It was already seven in the evening. Apprehensions were felt in the Assembly lest this mob, among which were sanguinary ruffians, should proceed to the last extremities, and murder the representatives of the people amidst the darkness of night. Several members of the centre begged certain Mountaineers to speak and to exhort the multitude to disperse. Vernier told the rioters that it was late, that they ought to think of retiring, and that they were likely to expose the people to the want of bread by delaying the expected arrivals. "It is humbug," replied the mob; "you have told us that tale these three months." Several voices were then successively raised amidst the crowd. One demanded the release of the patriots and of the arrested deputies; another the constitution of 93; a third, the apprehension of all the emigrants; a multitude of others, the permanance of the sections, the re-establishment of the commune, the appointment of a commander of the armed Parisian force, domiciliary visits to search for hidden articles or consumption, assignats at par, &c. One of these men, who succeeded in gaining a hearing for a few moments, insisted on the immediate appointment of a commander of the Parisian armed force, and that Soubrany should be chosen. Lastly, another, not knowing what to demand, cried out, The arrest of the rogues and the cowards! and for half an hour he kept repeating from time to time, The arrest of the rogues and the cowards!

One of the ringleaders at length aware of the necessity of doing something, proposed to make the deputies descend from the upper benches on which they had seated themselves, to collect them in the middle of the hall, and to make them deliberate. The suggestion was instantly adopted. They were thrust from their seats, forced to descend, and driven like a flock of sheep into the space between the tribune and the lower benches. Here they were surrounded by men who enclosed them with a chain of pikes. Vernier took the chair, instead of Boissy-d'Anglas, who was exhausted with fatigue after so perilous a presidency of six hours. It was now nine o'clock. A sort of deliberation was held; it was agreed that the populace should remain covered, and that the deputies alone should take off their hats in token of approbation or disapprobation. The Mountaineers began to hope that the decrees might be passed, and prepared to speak. Romme, who had already spoken once, demanded a decree for the release of the patriots. Duroi said that, ever since the 9th of Thermidor, the enemies of the country had exercised a baneful reaction; that the deputies arrested on the 12th of Germinal had been illegally arrested, and that they ought to be recalled. The president was required to put these various propositions to the vote: hats were taken off, and cries of Adopted! adopted! were raised amidst a tremendouos uproar, though nobody could distinguish whether the deputies had really given their votes or not. Goujon succeeded Romme and Duroi, and said that it was necessary to insure the execution of the decrees; that the committees absented themselves; that it was right to inquire what they were doing; that they ought to be summoned to give an account of their operations; and that an extraordinary commission ought to be instituted in their stead. Herein lay, in fact, the peril of the day. Had the committees continued free to act, they could have come and delivered the Convention from its oppressors. Albitte, the elder, observed that the deliberation was not carried on with sufficient order, that the bureau was not formed, and that they ought to form one. The bureau was immediately composed. Bourbotte demanded the arrest of the journalists. An unknown voice was raised, and said that, in order to prove that the patriots were not cannibals, they ought to abolish the punishment of death. "Yes, yes," cried another, "except for the emigrants and the forgers of assignats." This proposition was adopted in the same form as those which had preceded. Duquesnoi, reverting to Goujon's proposition, renewed the demand for the suspension of the committees, and the appointment of an extraordinary commission of four members. Bourbotte, Prieur of La Marne, Duroi, and Duquesnoi were immediately selected. These four deputies accepted the functions deputed to them. Let them be ever so perilous, they were determined, they said, to fulfil them, or to die at their post. They withdrew for the purpose of repairing to the committee and possessing themselves of all the powers. There lay the difficulty, and on the result of this operation depended entirely the fortune of the day.

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It was nine o'clock. Neither the insurrectional committee nor the committees of the government appear to have acted during this long and awful day. All that the former had had the spirit to do was to urge the populace upon the Convention; but, as we have already observed, obscure chiefs, such as are left in the end of a party, having at their disposal neither the commune, nor the staff of the sections, nor a commandant of the armed force, nor deputies, had not been able to direct the insurrection with the prudence and the vigour requisite to insure success. They had instigated furious wretches, who had perpetrated atrocious outrages, but not done anything that they ought to have done. No detachment had been sent to suspend and paralyze the committees, to open the prisons, and to deliver the resolute men whose succour would have been so serviceable. They had merely possessed themselves of the arsenal, which the gendarmerie of the tribunals, composed entirely of Fouquier-Tinville's soldiery, had given up to the first comers. Meanwhile, the committees of the government, surrounded and defended by the gilded youth, had been exerting all their efforts to assemble the sections. This was no easy task, with the tumult that prevailed, with the consternation that had seized many of them, and even the ill-will that was manifested by some. They had at the outset collected two or three, whose efforts, as we have seen, had been repulsed by the assailants. They had subsequently succeeded in bringing together a greater number, thanks to the zeal of the section Lepelletier, formerly called Filles St. Thomas, and they were preparing towards night to seize the moment when the people, wearied out, should begin to disperse, to fall upon the rioters and to deliver the Convention. Foreseeing clearly that, in this long period of durance, the mob would have wrung from the Assembly the decrees which it was unwilling to pass, they had adopted a resolution declaring that they should not consider as authentic the decrees issued on that day. These arrangements being made, Legendre, Anguis, Chénier, Delecloi, Bergoeng, and Kervelegan, had repaired, at the head of strong detachments, to the Convention. On their arrival, they agreed to leave the doors open, that the mob, pressed on one side, might be able to retreat on the other. Legendre and Delecloi had then undertaken to penetrate into the hall, to mount the tribune in spite of all dangers, and to warn the rioters to retire. they will not comply," said those deputies to their colleagues, "charge, without concerning yourselves about us. Keep pushing on, even though we should perish in the fray."

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Legendre and Delecloi actually penetrated into the hall, at the moment when the four deputies appointed to form the extraordinary commission were retiring. Legendre ascended the tribune, assailed with insults and blows, and began to speak amidst hooting. " I exhort the Assembly to remain firm," said he, "and the citizens who are here to withdraw."*-" Down! down!" was the cry. Legendre and Delecloi were obliged to retire. Duquesnoi then addressed his colleages of the extraordinary commission, and desired them to follow him, in order to suspend the committees which, as they saw, were adverse to the operations of the Assembly. Soubrany urged them to lose no time. All four were then going out, but they met the detachment headed by Legendre, Kervelegan, and Anguis, the representatives, and Raffet, the commandant of the national guard. Prieur of La Marne asked Raffet if he had obtained the president's order for entering. "I am not accountable to you," replied Raffet advancing. The mob was then ordered to retire; the president enjoined it to do so in the name of the law: it replied with yells. The bayonets were immediately lowered; the detachment entered; the unarmed rabble gave way, but armed men among the crowd resisted for a moment. They fled, shouting, "This way, sans-culottes!" Part of the patriots returned at this cry, and charged with fury the detachment which had forced its way in. They obtained a momentary advantage: Kervelegan was wounded in the hand. Bourbotte, Peyssard, and Gaston, the Mountaineers, shouted "Victory!" But the chargestep was heard in the outer hall: a considerable reinforcement had arrived, who rushed upon the insurgents, repulsed, and pursued them with swords and fixed bayonets. They fled, crowding to the doors, clambering up the tribunes, or escaping by the windows. The hall was at length cleared. It was now midnight.

The Convention, delivered from the assailants who had carried violence and death into its bosom, took a short time to recover itself. Tranquillity was at length restored. " It is then true," exclaimed a member, " that this Assembly, the cradle of the republic, had once more well-nigh been its tomb. Fortunately, the crime of the conspirators is prevented. But, representatives, you would not be worthy of the nation, if you were not to avenge it in a signal manner." Applause burst from all sides, and, as on the 12th of Germinal, the night was spent in punishing the misdeeds of the day; but facts of a different kind of importance called for measures of a different sort of severity. The first thing done was to repeal the decrees proposed and passed by the rioters. "Repeal is not the proper word," it was observed to Legendre, who had made this motion. "The Convention did not, could not, vote, while one of its members was murdered before its face. All that has been done was not its act, but that of the ruffians who controlled it, and of some guilty representatives who made themselves their accomplices." All that had been done was then declared null and void. The secretaries burned the minutes of the decrees passed by the rioters. The eyes of the deputies sought those of their colleagues who had spoken during that terrible sitting. They were pointed out with the finger-they were called upon with vehemence. "There is no longer," said Thibaudeau, "any hope of reconciliation between us and a factious minority. Since the sword is drawn, we must fight this faction, and avail ourselves of circumstances for restoring peace and security for ever to this Assembly. I move that you decree forthwith the arrest of those deputies, who, betraying their duty, have endeavoured to realize the wishes of rebellion and moulded them into laws. I propose that the committees immediately submit to you the severest measures against those representatives unfaithful to their country and to their oaths." They were then named. There were Rhul, Romme, and Duroi, who had commanded silence for the purpose of opening the deliberation; Albitte, who had proposed the appointment of a bureau; Goujon and Duquesnoi,* who demanded the suspension of the committees, and the formation of an extraordinary commission of four members; Bourbotte and Prieur of La Marne, who, with Duroi and Duquesnoi, had accepted appointments to that commission; Soubrany, whom the rebels nominated commandant of the Parisian army; and Peyssard, who shouted victory during the combat. Duroi and Goujon attempted to speak. They were prevented-they were called assassins; a decree was instantly issued against them, and it was suggested that they ought not to be allowed to escape, as most of those had done against whom a decree had been passed on the 12th of Germinal. The president directed the gendarmerie to secure them and bring them to the bar. Romme, who did not come forward, was sought for; Bourdon pointed him out, and he was dragged to the bar with his colleagues. Vengeance did not stop there. It aimed at reaching all the Mountaineers who had rendered themselves conspicuous by extraordinary missions in the departments. "I demand," cried one voice, "the arrest of Lecarpentier, the executioner of La Manche." -" Of Pinet the elder," cried another, "the executioner of the people of Biscay." -" Of Borie," cried a third, "the devastator of the South, and of Fayau, one of the exterminators of La Vendée." These propositions were decreed, with shouts of " The Convention for ever! the republic for ever!"- " Let us have no more half measures," said Tallien. " The aim of the movement of this day was to re-establish the Jacobins, and particularly the commune: we must destroy what remains of them; Pache and Bouchotte ought to be arrested. This is only the prelude to the measures which the

* " Goujon was a man who, since the opening of the Convention, had rendered himself remarkable for his private virtues and republican sentiments; Duquesnoi also was distinguished by his statesmanlike qualities." -Duchess d'Abrantes. E.

gamblers was the same as in 1793, the same that it always is. They bought goods, which, rising in relation to the assignat with singular rapidity, increased in value in their hands, and procured them in a few moments a considerable profit. Thus all wishes, all efforts, tended to the fall of paper. There were articles, which were sold and resold thousands of times without ever being removed. People even speculated, as usual, with what they did not possess. They bought a commodity of a seller, who had it not, but who engaged to deliver it at a specified time: when that time arrived, the seller could not deliver it, but he paid the difference between the price at which he sold and the current price of the day, if the commodity had risen; he received that difference, if it had fallen. It was at the Palais Royal, already so obnoxious to the people as the haunt of the gilded youth, that the jobbers met. It was impossible to pass through it without being followed by dealers, carrying in their hands stuffs, gold snuff-boxes, silver plate, rich jewellery. It was at the Chartres coffee-house that all the speculators in the metallic substances assembled. Though gold and silver were no longer considered as merchandise, and though, since 1793, they were forbidden upon very severe penalties to be sold against assignats, the traffic in them was nevertheless carried on almost openly. The louis was sold for 160 livres in paper; and in an hour the price was made to fluctuate from 160 to 200, and even 210 livres.

Thus a frightful dearth of bread, an absolute want of fuel, in weather that was still severe in the middle of spring, an excessive rise in the prices of all commodities, the impossibility of procuring them with a paper that was sinking from day to day; amidst all these evils an unbridled jobbing, accelerating the depreciation of the assignats by its speculations, and affording a spectacle of the most scandalous gambling, and sometimes of sudden fortunes springing up out of the general distress-such was the vast theme of grievances presented to the patriots for exciting the people to commotion.* It behoved the government, as well for the relief of the public distresses, as for preventing a commotion, to redress these grievances-but therein lay the everlasting difficulty.

One expedient was deemed indispensable, as we have seen, to raise the assignats by withdrawing them from circulation; but, in order to withdraw them, it was necessary to sell the domains, and people persisted in shutting their eyes to the real difficulty, that of furnishing purchasers with the means of paying for one-third of the territory. The Assembly had rejected violent means, that is to say, the demonetisation and the forced loan; but it hesitated between the two voluntary means, namely, a lottery and a bank. The proscription of Cambon decided the preference in favour of the plan of Johannot, who had proposed the latter. But, till this chimerical expedient could be made to succeed, an expedient which, even if it did succeed, never could raise the assignats to a par with money, the greatest evil, that of a difference between the nominal value and the real value still existed. Thus the creditor of the state, or other persons, took the assignat at par, and could only pay it away again for one-tenth at most. Proprietors, who had let their lands, received but one-tenth of the rent. Instances were known of farmers who paid their rent with a sack of corn, a fat hog, or a horse. The treasury, in particular, sustained a loss which contributed to the ruin of the finances, and consequently of the paper itself. It took the assignat at its nominal value from the taxpayer, and received per month about fifty millions, which were at most only worth five. To supply this deficit, and to cover the extraordinary expenses of the war, it was obliged to issue assignats to the amount of not less than eight hundred millions per month, on account of their great depreciation. The first thing to be done, until measures should be devised for withdrawing and raising them, was to re-establish the relation between their nominal value and their real value, so that the republic, the creditor of the state, the landowner, the capitalist, in short, all persons paid in paper, might not be ruined.

* "The daily crowds which were in the habit of assembling on account of the distribution of bread, and of the popular fermentation, did not allow the Convention to perceive the preparations that the patriots were making for a general commotion, nor consequently to organize any measures with respect to it."-Mignet. E.

Johannot proposed an expedient, namely, to return to metals as the measure of value. The worth of the assignats in proportion to gold and silver was to be ascertained every day, and they were no longer to be received but at that rate. A person to whom one thousand francs were owing was to be paid ten thousand in assignats, if the assignats were worth only one-tenth of the metals. Taxes, rents, income of all kinds, the purchase-money of the national domains, were to be paid in specie or in assignats at their current value. An objection was made to this adoption of specie as the general standard of all property, in the first place, from an old grudge against metals, which were charged with have ruined paper, and, in the next, because the English, having a great quantity of them, could, it was said, make them vary at pleasure, and would thus be masters of the course of the assignats. These reasons were very paltry; but they decided the Convention to reject metals as the standard of worth. Jean-Bon-St.-André then proposed to adopt corn, which among all nations was the essential standard of value to which all other effects must bear a proportion. Thus the quantity of corn that could be procured for any sum at the time of making a bargain was to be calculated, and such an amount was to be paid in assignats as would be required to purchase at the moment the same quantity of corn. The person who owed rent or taxes to the amount of one thousand francs, at a time when one thousand francs represented one hundred quintals of corn, was to pay the current value of one hundred quintals of corn in assignats. But to this an objection was urged. The calamities of the war and the losses of agriculture had caused the price of corn to rise considerably in proportion to all other articles of consumption or merchandise, and it was worth four times as much. According to the existing currency of the assignats, it ought to have cost but ten times as much as in 1790, namely, one hundred francs per quintal; but it really cost four hundred. The person who owed one thousand francs in 1790 would owe at that moment ten thousand francs if he paid according to the standard of specie, and forty thousand if he had to pay according to the standard of corn; so that he would have to give a value which had become four times too great. The Assembly was, therefore, puzzled what standard of value to adopt. Raffron proposed that from the 30th of the month assignats should fall one per cent. every day. An immediate outcry was raised that this would be a bankruptcy, as if it were not one to reduce the assignats to the standard of specie or of corn, that is, to saddle them at once with a loss of ninety per cent. At the instigation of Bourdon, who talked continually of financial matters without understanding them, a decree was passed, declaring that the Convention would not listen to any proposition tending to bankruptcy.

The reduction of the assignat to the currency must, however, have been attended with one most serious inconvenience. If, in all payments, either of taxes, or rent, or debts due, or for national domains, the assignat were to be taken no longer but at the standard to which it was daily sinking, the fall would have no end, for nothing could stop it. In the actual state of things, in fact, the assignat, being still capable of serving, from its nominal value, for the payment of taxes, of rents, of all sums due, had an employment which still gave a certain reality to its value; but if it was to be taken everywhere only at the standard of the day, it must sink indefinitely and without limit. The assignat issued to-day for one thousand franes might tomorrow be worth but one hundred francs, but one franc, but on centime; it would, indeed, no longer ruin any one, either private individuals or the state, for all would take it merely for what it was worth: but its value, being in no case compulsory, would instantly sink to nothing. There was no reason why a nominal thousand millions should not fall to one real franc, and then the resource of paper-money, still indispensable to the government, would be entirely cut off.

Dubois-Crancé, considering all these plans as dangerous, opposed the reduction of the assignats to the currency, and overlooking the sufferings of those who were ruined by payment in paper, merely proposed to levy the land-tax in kind. The state might thus secure the means of subsisting the armies and the great communes, and spare the issue of three or four thousand millions in paper, which