"Death to the traitors!" the
assassins shouted. The clamor of the mob silenced the Girondists, and
they hardly made an attempt to speak in their defense. They sat upon
their benches, pale with the emotions which the fearful scenes
excited, yet firm and unwavering. As Couthon, a Jacobin orator, was
uttering deep denunciations, he became breathless with the vehemence
of his passionate speech. He turned to a waiter for a glass of water.
"Take to Couthon a glass of blood," said Vergniaud; "he is thirsting
for it."

The decree of accusation was proposed, and carried, without debate,
beneath the poniards of uncounted thousands of assassins. The mob was
triumphant. By acclamation it was then voted that all Paris should be
joyfully illuminated, in celebration of the triumph of the people over
those who would arrest the onward career of the Revolution; and every
citizen of Paris well knew the doom which awaited him if brilliant
lights were not burning at his windows. It was then voted, and with
enthusiasm, that the Convention should go out and fraternize with the
multitude. Who would have the temerity, in such an hour, to oppose the
affectionate demonstration? The degraded Assembly obeyed the mandate
of the mob, and marched into the streets, where they were hugged in
the unclean arms and pressed to the foul bosoms of beggary, and
infamy, and pollution. Louis was avenged. The hours of the day had now
passed; night had come; but it was noonday light in the
brilliantly-illuminated streets of the metropolis. The Convention,
surrounded by torch-bearers, and an innumerable concourse of drunken
men and women, rioting in hideous orgies, traversed, in compulsory
procession, the principal streets of the city. The Girondists were led
as captives to grace the triumph. "Which do you prefer," said a
Jacobin to Vergniaud, "this ovation or the scaffold?" "It is all the
same to me," replied Vergniaud, with stoical indifference. "There is
no choice between this walk and the guillotine. It conducts us to it."
The twenty-two Girondists were arrested and committed to prison.

During this dreadful day, while these scenes were passing in the
Assembly, Madame Roland and her husband were in their solitary room,
oppressed with the most painful suspense. The cry and the uproar of
the insurgent city, the tolling of bells and thundering of cannon,
were borne upon the wailings of the gloomy storm, and sent
consternation even to the stoutest hearts. There