yhow, there is nothing
to prevent seventy or eighty subordinate intriguers and desperadoes, who
have slipped in or pushed through, from calling themselves authorized
delegates and ministers plenipotentiary of the entire Paris
population,[2672] and to operate accordingly.--Scarcely are they
installed under the presidency of Huguenin, with Tallien as secretary,
when they issue a summons for "twenty-five armed men from each section,"
five hundred strapping lads, to act as guards and serve as an executive
force.--Against a band of this description the municipal council, in
session in the opposite chamber, is feeble enough. Moreover, the most
moderate and firmest of its members, sent away on purpose, are on
missions to the Assembly, at the palace, and in different quarters of
Paris, while its galleries are crammed with villainous looking men,
posted there to create an uproar, its deliberations being carried
on under menaces of death.--That's why, as the night passes, the
equilibrium between the two assemblages, one legal the other illegal,
facing each other like the two sides of a scale, disappears. Lassitude,
fear, discouragement, desertion, increase on one side, while numbers,
audacity, force and usurpation increase on the other. At length,
the latter wrests from the former all the acts it needs to start the
insurrection and render defense impossible. About six o'clock in the
morning the intruding committee, in the name of the people, ends the
matter by suspending the legitimate council, which it then expels, and
takes possession of its chairs.

The first act of the new sovereign rulers indicates at once what they
mean to do. M. de Mandat, in command of the National guard, summoned to
the Hotel-de-ville, had come to explain to the council what disposition
he had made of his troops, and what orders he had issued. They seize
him, interrogate him in their turn,[2673] depose him, appoint Santerre
in his place, and, to derive all the benefit they can from his capture,
they order him to withdraw one-half of his men stationed around the
palace. Fully aware of what he was exposed to in this den of thieves, he
nobly refuses; forthwith they consign him to prison, and send him to
the Abbaye "for his greater safety." At these significant words from
Danton,[2674] he is murdered at the door as he leaves by Rossignol, one
of Danton's acolytes, with a pistol-shot at arm's length.--After tragedy
comes comedy. At the repeated entreaties of