a Representative of the People!"

Denis had, in fact, suddenly assumed his brother Gaston's sash.

What he had premeditated was about to be accomplished; the hour of the
heroic falsehood had arrived. He cried out,--

"Soldiers, do you know what the man is who is speaking to you at this
moment? He is not only a citizen, he is a Legislator! He is a
Representative chosen by Universal Suffrage! My name is Dussoubs, and I
am a Representative of the People. It is in the name of the National
Assembly, it is in the name of the Sovereign Assembly, it is in the name
of the People, and in the name of the Law, that I summon you to hear me.
Soldiers, you are the armed force. Well, then, when the Law speaks, the
armed force listens."

This time the silence was not broken.

We reproduce these words almost literally; such as they are, and such as
they have remained graven on the memory of those who heard them; but
what we cannot reproduce, and what should be added to these words, in
order to realize the effect, is the attitude, the accent, the thrill of
emotion, the vibration of the words issuing from this noble breast, the
intense impression produced by the terrible hour and place.

Denis Dussoubs continued: "He spoke for some twenty minutes," an
eye-witness has told me. Another has said, "He spoke with a loud voice;
the whole street heard him." He was vehement, eloquent, earnest; a judge
for Bonaparte, a friend for the soldiers. He sought to rouse them by
everything which could still vibrate in them; he recalled to them their
true wars, their true victories, the national glory, the ancient
military honor, the flag. He told them that all this was about to be
slain by the bullets from their guns. He adjured them, he ordered them
to join themselves to the People and to the Law; and then suddenly
coming back to the first words which he had pronounced, carried away by
that fraternity with which his soul overflowed, he interrupted himself
in the middle of a half-completed sentence, and cried out:--

"But to what purpose are all these words? It is not all this that is
wanted, it is a shake of the hand between brothers! Soldiers, you are
there opposite us, at a hundred paces from us, in a barricade, with the
sword drawn, with guns pointed; you are aiming directly at me; well
then, all of us who are here love you! There is not one of us who would
not give his life for one of you. You are the peasants of the fields of
France; we are the