“Stop!” cried the same voice.
A man then approached.
“Citizen,” said he, “my name is Bonneville. I am editor of The Mouth of Iron. The people are deceived.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the Cordeliers.
“How deceive the people?” said the delegate charged with the reading of the petition.
“I say, for the second time, that the people are deceived!” cried Bonneville. “‘By all constitutional means,’ signifies ‘by a regency.’ And what is a regency? The royalty of D’Orleans in the place of the royalty of Louis XVI.”
“In the place of the royalty of Capet!” cried a voice that I recognised as having heard before.
“How Capet?” said a Jacobin.
“Without doubt,” replied the same mocking voice. “Since the nobles no longer have titles—since M. Mirabeau called himself only Riquetti—since M. de Lafayette called himself only M. Moltier—the King Louis XVI can call himself only Capet.”