his accusation—­“Mirabeau, who meditated a change of dynasty, appreciated the force of thy audacity, and laid hands upon it.  Thou didst startle him from the laws of stern principle; we heard nothing more of thee until the massacres of the Champ-de-Mars.  Thou didst support that false measure of the people, and the proposition of the law, which had no other object than to serve for a pretext for unfolding the red banner, and an attempt at tyranny.  The patriots, not initiated in this treachery, had opposed thy perfidious advice.  Thou wast named in conjunction with Brissot to draw up this petition.  You both escaped the prey of La Fayette, who caused the slaughter of ten thousand patriots.  Brissot remained calmly in Paris, and thou didst hasten to Arcis-sur-Aube, to pass some agreeable days.  Can one fancy thy tranquil joys—­thou being one of the drawers up of this petition, whilst those who signed the document were loaded with irons, or weltering in their blood?  You were then—­thou and Brissot—­objects for the gratitude of tyranny; because, assuredly, you could not be the objects of its detestation!”

Camille Desmoulins thus justifies the absence of Danton, himself, and Freron, by asserting that Danton had fled from proscription and assassination to the house of his father-in-law, at Fontenay, on the previous night, and was tracked thither by a band of La Fayette’s spies; and that Freron, whilst crossing the Pont Neuf, had been assailed, trampled under foot, and wounded by fourteen hired ruffians; whilst Camille himself, marked for the dagger, only escaped by a mistake in his description.  History has not put any faith in these pretended assassinations of La Fayette.

Camille, invisible all day, repaired in the evening to the Jacobins.

XIII.

In the mean while the crowd began to congregate in vast masses in the Champ-de-Mars—­agitated, but inoffensive—­the national guard, every battalion of whom La Fayette had ordered out, were under arms.  One of the detachments which had arrived that morning in the Champ-de-Mars, with a train of artillery, withdrew by the quays, in order that the appearance of an armed force might not irritate the people.  At twelve o’clock the crowd assembled round the “altar of the country” (autel de la patrie), not seeing the commissioners of the Jacobin club, who had promised to bring the petition to be signed, of their own accord chose four commissioners of their number to draw up one.  One of the commissioners took the pen, the citizens crowded round him, and he wrote as follows:—­

“On the altar of the country, July 13th, in the year III.  Representatives of the people, your labours are drawing to a close.  A great crime has been committed; Louis flies, and has unworthily abandoned his post—­the empire is on the verge of ruin—­he has been arrested, and has been brought back to Paris, where the people demand that he be tried.  You declare he shall be king.