guns of the vagabonds for three livres apiece, and sabers or pistols
for twelve sous. At last, some of the offenders are hung on the
spot, and others disarmed, and the insurrection again becomes
political. But, whatever its object, it remains always wild,
because it is in the hands of the mob. Dusaulx, its panegyrist,
confesses[41] that "he thought he was witnessing the total
dissolution of society." There is no leader, no management. The
electors who have converted themselves into the representatives of
Paris seem to command the crowd, but it is the crowd which commands
them. One of them, Legrand, to save the Hôtel-de-Ville, has no
other resource but to send for six barrels of gun-powder, and to
declare to the assailants that he is about to blow everything into
the air. The commandant whom they themselves have chosen, M. de
Salles, has twenty bayonets at his breast during a quarter of an
hour, and, more than once, the whole committee is near being
massacred. Let the reader imagine, on the premises where the
discussions are going on, and petitions are being made, "a concourse
of fifteen hundred men pressed by a hundred thousand others who are
forcing an entrance," the wainscoting cracking, the benches upset
one over another, the enclosure of the bureau pushed back against
the president's chair, a tumult such as to bring to mind 'the day of
judgment," the death-shrieks, songs, yells, and "people beside
themselves, for the most part not knowing where they are nor what
they want." -- Each district is also a petty center, while the
Palais-Royal is the main center. Propositions, " accusations, and
deputations travel to and fro from one to the other, along with the
human torrent which is obstructed or rushes ahead with no other
guide than its own inclination and the chances of the way. One wave
gathers here and another there, their strategy consisting in pushing
and in being pushed. Yet, their entrance is effected only because