"The people demands justice on its enemies; legislators, it looks to you!"
In those words of Petion's is contained almost entirely the secret of the days of September. The expectations of the people were deceived. The courts proved themselves unworthy of their trust by absolving proven criminals. Then the people, as highly angered as it had before shown itself magnanimous, took justice into its own hands.
The circumstances which produced the formidable explosion were many. After the victory of the 10th of August—a victory the consequences of which were the deposition of Louis XVI, his imprisonment in the Temple, and the convocation of a National Convention to proclaim the Republic and institute proceedings against the former King—Paris calmly awaited the accomplishment of these great events. Everyone confidently expected the conviction of the accomplices of Louis XVI by the national High Court at Orleans. The High Court acquitted the prisoners, despite their guilt, and among them the Count of Montmorin, the old Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had aided the flight of Louis. The High Court also acquitted the Prince of Poix, a high counter-revolutionist, and Bakman, a colonel of the Swiss, who was one of the instigators of the resistance by the soldiers, and hence, a part author of the carnage at the Tuileries.
The prisons, meanwhile, were filled with suspects, declared royalists, and refractory priests, taken red-handed in the incitation of civil war—all guilty on the first count. It was also learned that in the interior of the prisons themselves existed establishments for turning out false notes, which were put in circulation through channels of communication between the prisoners and their friends outside. The collusion between the imprisoned nobles and priests on the one hand, and the counterfeiters, their companions in captivity, on the other, was indisputable.
Emboldened by the acquittal of the conspirators, the counter-revolution reared its head again in Paris and in the provinces. Each day brought from without news more and more alarming. Part of the west and south, lied to by the nobility, goaded to fanaticism by the clergy, was on the verge of rebellion. Rumors were rife that the Assembly had sent the King's trial minutes to a Convention, not daring itself to pass upon the fate of Louis XVI; that the allied army would be upon Paris before the 20th of September, the date set for the opening of the new Assembly. These predictions were, in fact, on the point of fulfilment. On September 1st, Paris learned that the Prussian army had crossed the frontier; Longwy was taken; the enemy had invested Verdun; the fortified place, left designedly by Louis XVI almost without defense, was unable to resist; from this city the allied army could in three days arrive in Paris!
Judge of the excitement among the people of Paris!
The royalists only awaited the favorable moment to unchain their vengeance on the capital. All these causes combined could do no less than let loose a whirlwind. And that is what happened on the terrible days of September 2nd and 3rd. The following are extracts from my journal, which I wrote almost hour by hour, as these sad events unrolled themselves.
September 2, about eleven in the morning, I heard the sound of a signal gun, to which were quickly added the rapid clanging of the tocsin and the roll of drums. The news of the taking of Longwy by the Prussians had spread through Paris the previous night, and had thrown the people into consternation.
I left my ironsmithy and hastily donned my uniform of the National Guard, in order to assemble with my Section of the Pikes. I was about to go to Victoria's room, where I supposed she was, as usual, busy sewing, when I saw her come in from out-of-doors.
"I was about to go in and tell you that I was bound for my Section," I said to her. "What is forward in Paris?"