Several organs of the patriotic press lent their encouragement to the republican tendencies in the air, either by openly demanding the Republic, or by insisting that Louis had forfeited his title. Marat, in The Friend of the People, voiced in these words the indignation of the people against the King, the court, and the ministers:
"Citizens, Louis XVI has this night taken flight.... This King, perjured, faithless, without shame, without remorse, has gone to join the foreign Kings, his accomplices. The thirst for absolute power which devours his soul will soon turn him into a ferocious assassin. He will return to steep himself in the blood of his subjects, who refuse to submit to his tyrannical yoke.... And, as he waits, he laughs at the dullness of the Parisians, who took him at his word.... Citizens, you are lost, if you give ear to the National Assembly, which will not cease to cajole you, to lull you to sleep, until the enemy has arrived under our walls! Despatch this instant couriers to the Departments. Call the federated Bretons to your aid! Make yourselves masters of the arsenal. Disarm the mounted constables, the guards at the gates, the patrols of the fortifications, the hired troops—all counter-revolutionists! Citizens, name within the hour a pitiless dictator, who, with the same blow, will sever the heads of the ministers, of their subalterns, of Lafayette, of all the scoundrels of his staff, of all the counter-revolutionists, of all the traitors in the National Assembly."
In his Revolutions of France, Camille Desmoulins, with his brilliant mockery, characterized the situation thus:
"The King has fired point blank on the Nation; the shot has hung fire. Now it is the Nation's turn to shoot. Doubtless it will disdain to measure itself against a disarmed man, even if he be a King! And I would be the first to fire in the air—but the aggressor must beg of me his life."
Placards, inscriptions of all nature, posted on the walls of Paris, powerfully stirred the opinions of the people. Towards the close of the day, the journal called The Mouth of Iron published in a supplement a proclamation addressed to the French by Louis XVI, which had been seized at the domicile of Laporte, one of the onhangers at court, who had been commissioned to print it and flood Paris with it.
"The King," so declared the manifesto, "has for a long time hoped to see order and happiness restored by the Assembly; he renounces that hope. The safety of persons and of property is compromised. Anarchy is everywhere. The King, considering himself a prisoner during his forced stay in Paris, protests against all the acts of the Assembly, and against the Constitution, which outrages the Church, and degrades royalty, subordinating it to the Assembly, reducing it to an insufficient civil list, etc., etc. In the face of such motives, in the disability under which I labor of stopping the evil, I had to seek my own safety. Frenchmen, you whom I call the inhabitants of my good city of Paris, beware of these insurgents! Return to your King! He will be always your friend, when our holy religion is respected, when the government is stable, and when liberty is established on unshakable foundations!
"Signed, Louis."
Hard by the site of the Bastille, on a pile of the ruins of the fortress, a young citizen, who by the elegance of his dress and the careful powdering of his hair seemed to be of the upper bourgeoisie, made the following motion:
"Gentlemen, in the present state of affairs, it would be very unfortunate for our disgraceful and perfidious King to be brought back to us! What can we do with him? This fugitive will come like Thersite, shedding those fat tears of which Homer speaks. So, then, if they commit the enormous mistake of bringing Louis XVI back to us, I propose this motion: That the Executive be exposed three days to public ridicule. That he be conducted by stages to the frontier, and that there the commissioners of the Republic who shall have so far escorted him shall solemnly present to this last of the Kings—their boots in his rear, and send him to the devil."
This novel motion was received on the part of all who heard it with shouts of laughter and applause. "Yes, yes! Let them plant their boots in the royal rear!" they echoed.