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“EVENTS ON THE CHAMPS DE MARS. 209 
were carried through the streets. The news of this attack 
excited the indignation of all the deputies, and under this 
impression, Alexander Lameth, then President of the 
Assembly, of his own accord transmitted to Bailly very 
severe new orders, a circumstance which, though only 
said en passant, has been but recently known. 
The municipal body, as soon as it was informed, about 
eleven o’clock, of the two assassinations, deputed three of 
its members, furnished with full powers, to reéstablish 
order. Strong detachments accompanied the municipal 
officers. About two o’clock it was reported that stones 
had been thrown at the National Guard. The Municipal 
Council instantly had martial law proclaimed on the 
Place de Gréve, and the red flag suspended from the 
principal window of the Hotel de Ville. At half-past 
five o'clock, just when the municipal body was about 
‘to start for the Champ de Mars, the three councillors, 
who had been sent in the morning to the scene of dis- 
order, returned, accompanied by a deputation of twelve 
persons, taken from among the petitioners. The ex- 
planations given on various sides occasioned a new de- 
liberation of the Council. The first decision was main- 
tained, and at six o'clock the municipality began its 
march with the red flag, three pieces of cannon, and 
numerous detachments of the National Guard. 
Bailly, as chief of the municipality, found himself at 
this time in one of those solemn and perilous situations, 
in which a man becomes responsible in the eyes of a 
whole nation, in the eyes of posterity, for the inconsider- 
ate or even culpable actions of the passionate multitude 
that surrounds him, but which he scarcely knows, and 
over which he has little or no influence. 
The National Guard, in that early epoch of the revo- 
