“To all men, equally to our enemies: let us swear to love and protect them.”
Open the book of royalty, and see if you can find a sentiment equal to that inscribed on the first page of the book of the people.
From all places, provincial and isolated, one cry arose:— “To Paris! To Paris! To Paris!”
As this cry burst from the throat of France, Royalists and Jacobins trembled. The Jacobins said, “The King, with his smile, and the Queen, with her white lips, will fascinate the credulous people from the provinces, and will cause them to turn against us, and the revolution will be at an end.”
The Royalists said, “To bring these provincials, already ripe for tumult, to Paris, the centre of agitation, is but bringing oil to feed the lamp of revolution. Who can say what will be the effect of this immense concourse, and what fearful events may come to pass through the incursions of two hundred and fifty thousand souls, from all quarters of France, into Paris?”
But the impulse was given, and the movement could not be stayed.
France wished, with that powerful will which nothing could arrest, to know itself.
The corporation of Paris demanded of the Assembly the general federation.
The Assembly, pretending to accord to their wish, named the 14th of July, the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille.
The news was propagated among all the provinces of the kingdom; but as they feared so great an assemblage in Paris, and wished to put all possible obstacles in their way, all expenses were put down to the charge of the localities.