The 14th of July set the nation free.
The 10th of August hurled its thunderbolts.
The 21st of September founded a new era; for the 21st of September was the equinox, the equilibrium, Libra,—the balance-scales of Justice. According to the remark of Romme, the Republic was proclaimed beneath this sign of Equality and Justice,—heralded, so to speak, by a constellation.
The Convention is the first avatar of the people. It was the Convention that turned the new and glorious page, introducing the future of to-day.
Every idea requires a visible embodiment; every principle needs a habitation; a church means the four walls within which the Almighty has his dwelling-place; every dogma must have its temple. When the Convention became a fact, the first problem was to locate it.
At first it was established in the Manège, but afterwards at the Tuileries. Here they raised a platform and arranged scenery, painted in gray, by David; also, rows of benches and a square tribune; there were parallel pilasters, with massive plinths, and long rectangular stems, and square enclosures, into which the multitude crowded, and which were called public tribunes; a Roman velarium, and Grecian draperies; and amid these right angles and straight lines the Convention was installed,—a tempest confined within geometrical limits. On the tribune the red cap was painted in gray. At first the Royalists ridiculed this gray bonnet-rouge, this artificial hall, this pasteboard monument, this sanctuary of papier-mâché, this pantheon of mud and spittle. How quickly it was destined to vanish! The pillars were made of barrel-staves, the arches of thin deal boards, the bas-reliefs were mastic, the entablature was of pine, the statues were of plaster, the marble was painted, the walls were of canvas; and in this provisional shelter France has recorded deeds that can never be forgotten.
During the early sessions of the Convention the walls of the Hall of the Manège were covered with the advertisements with which Paris swarmed at the time of the return from Varennes. On one might be read: "The King returns. Whoever applauds him will be chastised; whoever insults him will be hung." On another: "Peace. Keep your hats on your heads. He is about to pass before his judges." On another: "The King took aim at the nation, but his weapon hung fire. Now the nation has its turn." On another: "The law! the law!" It was within these walls that the Convention sat in judgment on Louis XVI.
At the Tuileries, now called the Palais National, where the Convention had held its sessions from the 10th of May, 1793, the Assembly Hall occupied the space between the Pavillon de l'Horloge, called Pavillon Unité, and the Pavillon Marsan, called Pavillon Liberté. The Pavillon de Flore was now called Pavillon-Égalité. The Assembly Hall was accessible by the grand staircase of Jean Bullant. The entire ground-floor of the palace below the first story, occupied by the Assembly, was a kind of long guardroom, littered with the luggage and camp-beds of the various troops mounting guard over the Convention. The Assembly had a special guard of honor, called "the Grenadiers of the Convention."
A tricolored ribbon divided the palace occupied by the Assembly from the garden where the people passed in and out.