eak here
without obtaining their permission."[3428] The day that Buzot obtains
the floor to speak against Marat, "they break out furiously, yelling,
stamping, and threatening";[3429] every time that Buzot tries to begin
his voice is drowned in the clamor, while he remains half an hour in
the tribune without completing a sentence. On the calls of the House,
especially, their cries resemble those of the excited crowd at a Spanish
bull-fight, with their eager eyes and heaving breasts, watching the
contest between the bull and the picadores; every time that a deputy
votes against the death of the King or for an appeal to the people,
there are the "vociferations of cannibals," and "interminable yells"
every time that one votes for the indictment of Marat. "I declare," say
deputies in the tribune, "that I am not free here; I declare that I am
forced to debate under the knife."[3430] Charles Villette is told at
the entrance that "if he does not vote for the King's death he will
be massacred."--And these are not empty threats. On the 10th of March,
awaiting the promised riot, "the tribunes, duly advised,... had already
loaded their pistols."[3431] In the month of May, the tattered women
hired for the purpose, under the title of "Ladies of the Fraternity,"
formed a club, came daily early in the morning to mount guard, with arms
in their hands, in the corridors of the Convention; they tear up all
tickets given to men or women not of their band; they take possession
of all the seats, show pistols and daggers, and declare that "eighteen
hundred heads must be knocked off to make things go on right."

Behind these two first rows of assailants is a third, much more compact,
the more fearful because it is undefined and obscure, namely, the vague
multitude forming the anarchical set, scattered throughout Paris, and
always ready to renew the 10th of August and 2nd of September against
the obstinate majority. Incendiary motions and demands for riots come
incessantly from the Commune, and Jacobin, Cordeliers, and l'Eveche
clubs; from the assemblies of the sections and groups stationed at the
Tuileries and in the streets. "Yesterday," writes the president of the
Tuileries section,[3433] "at the same moment, at various points about
Paris, the Rue du Bac, at the Marais, in the Church of St. Eustache, at
the Palace of the Revolution, on the Feuillants terrace, scoundrels were
preaching pillage and assassination."--On the following day, again on