In the Hôtel de Ville, closely closeted, sat the Provisional Government of France. Over that stern old citadel, over the dismantled Palace of the Tuileries, from the tall summit of the Column of Vendôme, over the Hôtel des Invalides and in the Place de la Bastille is seen a blood-red banner, streaming out like a meteor on the keen north-western blast. Eighty thousand armed men invest the Hôtel de Ville, and wave on wave, wave on wave, the living and stormy tide eddies and welters and dashes around that dark old pile. All its avenues are held; its courts are thronged; ordnance frowns from its black portals and against its gates; drums roll--banners stream--bayonets glitter; and from those tens of thousands of hoarse and stormy voices goes up but one shout of menace and command: "Vive la République! Vive la République! No kings! No Bourbons! Down--down forever with the kings!"
And upward to that dark old pile of despotism, as to the temple of Liberty herself, are turned those tens of thousands of swarthy faces, dark with the smoke of battle, yet livid with excitement and exhaustion--and as they realize that within those walls the question of their fate and that of their country is then being settled--that from that night's counsels in that vast and ancient edifice are to flow peace and prosperity, and freedom and plenty, or else all the untold terrors of anarchy, civil war, bloodshed, violence and strife--what wonder that the sitting of the council seemed endless and their own impatience became intolerable--that all imaginable doubts and fears and absurd apprehensions took possession of their inflamed imaginations?--that at one time the rumor should fly, and win credence as it flew, that the Provisional Government were consulting with the friends of Henry V.--or again, that they were considering the question of a Regency--and that under such influences they should roar and yell, and thunder for admission at the gates, and burden the air with their shouts?
"No Bourbons! No kings! No Regency! Death--death to all kings! La République! La République! La République!"
At times, in terrific concert, would the thousands of uplifted throats roar forth the chorus of that startling canticle of '92: "Vive la république! Vive la république! Debout, peuple Français! debout, peuple héroïque! Debout, peuple Français! Vive la république!"
Then the song would change and the mournful notes of the "Death Hymn of the Girondins,"--"Mourir Pour la Patrie"--would swell in wild yet solemn cadence on the wintry blast: DEATH HYMN OF THE GIRONDINS.