To the Representatives of the People now sitting in Assembly at
   the National Convention

You trust and believe in the Representative of the people:  Citizen-Deputy Paul Deroulede.  He is false, and a traitor to the Republic.  He is planning, and hopes to effect, the release of ci-devant Marie Antoinette, widow of the traitor Louis Capet.  Haste! ye representatives of the people! proofs of his assertion, papers and plans, are still in the house of the Citizen-Deputy Deroulede.  This statement is made by one who knows.

  I.  The 23rd Fructidor.

When her letter was written she read it through carefully, made the one or two little corrections, which are still visible in the document, then folded her missive, hid it within the folds of her kerchief, and, wrapping a dark cloak and hood round her, she slipped noiselessly out of her room.

The house was all quiet and still.  She shuddered a little as the cool morning air fanned her hot cheeks:  it seemed like the breath of ghosts.

She ran quickly down the stairs, and as rapidly as she could, pushed back the heavy bolts of the front door, and slipped out into the street.

Already the city was beginning to stir.  There was no time for sleep, when so much had to be done for the safety of the threatened Republic.  As Juliette turned her steps towards the river, she met the crowd of workmen, whom France was employing for her defence.

Behind her, in the Luxembourg Gardens, and all along the opposite bank of the river, the furnaces were already ablaze, and the smiths at work forging the guns.

At every step now Juliette came across the great placards, pinned to the tall gallows-shaped posts, which proclaim to every passing citizen, that the people of France are up and in arms.

Right across the Place de l’Institut a procession of market carts, laden with vegetables and a little fruit, wends its way slowly towards the centre of the town.  They each carry tiny tricolour flags, with a Pike and Cap of Liberty surmounting the flagstaff.

They are good patriots the market-gardeners, who come in daily to feed the starving mob of Paris, with the few handfuls of watery potatoes, and miserable, vermin-eaten cabbages, which that fraternal Revolution still allows them to grow without hindrance.

Everyone seems busy with their work thus early in the morning:  the business of killing does not begin until later in the day.

For the moment Juliette can get along quite unmolested:  the women and children mostly hurrying on towards the vast encampments in the Tuileries, where lint, and bandages, and coats for the soldiers are manufactured all the day.

The walls of all the houses bear the great patriotic device:  “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite, sinon La Mort)”; others are more political in their proclamation:  “La Republique une et indivisible_.”