The Three Estates had been fused into one on the 27th of June with the assent of the King, who thus virtually signed his own death-warrant. Another step soon followed in the same disastrous course. The Queen and her intimate advisers caused Louis to make an attempt to maintain his authority by force, and for this purpose an army of 40,000 men, drawn from various quarters, was concentrated upon Paris and its vicinity, and placed under the orders of Marshal Broglie.
Among these troops were several regiments of Swiss and Germans. At that moment Necker, whom the Court party distrusted and feared, was forced to relinquish his office, and commanded to leave France forthwith.
The 12th of July was a Sunday, and on the morning of that day an extraordinary degree of activity was observed among the troops in Paris. The nerves of the people became overwrought; they were apprehensive of imminent danger—some hidden design, some sinister motive, on the part of the newly appointed Ministers (including the hated Foulon, who had succeeded the beloved Necker) whose policy they could not fathom.
Before midday the Palais Royal was crowded with people, wondering what all this military movement could mean, and gazing at the strange placards which bade them stay at home and avoid all meetings.
The half-discredited rumour of the dismissal of Necker spread like wild-fire through the capital, and the first person who made the announcement was about to be ducked in one of the water basins in the gardens of the Palais Royal, when a Deputy of the Third Estate, who happened to be standing by, confirmed the news.
CAMILLE DESMOULINS
Young enthusiast who stirred the populace of Paris to riotous demonstration on hearing of the dismissal of Necker.
Everyone in the gardens was at once made acquainted with the fall of the people’s favourite; and as the cannon of the Palais made known, as usual, the fact that the hour of noon had arrived, a young man named Camille Desmoulins sprang upon a table outside the Café Foy, and, brandishing a drawn sword and pistol, called “To arms!” He then harangued with burning eloquence the people who crowded around him, and fired their imagination at the close of his oration by plucking a leaf from a tree (green being the colour of Necker’s livery) and placing it in his hat as a cockade, an example that was followed by thousands.