The Assembly must first of all be made to depose the King. Several times already,2655 on the 26th of July and August 4, clandestine meetings had been held where strangers decided the fate of France, and gave the signal for insurrection.—Restrained with great difficulty, they consented "to have patience until August 9, at 11 o'clock in the evening."2656 On that day the discussion of the dethronement is to take place in the Assembly, and calculations are made on a favorable vote under such a positive threat; its reluctance must yield to the certainty of a military occupation—On the 8th of August, however, the Assembly refuses, by a majority of two-thirds, to indict the great enemy, Lafayette. The double amputation essential for State security, must therefore begin with the destruction of this majority.

The moment Lafayette's acquittal is announced, the galleries, usually so vociferous, maintain "gloomy silence."2657 The word of command for them is to keep themselves in reserve for the streets. One by one the deputies who voted for Lafayette are pointed out to the mob at the doors, and a shout is raised, "the rascals, the knaves, the traitors living on the civil list! Hang them! Kill them! Put an end to them! Mud, mortar, plaster, stones are thrown at them, and they are severely pummeled. M. MÉziÈres, in the Rue du Dauphin, is seized by the throat, and a woman strikes at him, which he parries. In the Rue St. HonorÉ, a number of men in red caps surround M. Regnault-Beauceron, and decide to "string him up at the lantern"; a man in his jacket had already grabbed him from behind and raised him up, when the grenadiers of Sainte-Opportune arrive in time to set him free. In the Rue St. Louis, M. Deuzy, repeatedly struck on the back with stones, has a saber twice raised over his head. In the Passage des Feuillants, M. Desbois is pummeled, and a "snuff-box, his pocket-book, and cane" are stolen from him. In the lobbies of the Assembly, M. Girardin is on the point of being assassinated.2658 Eight deputies besides these are pursued, and take refuge in the guard-room of the Palais Royal. A Federate enters along with them, and "there, his eyes sparkling with rage and thumping on the table like a madman," he exclaims to M. Dumolard, who is the best known:" "If you are unlucky enough to put your feet in the Assembly again, I'll cut off your head with my sword!" As to the principal defender of Lafayette, M. Vaublanc, he is assailed three times, but he is wary enough not to return home; a number of infuriates, however, invest his house, yelling out that "eighty citizens are to perish by their hands, and he is one of the first"; a dozen of the gang ascend to his apartments, rummage them in every corner, make another effort to find him in the adjoining houses, and, not being able to secure him, try to find his family; he is notified that, if he returns to his house, he will be massacred.—In the evening, on the Feuillants terrace, other deputies are subjected to the same outrages; the gendarmerie tries in vain to protect them, while the 'commandant of the National Guard, on leaving his post, is attacked and cut down."2659—Meanwhile, some of the Jacobins in the lobbies "doom the majority of the Assembly to destruction"; one orator declares that "the people have a right to form lists of proscription," and the club accordingly decides on printing and publishing the names of all the deputies who acquitted Lafayette.—Never was physical constraint displayed and applied with such open shamelessness.2660

On the following day, August 9, armed men gather around the approaches to the Assembly, and sabers are seen even in the corridors.2661 The galleries, more imperious than ever, cheer, and break out in ironic shouts of triumph and approval every time the attacks of the previous evening are denounced in the tribune. The president calls the offenders to order more than twenty times, but his voice and his bell are drowned in the uproar. It is impossible to express an opinion. Most of the representatives who were maltreated the evening before, write that they will not return, while others, who are present, declare that they will not vote again "if they cannot be secure of freedom of conscience in their deliberations." At this utterance, which expresses the secret sentiment of "nearly the whole of the Assembly,"2662 "all the members of the 'Right', and many of the 'Left' arise simultaneously and exclaim: 'Yes, yes; we will debate no longer unless we are free!"—As usual, however, the majority gives away the moment effective measures are to be adopted; its heart sinks, as it always has done, on being called upon to act in self-defense, while these official declarations, one on top of the other, in hiding from it the gravity of the danger, sink it deeper in its own timidity. At this same session the syndic-attorney of the department reports that the mob is ready, that 900 armed men had just entered Paris, that the tocsin would be rung at midnight, and that the municipality tolerates or favors the insurrection. At this same session, the Minister of Justice gives notice that "the laws are powerless," and that the government is no longer responsible. At this same session, PÉtion, the mayor, almost avowing his complicity, appears at the bar of the house, and declares positively that he will have nothing to do with the public forces, because "it would be arming one body of citizens against another."2663—Every support is evidently knocked away. Feeling that it is abandoned, the National Assembly gives up, and, as a last expedient, and with a degree of weakness or simplicity which admirably depicts the legislators of the epoch, it adopts a philosophic address to the people, "instructing it what to do in the exercise of its sovereignty."

How this is done, it may see the next morning. At 7 o'clock, a Jacobin deputy stops in a cab before the door of the Feuillants club; a crowd gathers around him, and he gives his name, Delmas. The crowd understood it as Dumas, a well-known Constitutionalist, and, in a rage, drag him out of the vehicle and knock him down; had not other deputies run up and given assurances that he was the patriot Delmas, of Toulouse, instead of "the traitor, Mathieu Dumas," he was a lost man.2664 Dumas makes no effort to enter. He finds on the Place VendÔme a second and not less instructive warning. Some wretches, followed by the usual rabble, carry about a number of heads on pikes, those probably of the journalist Suleau, and three others, massacred a quarter of an hour before; "boys quite young, mere children, play with these heads by tossing them in the air, and catching them on the ends of their sticks."—There is no doubt but that the deputies of the "Right" and even the "Center," would do well to go home and stay there. In fact, they are no longer seen in the Assembly.2665 In the afternoon, out of the 630 members still present the evening before, 346 do not answer the call, while about thirty others, had either withdrawn before this or sent in their resignations.2666 The purging is complete, like that to which Cromwell, in 1648, subjected the Long Parliament. Henceforth the Legislative body, reduced to 224 Jacobins or Girondins, with 60 frightened or tractable neutrals, will obey the orders of the street without any difficulty. A change has come over the spirit of the body as well as over its composition; it is nothing more now than a servile instrument in the hands of the seditious, who have mutilated it, and who, masters of it through a first misdeed, are going to use it to legalize other crimes.