ns in Paris, most of them pikemen, badly led by
improvised or rebellious battalion officers,[2679] and, still worse,
commanded by their new general, Santerre, who, always cautious, kept
himself aloof in the Hotel-de-ville, out of harm's way. The only
staunch men in the Carrousel were the eight hundred men from Brest and
Marseilles; the rest consisted of a rabble like that of July 14, October
5, and June 20;[2680] the palace, says Napoleon Bonaparte, was attacked
by the vilest canaille, professional rioters, Maillard's band, and the
bands of Lazowski, Fournier, and Theroigne, by all the assassins, indeed
of the previous night and day, and of the following day, which species
of combatants, as was proved by the event, would have scattered at
the first discharge of a cannon.--But, with the governing as with the
governed, all notion of the State was lost, the former through humanity
become a duty, and the latter through insubordination erected into a
right. At the close of the eighteenth century, in the upper as well as
in the middle class, there was a horror of blood;[2681] refined social
ways, coupled with an idyllic imagination, had softened the militant
disposition. Everywhere the magistrates had forgotten that the
maintenance of society and of civilization is a benefit of infinitely
greater importance than the lives of a parcel of maniacs and
malefactors; that the prime object of government, as well as of a
police, is the preservation of order by force; that a gendarme is not
a philanthropist; that, if attacked on his post, he must use his sword,
and that, in sheathing it for fear of wounding his aggressors, he fails
to do his duty.

This time again, in the court of the Carrousel, the magistrates on the
spot, finding that "their responsibility is insupportable," concern
themselves only with how to "avoid the effusion of blood;" it is with
regret, and this they state to the troops, "in faltering tones," that
they proclaim martial law.[2682] They "forbid them to attack," merely
"authorizing them to repel force with force;" in other words, they order
them to stand up to the first fire; "you are not to fire until you are
fired upon."--Still better, they go from company to company, "openly
declaring that opposition to such a large and well-armed assemblage
would be folly, and that it would be a very great misfortune to attempt
it."--"I repeat to you," said Leroux, "that a defense seems to me
madness."--Such is the way in whi