Hence, on seeing
the Convention arm their old executioners, "the tigers" of the Reign
of Terror, admitted malefactors, against them, they cannot contain
themselves.[26] "That day," says a foreigner, who visited many public
places in Paris, "I saw everywhere the deepest despair, the greatest
expression of rage and fury. . . . Without that unfortunate order
the insurrection would probably not have broken out." If they take up
arms it is because they are brought back under the pikes of the
Septembriseurs, and under Robespierre's axe. - But they are only
national guards; most of them have no guns;[27] they are in want of
gunpowder, those who have any having only five or six charges ; "the
great majority do not think of fighting;" they imagine that "their
presence is merely needed to enforce a petition;" they have no
artillery, no positive leader; it is simply excitement, precipitation,
disorder and mistaken maneuvers.[28] On the contrary, on the side of
the Convention, with Henriot's old bullies, there are eight or nine
thousand regular troops, and Bonaparte; his cannon, which rake the rue
Saint Honor? and the Quai Voltaire, mow down five or six hundred
sectionists.
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