the square, and hung
to the lamp post. The cord breaks twice, and twice he falls upon the
pavement. Re-hung with a fresh cord and then cut down, his head is
severed from his body and placed on the end of a pike.[1254] Meanwhile,
Berthier, sent away from Compiegne by the municipality, afraid to
keep him in his prison where he was constantly menaced, arrives in a
cabriolet under escort. The people carry placards around him filled with
opprobrious epithets; in changing horses they threw hard black bread
into the carriage, exclaiming, "There, wretch, see the bread you made us
eat!" On reaching the church of Saint-Merry, a fearful storm of insults
burst forth against him. He is called a monopolist, "although he had
never bought or sold a grain of wheat." In the eyes of the multitude,
who has to explain the evil as caused by some evil-doer, he is the
author of the famine. Conducted to the Abbaye, his escort is dispersed
and he is pushed over to the lamp post. Then, seeing that all is lost,
he snatches a gun from one of his murderers and bravely defends himself.
A soldier of the "Royal Croats" gives him a cut with his saber across
the stomach, and another tears out his heart. As the cook, who had cut
off the head of M. de Launay, happens to be on the spot, they hand him
the heart to carry while the soldiers take the head, and both go to
the Hotel-de-Ville to show their trophies to M. de Lafayette. On their
return to the Palais-Royal, and while they are seated at table in a
tavern, the people demand these two remains. They throw them out of the
window and finish their supper, whilst the heart is marched about below
in a bouquet of white carnations.--Such are the spectacles which this
garden presents where, a year before, "good society in full dress" came
on leaving the Opera to chat, often until two o'clock in the morning,
under the mild light of the moon, listening now to the violin of
Saint-Georges, and now to the charming voice of Garat.

VIII.--Paris in the hands of the people.

Henceforth it is clear that no one is safe: neither the new militia nor
the new authorities suffice to enforce respect for the law. "They did
not dare," says Bailly,[1255] "oppose the people who, eight days before
this, had taken the Bastille."--In vain, after the last two murders, do
Bailly and Lafayette indignantly threaten to withdraw; they are forced
to remain; their protection, such as it is, is all that is left, and, if
the National Gu