DANTON WELCOMES LAFAYETTE AND JEFFERSON,
THE REPRESENTATIVES OF AMERICA’S NEW-WON FREEDOM.
“‘Friends, shall we die like hunted hares? Us, meseems, only one cry befits: To arms! Let universal Paris, universal France, as with the throat of the whirlwind, resound: To arms! Friends (continues Camille) some rallying sign! Cockades, green one; the color of hope!’ As with the flight of locusts, these green leaves; green ribands from the neighboring shops; all green things are snatched and made cockades of.... And now to Curtius’ image shop there; to the boulevards; to the four winds, and rest not until France be on fire!”
Ancient flint-locks, pikes and lances are replevined, and dance high, minatory, over the heads of the mob. Storerooms of powder and musketry are broken into and swept clean. Behold, now, a still more astonishing sight; a rushing tide of women, impetuous, all-devouring, equipped with brooms and household tools, descending like a snowbreak from all directions upon the Hotel de Ville. “And now doors fly under hatchets; the Judiths have broken the armory; have seized guns and cannon, three money-bags,” and have fired the beautiful City Hall of King Henry the Fourth’s time!
... And where the Storm breaks 104 fiercest and the cry “Down with Tyrants!” most loudly sounds, there Danton the revolutionist, the pock-marked Thunderer, leads the way, whipping up new fury and moulding them to his will with his appeal ’gainst “Starvation––oppression––ages of injustice––vile prisons where innocent ones die under autocracy!”
Danton’s voice shakes the world.
Thousands upon thousands of commoners gather for the attack on the hated symbol of royal authority, the prison fortress of Bastille.
Look! His impassioned eloquence touches the popular sympathies of the common soldiers who constitute the royal guard. They lower their opposing bayonets, identify their cause with the people’s, the exultant throng rushes past.