Of the feelings of these spectators, I judge by my own: I might perhaps have disliked seeing a single dead body, but the great number immediately reconciled me to the sight.
BREECHES. PIKES. NECESSARY PASSPORTS.
ANOTHER particular relative to the sans-culottes is their standard, being an old pair of breeches, which they carry on the top of a pike, thrust through the waistband: the poissardes likewise use the same standard, though it so happened that I never saw it. On the memorable 20th of June last, a pike-man got on the top of the Tuileries, where he waved the ensign, or rather shook the breeches to the populace.
The pike-staves for the army are of different lengths; of six, nine, and twelve feet: by this means three ranks of pike-bearers can use their arms at once, with the points of the three rows of pikes evenly extended.
The letter which I had written to the President, notwithstanding its eventual ill success, caused several English persons jointly to write a somewhat similar letter; in which, after having represented that their wives and children wanted them, they said, they hoped their reasons would appear vrai-semblables, or have the semblance of truth. The Assembly on hearing this burst into a laugh, and passed on to the order of the day.
On the 16th I carried a passport from Lord Gower to the office of Mr. le Brun, the minister for foreign affairs; here I was told to leave it, and I should have another in its stead the next day. The next day I applied for it, and was told, no passports could be delivered.
The matter now appeared to me to become serious, as the courier who had carried the account of the affair of the 10th to London was not yet returned, and that rumours were spread, that the English in Paris were almost all grands seigneurs & aristocrates; so that I saw only two probable means of safety; one of which was, to draw up a petition to the National Assembly, in behalf of all the British subjects, to get it signed by as many as I could find, and who might chuse to sign it, and to carry it to the Assembly in a small body, which might have been the means of procuring a pass; and in case this was refused, the other plan would have been for all the British to have incorporated themselves into a Legion Britannique, and offered their services according to the exigence of the case.[32] This petition was accordingly, on the 18th, drawn up by a member of the English Parliament; translated into French, and carried about to be signed; when at the bankers we fortunately met with a person who informed us, that our passes were ready at the moment, at Mr. Le Brun's: thither we went; I obtained my pass at two o'clock afternoon, the petition was torn and given to the winds; I took a hackney coach that instant, to carry me to the Poste aux chevaux, ordered the horses, and before three I was out of the barriers of Paris.
Here follows a copy of my passport.
At the top of the paper is an engraving of a shield, on which is inscribed Vivre libre ou mourir (live free or die,) supported by two female figures, the dexter representing Minerva standing, with the cap of liberty at the end of a pike; the sinister, the French constitution personified as a woman sitting on a lion, with one hand holding a book, on which is written Constitution Française, droits de l'homme, and with the other supporting a crown over the shield, which crown is effaced by a dash with a pen.