"although he had never bought or sold a grain of wheat." In the eyes
of the multitude, who has to explain the evil as caused by some
evil-doer, he is the author of the famine. Conducted to the Abbaye,
his escort is dispersed and he is pushed over to the lamp post.
Then, seeing that all is lost, he snatches a gun from one of his
murderers and bravely defends himself. A soldier of the "Royal
Croats" gives him a cut with his saber across the stomach, and
another tears out his heart. As the cook, who had cut off the head
of M. de Launay, happens to be on the spot, they hand him the heart
to carry while the soldiers take the head, and both go to the Hôtel-
de-Ville to show their trophies to M. de Lafayette. On their return
to the Palais-Royal, and while they are seated at table in a tavern,
the people demand these two remains. They throw them out of the
window and finish their supper, whilst the heart is marched about
below in a bouquet of white carnations. -- Such are the spectacles
which this garden presents where, a year before, "good society in
full dress" came on leaving the Opera to chat, often until two
o'clock in the morning, under the mild light of the moon, listening
now to the violin of Saint-Georges, and now to the charming voice of
Garat.


VIII.

Paris in the hands of the people.

Henceforth it is clear that no one is safe: neither the new militia
nor the new authorities suffice to enforce respect for the law.
"They did not dare," says Bailly,[55] "oppose the people who, eight
days before this, had taken the Bastille." -- In vain, after the