ugust necessary? Did not the
departments then endorse what Paris did? They will do so this time. It
is Paris which saved them."[34141]

Consequently, the new government places Henriot, a reliable man, and one
of the September slaughterers, in full command of the armed force; then,
through a violation by law declared as a capital offense, it orders the
alarm gun to be fired; then, on the other hand, it beats a general call
to arms, sounds the tocsin and closes the barriers; the post office
managers are put in arrest, and letters are intercepted and opened;
the order is given to disarm the suspected and hand their arms over to
patriots; "forty sous a day are allowed to citizens with small means
while under arms."[34142] Notice is given without fail the preceding
evening to the trusty men of the quarter; accordingly, early in the
morning, the Committee of Supervision has already selected from the
Jacobin sections "the most needy companies in order to arm those
the most worthy of combating for liberty," while all its guns are
distributed "to the good republican workmen." [34143]--From hour to hour
as the day advances, we see in the refractory sections all authority
passing over to the side of force; at the Finistere, Butte-des-Moulins,
Lombards, Fraternite, and Marais[34144] sections, the encouraged
sans-culottes obtain the ascendancy, nullify the deliberations of the
moderates, and, in the afternoon, their delegates go and take the oath
at the Hotel-de-ville.

Meanwhile the Commune, dragging behind it the semblance of popular
unanimity, besieges the Convention with multiplied and threatening
petitions. As on the 27th of May, the petitioners invade the hall, and
"mix in fraternally with the members of the 'Left."' Forthwith, on the
motion of Levasseur, the "Mountain," "confident of its place being well
guarded," leaves it and passes over to the "Right."[34145] Invaded in
its turn, the "Right" refuses to join in the deliberations; Vergniaud
demands that "the Assembly join the armed force on the square, and put
itself under its protection"; he and his friends leave the hall, and the
decapitated majority falls back upon its usual hesitating course. All is
hubbub and uproar around it. In the hall the clamors of the "Mountain,"
the petitioners, and the galleries, seem like the constant roar of a
tempest. Outside, twenty or thirty thousand men will probably clash in
the streets;[34146] the battalion of Butte-des-Moulins, with de