The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

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 prison of the Abbaye was forced open and some grenadiers of the French Guards, who had been confined for refusing to fire upon the people, were set at liberty and led out in triumph.

Paris was in this state of excitement and apprehension when the Court, having first stationed a number of troops at Versailles, at Sèvres, at the Champ-de-Mars, and at St. Denis, commenced offensive measures by the complete change of all the ministers and by the banishment of Necker. The latter, on Saturday, July 11th, while he was at dinner, received a note from the King, enjoining him to quit the kingdom without a moment's delay. He calmly finished his dinner, without saying a word of the order he had received, and immediately after got into his carriage with his wife and took the road to Brussels. The next morning the news of his disgrace reached Paris. The whole city was in a tumult: above ten thousand persons were, in a short time, collected in the garden of the Palais-Royal. A young man of the name of Camille Desmoulins, one of the habitual and most enthusiastic haranguers of the crowd, mounted on a table and cried out that "there was not a moment to lose; that the dismission of Necker was the signal for the St. Bartholomew of liberty; that the Swiss and German regiments would presently issue from the Champ-de-Mars to massacre the citizens; and that they had but one resource left, which was to resort to arms." And the crowd, tearing each a green leaf, the color of hope, from the chestnut-trees in the garden, which were nearly laid bare, and wearing it as a badge, traversed the streets of Paris, with the busts of Necker and of the Duke of Orléans, who was also said to be arrested, covered with crape and borne in solemn pomp.

They had proceeded in this manner as far as the Place Vendôme, when they were met by a party of the Royal Allemand, whom they put to flight by pelting them with stones; but at the Place Louis XV they were assailed by the dragoons of the Prince of Lambesc; the bearer of one of the busts and a private of the French Guards were killed; the mob fled into the Garden of the Tuileries, whither the Prince followed them at the head of his dragoons, and attacked a number of persons who knew nothing of what was passing, and were walking quietly in the gardens. In the scuffle, an old man was wounded; the confusion as well as the resentment of the people became general; and there was but one cry, "To arms!" to be heard throughout the Tuileries, the Palais-Royal, in the city, and the suburbs.

The French Guards had been ordered to their quarters in the Chaussée-d'Antin, where sixty of Lambesc's dragoons were posted opposite to watch them. A dispute arose, and it was with much difficulty they were prevented from coming to blows. But when the former learned that one of their comrades had been slain, their indignation could no longer be restrained; they rushed out, killed two of the foreign soldiers, wounded three others, and the rest were forced to fly. They then proceeded to the Place Louis XV, where they stationed themselves between the people and the troops, and guarded this position the whole of the night. The soldiers in the Champ-de-Mars were then ordered to attack them, but refused to fire, and were remanded back to their quarters.

The defection of the French Guards, with the repugnance of the other troops to march against the capital, put a stop for the present to the projects of the Court. In the mean time the populace had assembled at the Hôtel de Ville, and loudly demanded the sounding of the tocsin and the arming of the citizens. Several highly respectable individuals also met here, and did much good in repressing a spirit of violence and mischief. They could not, however, effect everything. A number of disorderly people and of workmen out of employ, without food or place of abode, set fire to the barriers, infested the streets, and pillaged several houses in the night between the 12th and 13th.