it of the
king was taken from the bed-chamber and hung up at the gate of the
chateau, as an article of furniture for sale. A fruit woman took
possession of the queen's bed, to sell her cherries in, saying, "It is
to-day the nation's turn to take their ease."

A cap of the queen's was placed on the head of a young girl, but she
exclaimed it would sully her forehead, and trampled it under foot with
indignation and contempt. They entered the school-room of the young
dauphin--there the people were touched, and respected the books, the
maps, the toys of the baby king. The streets and public squares were
crowded with people; the national guards assembled; the drums beat to
arms; the alarm-gun thundered every minute. Men armed with pikes, and
wearing the _bonnet rouge_, reappeared, and eclipsed the uniforms.
Santerre, the brewer and agitator of the faubourgs, alone led a band of
2000 pikes. The people's indignation began to prevail over their terror,
and showed itself in satirical outcries and injurious actions against
royalty. On the Place de la Greve, the bust of Louis XVI., placed
beneath the fatal lantern, that had been the instrument of the first
crimes of the Revolution, was mutilated. "When," exclaimed the
demagogues, "will the people execute justice for themselves upon all
these kings of bronze and marble--shameful monuments of their slavery
and their idolatry?" The statues of the king were torn from the shops;
some broke them into pieces, others merely tied a bandage over the eyes,
to signify the blindness attributed to the king. The names of king,
queen, Bourbon, were effaced from all the signs. The Palais Royal lost
its name, and was now called Palais d'Orleans. The clubs, hastily
convoked, rang with the most frantic motions; that of the Cordeliers
decreed that the National Assembly had devoted France to slavery, by
declaring the crown hereditary; they demanded that the name of the king
should be for ever abolished, and that the kingdom should be constituted
into a republic. Danton gave it its audacity, and Marat its madness.

The most singular reports were in circulation, and contradicted each
other at every moment. According to one, the king had taken the road to
Metz, to another, the royal family had escaped by a drain. Camille
Desmoulins excited the people's mirth as the most insulting mark of
their contempt. The walls of the Tuileries were placarded with offers of
a small reward to any one who would bring back