wounded three, and put the rest to flight. They then advanced at quick
time and with fixed bayonets to the Place Louis XV. and took their stand
between the Tuileries and the Champs Elysees, the people and the troops,
and kept that post during the night. The soldiers of the Champ de Mars
were immediately ordered to advance. When they reached the Champs Elysees,
the French guards received them with discharges of musketry. They wished
to make them fight, but they refused: the Petits-Suisses were the first to
give this example, which the other regiments followed. The officers, in
despair, ordered a retreat; the troops retired as far as the Grille de
Chaillot, whence they soon withdrew into the Champ de Mars. The defection
of the French guard, and the manifest refusal even of the foreign troops
to march on the capital, caused the failure of the projects of the court.

During the evening the people had repaired to the Hotel de Ville, and
requested that the tocsin might be sounded, the districts assembled, and
the citizens armed. Some electors assembled at the Hotel de Ville, and
took the authority into their own hands. They rendered great service to
their fellow-citizens and the cause of liberty by their courage, prudence,
and activity, during these days of insurrection; but in the first
confusion of the rising it was with difficulty they succeeded in making
themselves heard. The tumult was at its height; each only answered the
dictates of his own passions. Side by side with well-disposed citizens
were men of suspicious character, who only sought in insurrection
opportunities for pillage and disorder. Bands of labourers employed by
government in the public works, for the most part without home or
substance, burnt the barriers, infested the streets, plundered houses, and
obtained the name of brigands. The night of the 12th and 13th was spent in
tumult and alarm.

The departure of Necker, which threw the capital into this state of