THE JEUNESSE DOREÉ THROWING THE BUST OF MARAT INTO THE GUTTER.
The Jacobins, exasperated, swore to avenge the insult. Strongly armed, they paraded the streets, carrying a bust of Marat in triumph, and swearing bloody vengeance upon any who might attempt to disturb their march. The firmness of the Convention alone averted a sanguinary conflict. The public distress, intense and almost universal, embarrassed and overwhelmed the Convention with the most difficult questions in the endeavor to afford relief. On the 15th of March the supply of food in Paris was so small that it was deemed necessary to put the inhabitants upon rations, each individual being allowed but one pound of bread per day. Agitation and tumults were now rapidly increasing, and there were daily riots. The Convention was continually besieged and insulted by haggard multitudes with petitions which assumed the tone of fiercest threats. Scenes of confusion ensued which bade defiance to all law, and which there was no authority to repress.
On the 20th of May there was one of the most fearful tumults which the Revolution had yet witnessed. At five in the morning the générale was beating in the public squares and the tocsin ringing in the faubourgs. The populace were rapidly mustering for any deeds of violence to which their leaders might conduct them. At eleven o'clock the Convention commenced its sitting. One of the members brought in a plan, which he had secretly obtained, of a very efficiently-organized insurrection. A crowd, mostly of women, filled the galleries. As the plan was read, which appalled the deputies, the galleries vociferously applauded. The Convention passed a few harmless decrees, such as, 1st, that the city government was responsible for any attack upon the Convention; 2d, that all the citizens were bound to receive orders from the Convention; and 3d, that there should be no insurrection. These decrees but provoked the derision of the galleries. The tumult now became so great, the women shouting "Bread!" and shaking their fists at the president and the deputies, that all business was at a stand, and not a word of debate could be heard.
At length, some soldiers were sent into the galleries with bayonets, and the women were driven into the streets. They soon, however, returned, aided by their friends. They battered down all the doors and broke in and filled the hall with an armed, shouting, brutal mob. Some of the citizens rallied for the defense of the Convention, and a fierce battle raged within the hall and around the doors. Pistols and muskets were discharged, swords clashed, bayonet crossed bayonet, while yells and shrieks and imprecations deafened the ear. Drunken women strode over the benches and clambered to the president's chair. A young deputy, Feraud, was stabbed, then shot; his head was cut off, and, pierced by a pike, was thrust into the face of the president, Boissy d'Anglas, who most heroically maintained his post and his composure through all these perilous scenes. For six hours the tumult raged unabated. It was now seven o'clock in the evening, and the mob drove all the deputies, like a flock of sheep, into the centre of the hall, surrounded them with bristling bayonets and pikes, and ordered them to issue decrees for the relief of the people. At length, near midnight, a detachment of the National Guard arrived, dispersed the crowd around the palace, and, entering the hall with fixed bayonets, scattered the rioters. Tranquillity being restored, one of the members rose and said,
"It is then true that this Assembly, the cradle of the Republic, has once more well nigh been its tomb. Fortunately, the crime of the conspirators is prevented. But, Representatives, you would not be worthy of the nation if you were not to avenge it in a signal manner."
SCENE IN THE NATIONAL CONVENTION.