with the red flag!  Shame to Bailly!  Death to La Fayette!” The people in the Champ-de-Mars responded to these cries with unanimous imprecations.  Lumps of wet mud, the only arms at hand, were cast at the national guard, and struck La Fayette’s horse, the red flag, and Bailly himself; and it is even said that several pistol shots were fired from a distance; this however was by no means proved,—­the people had no intention of resisting, they wished only to intimidate.  Bailly summoned them to disperse legally, to which they replied by shouts of derision; and he then, with the grave dignity of his office, and the mute sorrow that formed part of his character, ordered them to be dispersed by force.  La Fayette first ordered the guard to fire in the air; but the people, encouraged by this vain demonstration, formed into line before the national guard, who then fired a discharge that killed and wounded 600 persons, the republicans say 10,000.  At the same moment the ranks opened, the cavalry charged, and the artillerymen prepared to open their fire; which, on this dense mass of people, would have taken fearful effect.  La Fayette, unable to restrain his soldiers by his voice, placed himself before the cannon’s mouth, and by this heroic act saved the lives of thousands.  In an instant the Champ-de-Mars was cleared, and nought remained on it save the dead bodies of women, children, trampled under foot, or flying before the cavalry; and a few intrepid men on the steps of the altar of their country, who, amidst a murderous fire and at the cannon’s mouth, collected, in order to preserve them, the sheets of the petition, as proofs of the wishes, or bloody pledges of the future vengeance, of the people, and they only retired when they had obtained them.

The columns of the national guard, and particularly the cavalry, pursued the fugitives into the neighbouring fields, and made two hundred prisoners.  Not a man was killed on the side of the national guard; the loss of the people is unknown.  The one side diminished it, in order to extenuate the odium of an execution without resistance; the others augmented it, in order to rouse the people’s resentment.  At night, which was already fast approaching, the bodies were cast into the Seine.  Opinions were divided as to the nature and details of this execution, some terming it a crime, and others a painful duty; but this day of unresisting butchery still retains the name given it by the people, The Massacre of the Champ-de-Mars.

XV.

The national guard, headed by La Fayette, marched victorious, but mournful, again into Paris:  it was visible by their demeanour that they hesitated between self-congratulation and shame, as though undecided on the justice of what they had done.  Amidst a few approving acclamations that saluted them on their passage, they heard smothered imprecations; and the words murderers and vengeance