| "'Tis wrong we were, the thing is far too clear, |
| And our good guns have settled this affair. |
"Lafayette, liberator of two worlds! Flower of janissary chieftains! Phoenix of constable-majors! Don Quixote of the Capets and the two chambers! Constellation of the White Horse! I improve the first moment that I touch a land of liberty to send you the resignation as journalist and as national censor which you have for so long been demanding of me. I place it also at the feet of Monsieur Bailly and his red flag. I feel that my voice is too feeble to raise itself above that of thirty thousand cowards and also of your satellites, above the din of your four hundred drums and your hundreds of cannon....
"You and your accomplices in the City Hall and the Assembly feared the expression of the views of the people of Paris, which will soon become those of all France. You feared to hear your sentence pronounced by the nation in person, seated on its bed of justice, in the Field of Mars. 'What shall we do?' you asked yourselves.
"'Eh, call to our aid martial law!' Against peaceful and unarmed petitioners, who were quietly practising their right of assemblage!
"Or, that is what the Constitutionals imagined, to the end of gratifying us a second time with martial law; and, instead of hanging one man (as the baker Francis), they massacred two."
At this point Camille Desmoulins recounts the arrest of two individuals found during the morning hiding under the Altar of the Country, and continues:
"The cowards, the back-sliding bandits, counterfeiting the appearance of exaggerated patriots, threw themselves upon the two unfortunates, tore them to pieces, cut off their heads, and went to promenade them about Paris.
"Thus sought they to prepare the citizens, by the horror of the spectacle, to support the declaration of martial law. Immediately the news spread in the city, with the rapidity of lightning—'Two heads have been struck off in the Field of Mars.' Then, 'Out upon the petitioners, the Jacobins and the Cordeliers!' Thus were the municipal officers bewitched."
Here Desmoulins forgets or passes over in silence the honorable conduct of a minority of the council of the Commune of Paris. The three councilmen, learning on their return from the Field of Mars of the proclamation of martial law, were astounded, and affirmed and testified on their honor that the most admirable order reigned on the concourse, that they had looked into the address to the Representatives of the people; that it was perfectly in place and legitimate; that they had assured the petitioners that, far from troubling them in the exercise of their duty, the municipal authority would protect them with all care. In fine, the three officers, deeply moved and indignant, exclaimed with tears in their eyes that it would disgrace them, ruin them, to march against petitioners to whom they had pledged and guaranteed complete security. But in spite of the generous words of the three officers, Lafayette excited his pretorians; they cried, goes on Camille Desmoulins:
"'There is the red flag already flung out. The most difficult thing is done. Now, if all the clubs, all the fraternal societies would meet at the Field of Mars to sign the petition for the abdication of Louis XVI, what a bowl of nectar that Jacobin blood would be to our palates!'