The Assembly accepted this motion, and appointed Bonaparte commanding officer of the troops of the Convention, and, for form’s sake, named Barras, president of the Convention, commander-in-chief.

Bonaparte accepted the commission; and now, at last, after so much waiting, so many painful months of inactivity, he found himself called to action; he stood again at the head of an army, however small it might be, and could again lift up the sword as the signal for the march to the fight.

It is true this fight had a sad, horrible purpose; it was directed against the people, against the sections which declared themselves to be the committee of the sovereign people, and that they were fighting the holy fight of freedom against those who usurped their rights.

General Bonaparte had refused to go to Vendee, because he wished not to fight against his own countrymen, and could not take part in a civil war; but now, at this hour of extreme peril, he placed himself in opposition to the people’s sovereignty, and assumed command over the troops of the Convention, whose mission it was to subdue the people.

Every thing now assumed a more earnest attitude; during the night the newly-appointed commanding officer sent three hundred chasseurs, under Murat, to bring to Paris forty cannon from the park of artillery in Sablons, and, when the morning of the 13th Vendemiaire began to dawn, the pieces were already in position in the court of the Tuileries and pointed against the people.  Besides which, General Bonaparte had taken advantage of the night to occupy all the important points and places, and to arm them; even into the hall of session of the Convention he ordered arms and ammunition to be brought, that the representatives might defend themselves, in case they were pressed upon by the people.

As the sun of the 13th Vendemiaire rose over Paris, a terrible street-fight began—­the fight of the sovereign people against the Convention.  It was carried on by both sides with the utmost bitterness and fierceness, the sections rushing with fanatic courage, with all the energy of hatred, against these soldiers who dared slay their brothers and bind their liberty in chains; the soldiers of the Convention fought with all the bitterness which the consciousness of their hated position instilled into them.

The cannon thundered in every street and mingled their sounds with the cries of rage from the sectionnaires—­the howlings of the women, the whiz of the howitzers, the loud clangs of the bells, which incessantly called the people to arms.  Streams of blood flowed again through the streets; everywhere, near the scattered barricades, near the houses captured by storm, lay bloody corpses; everywhere resounded the cries of the dying, the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the wild shouts of the combatants.  In the Church of St. Roche, and in the Theatre Francaise, the sectionnaires, driven from the neighboring streets by the troops of General Bonaparte, had gathered together and endeavored to defend these places with the courage of despair.  But the howitzers of Bonaparte soon scattered them, and the contest was decided.