XV.

Immediately after this decree was voted, the doors, besieged by the multitude opened, and admitted thirty thousand petitioners.  During this long procession the band played the demagogical airs of the Carmagnole and the Ca Ira, those pas de charge of revolts.  Females, armed with sabres, brandished them at the tribunes, who loudly applauded, and danced before a table of stone, on which were engraved the rights of man, like the Israelites before the Ark.  The same flags and the same obscene inscriptions visible in the streets, disgraced the temple of the law.  The tattered garments, hanging from their lances, the guillotine, and the potence, with the effigy of the queen suspended from it, traversed the Assembly with impunity.  Some of the deputies applauded, others turned away their heads or hid their faces in their hands; some more courageous, forced the wretch who bore the coeur saignant, partly by entreaties, partly by threats, to retire with his emblem of assassination.  Part of the people regarded with a respectful eye the salle they profaned; others addressed the representatives as they passed, and seemed to exult in their degradation.  The rattling of the strange weapons of the crowd, the clatter of their nailed shoes and sabots on the pavement, the shrill shouts of the women, the voices of the children, the cries of Vive la nation, patriotic songs, and the sound of instruments, deafened the ear, whilst to the eye, these rags contrasted strangely with the marbles, the statues, and the decorations of the salle.  The miasmas of this horde set in motion tainted the air, and stifled respiration.  Three hours elapsed ere all the troop had defiled.  The president hastened to adjourn the sitting, in the expectation of approaching excesses.

XVI.

But an imposing force was drawn up in the courts of the Tuileries and the garden, to defend the dwelling of the king against the invasion of the people.  Three regiments of the line, two squadrons of gendarmes, several battalions of the national guard, and several pieces of cannon, composed the means of resistance; but the troops, undecided, and acted upon by sedition, were but an appearance of force.  The cries of Vive la nation, the friendly gestures of the insurgents, the appearance of the women extending their arms towards the soldiers through the palisades, and the presence of the municipal officers, who displayed a disdainful neutrality towards the king, shook the feeling of resistance amongst the troops, who beheld on either side the uniform of the national guard; and between the population of Paris, in whose sentiments they participated, and the chateau, which was represented to them as full of treason, they no longer knew which it was their duty to obey.  In vain did M. Roederer, a firm organ of the constitution, and the superior officers of the national guard, such as MM.  Acloque and De Romainvilliers, present the text of the law, ordering them to repel force by force.  The Assembly set the example of complicity; and the mayor, Petion, by his absence avoided responsibility.  The king took refuge in his inviolability; and the troops, abandoned to themselves, could not fail to yield to threats or seduction.