The Whites and the Blues

by Alexandre Dumas

From an artistic point of view, it would have been a great loss if the two pictures, against which the crowd were so incensed, had been destroyed. "The Death of Marat" was in particular one of David's masterpieces.

But the Convention, seeing the dangers to which it was exposed, and knowing that a fresh crater might burst forth in the volcano of Paris at any moment, declared itself in permanent session. The three representatives—Gillet, Aubry and Delmas—who, since the 4th Prairial, had been in command of the forces, were given authority to take all measures necessary for the safety of the Convention. This was done all the more thoroughly when it was learned, through those who had been present at the preparations for the following day, that there was to be a meeting of armed citizens at the Odéon the following evening, and their anxiety reached a culminating point.

The next day, the 3d of October (11th Vendémiaire), had been set apart for a funeral celebration, to be held in the Hall of Sessions itself, in memory of the Girondins. Several members proposed that the ceremony should be postponed for another day, but Tallien arose and said that it was unworthy of the Convention not to attend to its duties in times of danger even as in times of peace.

In permanent session, the Convention issued a decree ordering all illegal meetings of electors to disperse. The night passed in the midst of uproars which beggar description in all parts of the city. Shots were fired and people were knocked down. Whenever bands of the Sections and the Convention met, blows invariably ensued.

The Sections, on the other hand, in virtue of the rights of sovereignty they had assumed, issued their own decrees. Thus it was as a result of a decree of the Section Le Peletier that the meeting at the Odéon had been set for the 11th Vendémiaire.

Every moment brought in most disastrous news from the towns around Paris where the royalist committee had established its agencies. Risings had occurred at Orléans, Dreux, Verneuil, and Nonancourt. At Chartres, Tellier, the representative, had endeavored to prevent an insurrection, and finding that his efforts were unavailing, he blew out his brains. The Chouans had cut down all the trees planted in honor of the 14th of July—those glorious symbols of the people's triumph. They had hurled the Statue of Liberty into the mud; and in the provinces, as well as in Paris, patriots had been assaulted in the streets.

While the Convention was deliberating against the conspirators, the latter, in their turn, were acting against the Convention. About eleven in the morning the electors began to put in appearance at the Odéon, although only the more adventurous had taken this risk, and had they been counted they would scarcely have comprised a full thousand. In their midst a crowd of young men passed to and fro, shouting, scraping the railings and overturning the seats with their swords. But the number of chasseurs and grenadiers sent by the Sections did not exceed four hundred. More than ten thousand people surrounded the monument, the place of meeting, blocking up the entrances to the hall, and filling the neighboring streets.

If, on that day, the Convention, which was kept fully informed, had but acted with decision, the insurrection could have been suppressed; but once again it resorted to conciliatory measures. They issued a decree declaring the meeting illegal, and specified in one of its articles that all those who should at once disperse would be exempt from punishment. As soon as the decree was issued, some officers of the police, escorted by six dragoons, started from the Tuileries, where the Convention was in session, to command the mob to disperse.

But the streets were crowded with spectators. They wanted to know what the police and the dragoons intended to do; and they impeded them so successfully, that, although they left the palace at three o'clock, it was almost seven before they reached the Odéon, whither they were accompanied by cries, hoots, jeers, and provocations of every sort. From a distance they could be seen in the Place de l'Égalité opposite the monument, on the backs of their horses; and they looked like ships towering above the crowd and tossed upon a stormy sea.

They finally reached the square. The dragoons drew up before the steps of the theatre; the police officers, intrusted with the proclamation, went up under the portico, and there, lighted by torch-bearers, they read the proclamation.