it the insurrection evolved a political head and a military
leader, Bailly and La Fayette.

Bailly was proposed and acclaimed as Mayor of Paris. This office was
new, and therefore revolutionary, but as the provost of the merchants
had clearly gone for all time, it was necessary to find something to
replace him, and what could be better than this? The new mayor had as
qualifications for his office two facts only: he was the senior deputy
of the city to the National Assembly; he possessed an unquenchable
supply of civic and complimentary eloquence. Behind this figurehead
the sections soon built up a new municipality or town council made up
of delegates from the sections, and that varied in numbers at different
times.

Paris also required a military leader, and for that post the name of
the Marquis de La Fayette was acclaimed. La Fayette is a {72}
personage easy to praise or to blame, but not to estimate justly. At
this moment he enjoyed all the prestige of his brilliant connection
with the cause of American independence ten years before, and of his
constancy to the idea of liberty. His enemies, and they were many in
Court circles, could detect easily enough the vanity that entered into
his composition, but neither they nor his friends could recognise or
appreciate in him that truest liberalism of all which is toleration.
La Fayette had already learned the lesson it took France a century to
learn, that liberty implies freedom of opinion for others, and that
reasonable compromise is the true basis of constructive politics. When
later he appeared to swerve, or to contradict himself, it was often
enough merely because he felt the scruples of a true devotee of
liberty, against imposing a policy. For the moment he had become a
popular idol, the generous, brave, high-minded young knight, champion
of the popular cause. He was to command the civic guards of the city
of Paris, 40,000 armed citizens, the national guards as they became
owing to the rest of France following the example of Paris. His first
act was to give them a cockade, by adding the King's white to the
city's red and blue, thus forming {73} the same tricolour that he had
already fought under in another struggle for liberty ten years before.

The King's withdrawal of the troops implied a policy of conciliation,
and he was therefore unable to resist the demand that he should
demonstrate his acceptance of the events of Paris by a formal visit to
the city.