Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 5.djvu/464

450 on the heads of the military, should they enter the city; dug deep trenches, and threw up barricades. All round the Hotel de Ville carriages were stopped, wagons intercepted, and travellers were waiting permission to proceed on their way. The powder seized on the Seine was brought to the Hotel de Ville; there it was distributed amid circumstances of the most imminent peril to the place and all in it. The abbé Lefebre d'Onnesson, a man of the highest courage, charged himself with the task of distributing the powder to the furious crowd.

During eight-and-forty hours he remained on an actual mine. The insensate claimants fought and struggled for the combustible material amid the light of lanterns and candles, and one drunken fellow sate and smoked on the open casks of powder!

Whilst these scenes were going on all around, and the city was menaced every moment by troops, by the raving multitude, and by whole squadrons of thieves and assassins, the electors were busily employed in organising a city-guard. But, previous to entering on this task, it was necessary to establish some sort of municipal authority more definite and valid than that of the electors at large. A requisition was then presented to the provost of trades (prévôt des marchands) to take the head. A number of electors were appointed his assistants. Thus was formed a municipality of sufficient powers. It was then determined that this militia, or guard, should consist of forty-eight thousand men furnished by the districts. They were to wear not the green, but the Parisian cockade, of red and blue. Every man found in arms, and wearing this cockade, without having been enrolled in this body by his district, was to be apprehended, disarmed, and punished. And thus arose the national guard of Paris.

During these proceedings, the national assembly was sitting at Versailles in the utmost agitation. On the morning of the 13th, Mounier had risen and censured the dismissal of the ministers, and had been zealously seconded by Lally-Tollendal, who had pronounced a splendid panegyric on Necker, and recommended an address to the king for his recall. M. de Virieu, a deputy of the noblesse, proposed to confirm by an oath the proceedings of the 17th of June; but Clermont-Tonnerre declared that unnecessary, as the assembly had sworn to establish a constitution, and, he exclaimed, "The constitution we will have, or we will perish!" In the midst of this discussion came the news of the rising of the people of Paris, on the morning of the 13th, and an address was immediately voted to the king, beseeching him to withdraw the foreign troops, and authorise the organisation of the civic guards. The duke de la Rochefoucauld said, the foreign troops in the hands of despotism were most perilous to the people, who were not in any one's hands. The address was sent, and the king returned a curt answer, that Paris was not in a condition to take care of itself. The assembly then assumed a higher tone, asserted that the present counsellors of the king would be responsible for all the calamities which might take place, and declared itself in permanent session, that is, that it would sit day and night till the crisis was