us deputations from Paris and the
neighbouring departments came successively to the bar to assure the
Assembly that it would ever be considered as the rallying point by all
good citizens.

The same evening the clubs of the Cordeliers and the Jacobins caused the
motions for the king's dethronement to be placarded about. The club of
the Cordeliers declared in one of its placards that every citizen who
belonged to it had sworn individually to poignard the tyrants. Marat,
one of its members, published and distributed in Paris an incendiary
proclamation. "People," said he, "behold the loyalty, the honour, the
religion of kings. Remember Henry III. and the duke de Guise: at the
same table as his enemy did Henry receive the sacrament, and swear on
the same altar eternal friendship; scarcely had he quitted the temple
than he distributed poignards to his followers, summoned the duke to his
cabinet, and there beheld him fall pierced with wounds. Trust then to
the oaths of princes! On the morning of the 19th, Louis XVI. laughed at
his oath, and enjoyed beforehand the alarm his flight would cause you.
The Austrian woman has seduced La Fayette last night. Louis XVI.,
disguised in a priest's robe, fled with the dauphin, his wife, his
brother, and all the family. He now laughs at the folly of the
Parisians, and ere long he will swim in their blood. Citizens, this
escape has been long prepared by the traitors of the National Assembly.
You are on the brink of ruin; hasten to provide for your safety.
Instantly choose a dictator; let your choice fall on the citizen who has
up to the present displayed most zeal, activity, and intelligence; and
do all he bids you do to strike at your foes; this is the time to lop
off the heads of Bailly, La Fayette, all the scoundrels of the staff,
all the traitors of the Assembly. A tribune, a military tribune, or you
are lost without hope. At present I have done all that was in the power
of man to save you. If you neglect this last piece of advice, I have no
more to say to you, and take my farewell of you for ever. Louis XVI., at
the head of his satellites, will besiege you in Paris, and the friend of
the people will have a burning pile (_four ardent_) for his tomb, but
his last sigh shall be for his country, for liberty, and for you."

XVIII.

The members of the constitutional party felt it their duty to attend the
sitting of the Jacobins on the 22d, in order to moderate its ardour.
Barnave, Sieyes,