HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
employed in accusing, and signing, 
and executing orders for arrests. 
Under pretext of searching for 
eoncealed arms, all the citizens, 
except those who were to be em- 
ployed by the municipality, were 
ordered to remain at home; the 
barriers were shut; and armed men 
were stationed at all the corners of 
the streets. The members of the 
sections having become the agents 
of the principal leaders, through 
fear, the whole of the Parisian 
guards, with only a few excep- 
tions, were just as completely un- 
der their command as ever they had 
_ been under that of Bailly or La 
. 
: 
{ 
| 
Fayette. About one g’clock each 
morning, for several weeks, the 
search began by patroles of men of 
the lowest rabble, with pikes, un- 
der the orders of commissaries of 
the sections. When the Assembly 
discovered that the municipality 
was going on so fast with arrests 
that some of its own members were 
among the number of the arrested, 
they passed a decree for dissolving 
that corporations But Hueguenin, 
president of the municipality, being 
sent for, notbecause he had arrested 
‘2000 innocent and respectable per- 
sons, but because he had summoned 
before histribunala clerk belonging 
to Brissot’s newspaper-office, de- 
clared to the Assembly that the mu- 
nicipality had unlimited powers, and 
that it was the representative of the 
sovereign of Paris:—and Petion, 
at the head of a deputation from 
the municipality (August 31) coolly 
menaced the Assembly with an in- 
surrection, the great instrument of 
yower, if they did not annul the 
decree, Tallien proposed a plan 
of compromise, which was adopted. 
is was a new organization of the 
municipality. ‘This transaction is 
Bt {| 
[55 
recorded for the purpose of shew- 
ing how completely the Assembly 
was under subjection to the muni- 
cipality ; as the municipality, on 
their part, acted in the name and 
spirit of the lowest classes of Paris, 
and of France. 
As the Assembly was threatened 
by the people, so the people were 
threatened by the approach of the 
Prussians under the Duke of Bruns- 
wick; so that the affairs of France 
at this time were completely under 
the government of the principle of 
terror. 
In these circumstances, Danton, 
the minister of justice, by promises 
and threats, procured from the As- 
sembly, Sep. 2d, a decree for walk- 
ing commissaries, tosecond the good 
intentions, and execute the will of 
the executive power, in aiding him 
to save the country. By this de. 
cree, whoever refused to give up 
their arms, or to serve in the army, 
was declared a traitor to his coun- 
try, and to be punished with death. 
Danton was no sooner furnished 
with these powers, than the barriers 
were shut; and the municipality 
published the following proclama- 
tion: “ Citizens, the enemy is at 
the gates of Paris. Verdun can 
hold out only eight days. Let us 
assemble quickly at the Champ de 
Mars, and there form an army of 
60,000 men, in order to march 
against the enemy.”” 
As the prisons were now nearly 
filled with victims, it was thought 
time to prepare for getting rid of 
them in the manner of the 10th of 
August ; and the usual artifice was 
practised, of exciting the people to 
acts of bloodshed, by rousing their 
fears. The tocsin was sounded, the 
cannon of alarm fired, and the mas- 
sacre on the point of commence- 
[E] 4 ment, 
