soon after the worm of a wimble shot up from
the planked floor on which he was standing. The youth went and sought
the guard, who raised the plank, and found beneath the altar two
ill-looking individuals, lying down, and furnished with provisions. One
of these men was an invalid with a wooden leg. The guard seized them,
and took them to the Gros Caillou, to the section, to the Commissary of
Police. On the way, the barrel of water with which these unfortunate men
had provided themselves under the altar of their country, was
transformed, according to the ordinary course of things, into a barrel
of gunpowder. The inhabitants of that quarter of the town collected
together; it was on a Sunday. The women especially showed themselves
very much irritated when the purpose of the auger-holes was told them,
as declared by the invalid. When the two prisoners came out of the hall
to be conducted to the Hotel de Ville, the crowd tore them from the
guard, massacred them, and paraded their heads on pikes!

It cannot be too often repeated, that these hideous assassinations,
this execution of two old vagabonds by the barbarous and blinded
population of the Gros Caillou, evidently had no relation to, no
connection with, the events which, in the evening, carried mourning into
the Champ de la Federation.

On the evening of the 17th of July, from five to seven o'clock, had the
crowd which was collected around the altar of their country an aspect of
turbulence, giving reason to fear a riot, sedition, violence, or any
anarchical enterprise?

Relative to this point, we have the written declaration of three
councillors, whom the municipality had sent in the morning to the Gros
Caillou, on the first intimation of the two assassinations of which I
have just spoken. This declaration was presented to Bailly on the day of
his condemnation. We read therein, "that the assembled citizens on the
Champ de Mars had in no way acted contrary to law; that they only asked
for time to sign their petition before they retired; that the crowd had
shown all possible respect to the commissaries, and given proofs of
submission to the law and its agents." The Municipal Councillors, on
their return to the Hotel de Ville, accompanied by a deputation of
twelve of the petitioners, protested strongly against the proclamation
of martial law; they declared that if the red flag was unfurled, they
would be regarded, and with some appearance of reason, as traitors and
faithl