ble movements.

The Council of the Commune on the morning of the 17th placarded a
proclamation that it had prepared according to the orders of the
National Assembly. Some municipal officers went about preceded by a
trumpeter, to read it in various public squares. Around the Hotel de
Ville, the military arrangements, commanded by La Fayette, led to the
expectation of a sanguinary conflict. All at once, on the opening of the
sitting of the National Assembly, a report was circulated that two good
citizens having dared to tell the people collected around their
country's altar, that they must obey the law, had been put to death, and
that their heads, stuck upon pikes, were carried through the streets.
The news of this attack excited the indignation of all the deputies, and
under this impression, Alexander Lameth, then President of the Assembly,
of his own accord transmitted to Bailly very severe new orders, a
circumstance which, though only said _en passant_, has been but recently
known.

The municipal body, as soon as it was informed, about eleven o'clock, of
the two assassinations, deputed three of its members, furnished with
full powers, to reestablish order. Strong detachments accompanied the
municipal officers. About two o'clock it was reported that stones had
been thrown at the National Guard. The Municipal Council instantly had
martial law proclaimed on the Place de Greve, and the red flag suspended
from the principal window of the Hotel de Ville. At half-past five
o'clock, just when the municipal body was about to start for the Champ
de Mars, the three councillors, who had been sent in the morning to the
scene of disorder, returned, accompanied by a deputation of twelve
persons, taken from among the petitioners. The explanations given on
various sides occasioned a new deliberation of the Council. The first
decision was maintained, and at six o'clock the municipality began its
march with the red flag, three pieces of cannon, and numerous
detachments of the National Guard.

Bailly, as chief of the municipality, found himself at this time in one
of those solemn and perilous situations, in which a man becomes
responsible in the eyes of a whole nation, in the eyes of posterity, for
the inconsiderate or even culpable actions of the passionate multitude
that surrounds him, but which he scarcely knows, and over which he has
little or no influence.

The National Guard, in that early epoch of the revolution, was very
trou