University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD and they decided to take matters into their own hands. The Sections, sitting at the Hotel de Ville, in chambers near the municipal government, resolved on seizing the supreme power. Their leaders, the in- surrectionary Directory, composed of Santerre, Lazouski, and other revolu- tionists, laid all the plans for the ris- ing of the tenth. Danton, one of the later leaders, was the military genius of the rising. Mandat, the commander of the Na- tional Guard, knew of this rising, and placed what few faithful troops he had, in position around the Tuilleries. The municipal government, on hearing of his dispositions, sent for him, and ask- ed him the reason of it, demanding that he remove the troops. He refus- ed, and was dismissed. As he was passing through the corridors of the Hotel de Ville, he was seized by the outposts of the Sections and dragged into their midst. Here he was disgrac- ed and his command given to San- terre. As he was leaving, a crowd of ruffians around the hotel mocked him, and ended by cruelly murdering him. Thus perished the only person on whom the King could rely for his preserva- tion. There appears an undercurrent of deceit in the conduct of Petion. He favored the insurrectionists, and at the same time tried to allay the fears of the King, regarding the Revolution. Santerre provided him with a guard to make it appear that he was not act- ing in his official capacity, and to make it seem that the Revolution was a true one. Danton, Santerre, and Camille Des- moulins assisted in the arrangements for the Tenth. At midnight the tocsin, or alarm-bell, was rung, and next morning Petion was made a prisoner at the Hotel de Ville, and then the mob proceeded to atack the Tuilleries. Meanwhile the insurrectionary Coun- cil of the Sections, demanded that the Council General of the municipality should resign. The Council General, greatly alarmed at the course events were taking, did so hurriedly. It must be remembered that the insurrection- ary Commune comprised only twenty- eight of the Sections of Paris. At the Tuilleries, the King was ad- vised to seek shelter in the hall of the Assembly. His Swiss Guards and twelve battalions of the National Guards were still on duty. When the crowd appeared, the National Guards refused to fire upon them, but the Swiss remained faithful. When the Assembly heard the firing, it immedi- ately demanded of the King that he should order them to retire. He did so, but many of the Swiss did not hear the order, being in the corridors and galleries of the palace. The National Guards took advantage of the order and escaped. The mob, enraged at the killing of some of their members, and finding all resistance gone, broke into the grounds and murdered every one that could be found, especially the

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THE REDWOOD The volunteers were murmuring in the camps that they would not leave for war, until they knew that the traitors behind them would not take advantage of their absence. The Mayor was not trying to suppress insurrection, but was actually encouraging it; and the National Guards, disgusted with their officers, did not take any steps to pre- vent it. Then came the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick, the instrument which finally sealed the fate of the King. This manifesto called upon the French people to be loyal to their King, and threatened all who rebelled, with the rigours of war. This tended to inflame the minds of the Parisian populace, and to create greater suspicion of the King ' s fidelity to his people. The Ja- cobin leaders, such as Marat, Robe- spierre, Danton, and Camille Desmou- lins, harangued the mobs and incited them to outbursts. These, with others, drawn from the battalion of the Fe- deres, formed an insurrectionary Direc- tory and were the chief instigators of the riots. From now on, the influence of the Jacobins can be clearly seen on the Commune. The Directory knew that many of the Sections of Paris were friendly to the deposition of the King ; they them- selves thought that there would be no end of strife unless the King was de- throned. Towards the end of July those Sections which favored dethrone- ment met at the Hotel de Ville under the sanction of Petion. There were at this time only forty- eight Sections still in existence out of the sixty original. Of these, twenty- eight were in favor of dethronement. Knowing that only a part of Paris ad- hered to the cause, the Jacobins saw the necessity of furthering some mea- sure calculated to give them stronger support. Each Section, that is, each of the original sixty, had a battalion of national guards. But when the Sec- tions were diminished, these battalions were not. This left many free battal- ions, the majority of which were in fa- vor of the bourgeois. The Jacobins, to further their ends, had a decree passed, that since France was at war, no discrimination was to be made as to who were eligible to en- ter the national guard. The bourgeois battalions refused to let the rabble join them, with the result, as the Jacobins had forseen, that they joined the bat- talions of the disturbed Sections, thus recruiting them to a stronger number than those of the bourgeois. On August 3 the first tremors of the coming storm were heard. Petion, at the head of the Sections proceeded to the Assembly with a petition demand- ing the overthrow of the King. The Assembly was divided. They hesitated. On the sixth, the Federes repeated the demand. But the Assembly resolved by vote not to arrest, nor bring to trial the King. When the Sections heard that their demands were refused, the smoldering embers burst into flame,

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10 THE REDWOOD Swiss Guards in the corridors, who continued faithful to their duty till the last. After completely destroying the beautiful furnishings of the pal- ace, the mob set fire to it, and glee- fully watched it burn, even preventing the firemen from extinguishing it or stopping its spread. While all these scenes of carnage and pillage were being enacted, a deputa- tion appeared from the self-elected municipality, or Commune, and order- ed that the Assembly should immedi- ately declare the dethronement of the King under threat of summary punish- ment if they refused to do so. It was proposed that the people should be called upon to elect a National Con- vention to draw up a new Constitution, and in the meantime, the King should be deprived of all his powers. A new ministry was inaugurated, and now we have the spectacle of an insurrectionary municipality, composed of barely more than one-half of the Sections of Paris, forcing its demands upon the Assem- bly of the nation, and sending out its decrees to all the people. The Commune, by its show of force, dominated the Assembly. Roland was restored to the ministry and Danton was elected as one of his associates. The Commune, or Common Council of Paris as it was now called, managed everything about the city in its own way. The Commune favored the Giron- dins heretofore, but now they had lost favor, and a bitter war sprang up be- tween the Commune and the Commit- tee of Twenty-one, composed mainly of Girondins and Peuillants. This Committee practically ruled the As - sembly, and it was now a fight between these two powers. (To be continued.)