s placing themselves at the disposal of the
Crown, and depriving themselves of the aid of the people.

Paris was in a state of extreme agitation. This immense city was
unanimous in its devotedness to the Assembly. A capital is at all times,
and Paris was then more particularly, the natural focus of a revolution.
To this many causes contribute. The actual presence of the monarch
dissipates the illusions of royalty; and he is no longer, as in the
distant province or petty village, an abstraction of power and majesty,
another name for all that is great and exalted, but a common mortal, one
man among a million of men, perhaps one of the meanest of his race.
Pageants and spectacles may impose on the crowd; but a weak or haughty
look undoes the effect, and leads to disadvantageous reflections on the
title to or the good resulting from all this display of pomp and
magnificence. From being the seat of the court, its vices are better
known, its meannesses are more talked of.[34] In the number and
distraction of passing objects and interests, the present occupies the
mind alone--the chain of antiquity is broken, and custom loses its
force. Men become "flies of a summer." Opinion has here many ears, many
tongues, and many hands to work with. The slightest whisper is rumored
abroad, and the roar of the multitude breaks down the prison or the
palace gates. They are seldom brought to act together but in extreme
cases; nor is it extraordinary that, in such cases, the conduct of the
people is violent, from the consciousness of transient power, its
impatience of opposition, its unwieldy bulk and loose texture, which
cannot be kept within nice bounds or stop at half-measure.

Nothing could be more critical or striking than the situation of Paris
at this moment. Everything betokened some great and decisive change.
Foreign bayonets threatened the inhabitants from without, famine within.
The capitalists dreaded a bankruptcy; the enlightened and patriotic the
return of absolute power; the common people threw all the blame on the
privileged classes. The press inflamed the public mind with innumerable
pamphlets and invectives against the government, and the journals
regularly reported the proceedings and debates of the Assembly.
Everywhere in the open air, particularly in the Palais-Royal, groups
were formed, where they read and harangued by turns. It was in
consequence of a proposal made by one of the speakers in the
Palais-Royal that the pr