rues du Faubourg St. Antoine, and
covered the Place de la Bastille. There the tumult of the meeting of all
these tributaries of sedition for a moment stayed the progress of this
living torrent; but the impulse soon carried them on, and the columns
instinctively divided themselves, and plunged into the vast outlets and
main streets of Paris. Some took the line of the boulevards, others
marched along the quays to the Pont Neuf, there encountered the column
of the Place Maubert, and poured, in constantly increasing masses, on
the Palais Royal, and the gardens of the Tuileries.

Such were the plans ordered on the night of the 19th of June, to be
executed by the agitators in the different quartiers, and who separated
with a rallying word, which gave the movement of the morrow the
excitement and uncertainty of hope, and which, without commanding the
consummation of crime, yet authorised the last excesses, "_To make an
end of the Chateau_."

VIII.

Such was the meeting of Charenton, such were the unseen actors who were
to set in motion a million of citizens. Did Laclos and Sillery, who were
about to seek a throne for the Duc d'Orleans their master, in the
faubourgs, distribute his gold there? It has been asserted and believed,
but never proved, and yet their presence at this meeting is suspicious.
History has the right of suspecting without evidence, but never of
accusing without proof. The assassination of the king would give the
crown, the next day, to the Duc d'Orleans; Louis XVI. might be
assassinated by the weapon of some drunken man--he was not. This is the
only justification of the Orleans' faction. Some of these men were
disaffected, like Marat and Hebert; others, like Barbaroux, Sillery,
Laclos, and Carra, were impatient malcontents; and others, like
Santerre, were but citizens, whose love of liberty became fanaticism.
The conspirators concerted together, and disciplined and organised the
city. Individual and distorted passions kindled the mighty and virtuous
love of the people for the triumph of democracy. It is thus that in a
conflagration the most tainted substances oft light the fire; the
combustible matter is foul, but the flames pure; the flame of the
Revolution was liberty; the factious might dim, they could not stain,
its brightness.

Whilst the conspirators of Charenton distributed their _roles_ and
recruited their forces, the king trembled for his wife and children at
the Tuileries. "Who knows," said