138 Jeanette Needham. 
as follows: ‘‘Although we are not learned, we are not stupid 
enough to be persuaded that it is night in the full light of day, 
or that bladders are lanterns; no more can we be made to believe 
that our fellow citizens, our defenders, are our enemies... . 
In consequence we soldiers assigned to the guard of the city 
of Paris have unanimously decreed as follows: decreed that no 
guard will use his arms against his fellow citizens; . . . decreed, 
that under no pretext whatsoever will the soldiers of the guard 
assist in any act of authority against the national assembly, 
which they regard as the defender of France.’’? 
Another pamphlet is ostensibly a decree passed by the grena- 
diers of the first company of the French Guards, evidently the 
same company which Maleissye says showed insubordination 
on June 23. The decree, which is dated June 24, the day they 
are said to have returned from Versailles, expressly states: 
‘We, the undersigned grenadiers of the French Guards, . . 
promise and swear upon our honor and our flags to defend our 
good king against all his enemies and to shed for him our last 
drop of blood, as we pledged ourselves to do on entering his 
service and as our hearts impel us todo. But... at the same 
time, we swear and promise the country to disobey every order, 
no matter where it comes from or by whom it may be given to 
us, which tends to deprive our good king of a single one of his 
subjects; and in case we should be ordered to fire upon the 
people, nom d’un diable, we swear to throw down our arms, and 
to go under the protection of M. Necker who will never permit 
brave soldiers to fight their fathers, their brothers, or their 
friends; let those scoundrels who give bad advice to our good 
king, learn, if they do not know it, that we still have in mind 
the siege of the palace! Let them not take it into their heads 
to have us undertake the siege of the estates-general! We 
would be rascals, if we marched against the worthy citizens who 
are in the national assembly, all of whom we regard like our- . 
selves, as the fathers of the country and the friends of the third 
estate .... Done and decreed unanimously in the barracks 
6 Quoted in French in Becker, Die Verfassungspolitik der franzdsischen 
Regierung, 265-266. 
252 
