A fair young man, elegantly dressed, with menacing gesture continually attacked the grenadiers, and cut his fingers with their bayonets in order to move them aside and make a clear passage.  “Sire—­Sire!” he shouted, “I summon you in the name of one hundred thousand souls who surround me, to sanction the decree against the priests:  that is death!” Other persons in the crowd, although armed with drawn swords, pistols, and pikes, made no violent gestures, and warded off every attempt on the life of the king.  There were even seen expressions of respect and grief in the countenances of a great many.  In this review of the Revolution, the people displayed themselves as very terrible, but did not identify themselves with assassins.  A certain order began to establish itself in the staircases and apartments:  the crowd, pressed by the crowd, after having seen the king, and uttered threats against him, wandered into other apartments, and went triumphantly over this palace of despotism.

Legendre the butcher drove before him, in order to find room, these hordes of women and children accustomed to tremble at his voice.  He made signs that he desired to speak, and silence being established, the national guard separated a little in order to allow him to address the king.  “Monsieur!” he exclaimed, in a voice of thunder:  the king, at this word, which was a degradation, made a movement of offended dignity; “yes, Sir,” continued Legendre, with more emphasis on the word, “listen to us; you were made to listen to us! you are a traitor! you have deceived us always—­you deceive us again; but beware! the measure is heaped up.  The people are weary of being your plaything and your victim.”  Legendre, after these threatening words, read a petition in language as imperious, in which he demanded, in the name of the people, the restitution of the Girondist ministers and the immediate sanction of their decrees.  The king replied with intrepid dignity, “I will do what the constitution orders me to do.”

XXI.

Scarcely had one sea of people gone away, than another succeeded.  At each new invasion of the mob, the strength of the king and the small number of his defenders was exhausted in the renewed struggles with a crowd which never wearied.  The doors no longer sufficed to the impatient curiosity of these thousands of men assembled in this pillory of royalty; they entered by the roof, the windows, and the high balconies which open on to the terraces.  Their climbing up amused the multitude of spectators crowded in the gardens.  The clapping of hands, the cheers of laughter of this multitude without encouraged the assailants.  Menacing dialogues in loud tones took place between the malcontents above and the impatient who were below.  “Have they struck him?—­is he dead?—­throw us the heads!” they shouted.  Members of the Assembly, Girondist journalists, political characters, Garat, Gorsas, Marat, mingled in this crowd, and uttered their jokes as to this martyrdom of shame to which the king was being subjected.  There was for a moment a report of his assassination.