rrection took place which
overturned the throne. The Hotel de Ville was seized by the
insurgents, the Tuileries was stormed, and the Swiss guards were
massacred. The last chance for the king to regain his power was lost,
and Paris was in the hands of an infuriated mob.

The confinement of the king in the Temple, the departure of the
foreign ambassadors, the flight of emigrants, the confiscation of
their estates, the massacres in the prisons, the sack of palaces, the
fall and flight of La Fayette, and the dissolution of the Legislative
Assembly, rapidly succeeded.

[Sidenote: The National Convention.]

On the 21st of September, the National Convention was opened, and was
composed of the most violent advocates of revolution. It was ruled by
those popular orators who had the greatest influence in the clubs. The
most influential of these leaders were Danton, Marat, and Robespierre.
Danton was the hero of the late insurrection; was a lawyer, a man of
brutal courage, the slave of sensual passions, and the idol of the
Parisian mob. He was made minister of justice, and was the author of
the subsequent massacres in the prisons. But, with all his ferocity,
he was lenient to individuals, and recommended humanity after the
period of danger had passed.

[Sidenote: Marat--Danton--Robespierre.]

Marat was a journalist, president of the Jacobin Club, a member of the
convention, and a violent advocate of revolutionary excesses. His
bloody career was prematurely cut off by the hand of a heroine,
Charlotte Corday, who offered up her own life to rid the country of
the greatest monster which the annals of crime have consigned to an
infamous immortality.

Robespierre was a sentimentalist, and concealed, under the mask of
patriotism and philanthropy, an insatiable ambition, inordinate
vanity, and implacable revenge. He was above the passion of money,
and, when he had at his disposal the lives and fortunes of his
countrymen, lived upon a few francs a day. It is the fashion to deny
to him any extraordinary talent; but that he was a man of domineering
will, of invincible courage, and austere enthusiasm appears from
nearly all the actions of his hateful career.

It was in the midst of the awful massacre in the prisons, where more
than five thousand perished to appease the infatuated vengeance of the
Parisian mob, that the National Convention commenced its sittings.

Its first measure was, to abolish the monarchy, and proclaim a
republi