ss were
mutilated in an atrocious fashion.

While the triumphant insurgents were sacking the palace and committing
their barbarities on the unfortunate Swiss, Louis and his family remained
unmolested in the assembly. They were to remain there for three days
while their fate was being decided, temporary accommodation being found
for them. The situation was really this, that no party was yet {147}
quite prepared for the destruction of the King himself, only of the royal
power. The assembly which, a year earlier, had assumed the position that
the King was necessary to the constitution had now virtually abandoned
it, and the Commune, while going much further than the assembly, was not
yet ready to strike Louis. But it did claim the custody of the royal
family, and that, after a three days' struggle, the assembly conceded.
On the 13th of August the royal family went to imprisonment in the
Temple, a small mediaeval dungeon in the central quarter of Paris.

Only about three hundred members of the assembly were present to face the
storm when Louis sought refuge in its midst. Vergniaud was president.
Presently the Commune sent a request that the assembly should depose the
King. Vergniaud thereupon proposed a middle course; the assembly could
suspend the King from his functions and call together a convention to
solve the constitutional question that the suspension of the Executive
presented; in the meanwhile ministers elected by the assembly should
constitute a provisional Executive Council. These proposals were
carried, and the Executive Council was elected; it contained most of the
members of the {148} Brissotin ministry, but with a new member. At the
head of the poll was Danton, and Danton was made Minister of Justice.

Danton now clearly appears as the man of the situation. The people had
triumphed, and Danton was the statesman of the people. He bridged the
gap between the Commune and the assembly. He gave rein to the popular
fury and to the destruction of every anti-popular influence, and he
attempted, by placing himself at the head of the flood, to direct it
against the great external danger that menaced France.

On the 11th of August the assembly decreed that universal suffrage should
be put in force for the elections to the convention. Large police powers
were voted to the Commune, which Robespierre now joined; and laws were
passed aimed against those suspected of being in sympathy with the
advancing army o