Marat was confined to his cellar by his monomania, but he yelled for the Assembly to be butchered and cried for a general massacre out of which he would wade a universal dictator.
Verriere, the abominable hunchback, careered about on a horse like the spectre of the Apocalypse, and stopped at every crossroad to invite the masses to meet on the Field of Mars.
So the thousands went to the rendezvous, to sign the paper, sing and dance and shout "The Nation Forever!"
The sun rose magnificently. All the petty tradesfolk who cater to the multitude swarmed on the parade-ground where the Altar of the Country stood up in the middle like a grand catafalque.
By half past four a hundred and fifty thousand souls were present. Those who rise early are usually bad sleepers, and who has not slept well is commonly in a bad humor.
In the midst of the chatter a woman's scream was heard. On the crowd flocking round her, she complained of having been stabbed in the ankle while leaning against the altar. Indeed the point of a gimlet was seen sticking through the boards. In a twinkling the planks were torn down and two men were unearthed in the hollow. They were old cronies, sots who had taken a keg of liquor with them and eatables, and stolen a march on the crowd by hiding here overnight.
But unfortunately the mob at the woman's cue thought they made peepholes for a mean purpose and cried that the keg contained powder to blow up the signers of the petition. They forgot that these new Guido Fawkes hardly looked the sort to blow themselves up with their victims.
Be this as it may, they were taken to the police court where the magistrates laughingly released them; but the washer-women, great sticklers for women not to be probed in the ankle by gimlets, gave them a beating with the paddles used in thumping linen. This was not all: the cry that powder was found getting spread, they were taken from the women and slain. A few minutes after, their heads were cut off and the ready pikes were there to receive them on their points.
The news was perverted on its way to the Assembly where the heads were stated to be of two friends of order who had lost them while preaching respect to the law.
The Assembly at once voted the City to be under martial law.