shrill cries of 50,000 men, women, and children, who
filled the centre of the Champ-de-Mars, or crowded on the glacis. At the
moment when Bailly debouched between the glacis, the populace, who from
the top of the bank looked down on the mayor, the bayonets, and the
artillery, burst into threatening shouts and furious outcries against
the national guard. "_Down with the red flag! Shame to Bailly! Death to
La Fayette!_" The people in the Champ-de-Mars responded to these cries
with unanimous imprecations. Lumps of wet mud, the only arms at hand,
were cast at the national guard, and struck La Fayette's horse, the red
flag, and Bailly himself; and it is even said that several pistol shots
were fired from a distance; this however was by no means proved,--the
people had no intention of resisting, they wished only to intimidate.
Bailly summoned them to disperse legally, to which they replied by
shouts of derision; and he then, with the grave dignity of his office,
and the mute sorrow that formed part of his character, ordered them to
be dispersed by force. La Fayette first ordered the guard to fire in the
air; but the people, encouraged by this vain demonstration, formed into
line before the national guard, who then fired a discharge that killed
and wounded 600 persons, the republicans say 10,000. At the same moment
the ranks opened, the cavalry charged, and the artillerymen prepared to
open their fire; which, on this dense mass of people, would have taken
fearful effect. La Fayette, unable to restrain his soldiers by his
voice, placed himself before the cannon's mouth, and by this heroic act
saved the lives of thousands. In an instant the Champ-de-Mars was
cleared, and nought remained on it save the dead bodies of women,
children, trampled under foot, or flying before the cavalry; and a few
intrepid men on the steps of the altar of their country, who, amidst a
murderous fire and at the cannon's mouth, collected, in order to
preserve them, the sheets of the petition, as proofs of the wishes, or
bloody pledges of the future vengeance, of the people, and they only
retired when they had obtained them.

The columns of the national guard, and particularly the cavalry, pursued
the fugitives into the neighbouring fields, and made two hundred
prisoners. Not a man was killed on the side of the national guard; the
loss of the people is unknown. The one side diminished it, in order to
extenuate the odium of an execution without resistance