself
visits Robespierre on the 7th of August, in order to represent to him
the perils of an insurrection, and to allow the Assembly time enough to
discuss the question of dethronement. The same day Verginaud and
Guadet propose to the King, through the medium of Thierry, his
valet-de-chambre, that, until peace is assured, the government be
carried on under a regency. Petion, on the night of August 9-10,
issues a pressing circular to the sections, urging them to remain
tranquil.[2645]

But it is too late. Fifty days of excitement and alarm have worked up
the aberrations of morbid imaginations into a delirium.--On the second
of August, a crowd of men and women rush to the bar of the
Assembly, exclaiming, "Vengeance! Vengeance! our brethren are being
poisoned!"[2646] The fact as ascertained is this: at Soissons, where the
bread of the soldiery was prepared in a church, some fragments of broken
glass were found in the oven, on the strength of which a rumor was
started that 170 volunteers had died, and that 700 were lying in the
hospital. A ferocious instinct makes men see their adversaries in
their own image and thus justify them to take those measures which
they imagine their enemies would have taken in their place.[2647]--The
committee of Jacobin leaders states positively that the Court is about
to attack, and, accordingly, has devised "not merely signs of this,
but of the most unmistakable proof."[2648]--"It is the Trojan horse,"
exclaimed Panis; "We are lost if we do not succeed in disemboweling
it.... The bomb explodes on the night of August 9-10... Fifteen
thousand aristocrats stand ready to slaughter all patriots."
Patriots, consequently, attribute to themselves the right to slaughter
aristocrats.--Late in June, in the Minimes section, "a French guardsman
had already determined to kill the King," if the King persisted in his
veto. When the president of the section wanted to expulse the regicide,
it was the latter who was retained and the president was expelled.[2649]
On the 14th of July, the day of the Federation festival, another
predecessor of Louvel and Fieschi, provided with a cutlass, had
introduced himself into the battalion on duty at the palace, for the
same purpose; during the ceremony the crowd warmed up, and, for a
moment, the King owed his life to the firmness of his escort. On the
27th of July, in the garden of the Tuileries, d'Espremenil, the old
Constituent[2650], beaten, slashed, and