THE ELEVENTH VENDéMIAIRE  
One of the resolutions passed at the royalist agency in the Rue des Postes, after Cadoudal's departure on the evening to which we have referred, was that a meeting should be held the following evening at the Théatre of the Odéon.
During the evening, as we have seen, a crowd of men, led by some fifty of the members of the jeunesse dorée, had repaired to the hall of the Convention, but their chief, Coster de Saint-Victor, having disappeared as completely as if he had vanished through some trap-door, the mob and the muscadins beat in vain against the doors of the Convention, whose members had been forewarned by Barras of the attack which was about to be made upon them.
From an artistic point of view, it would have been a great loss if the two pictures, against which the crowd were so incensed, had been destroyed. "The Death of Marat" was in particular one of David's masterpieces.
But the Convention, seeing the dangers to which it was exposed, and knowing that a fresh crater might burst forth in the volcano of Paris at any moment, declared itself in permanent session. The three representatives—Gillet, Aubry and Delmas—who, since the 4th Prairial, had been in command of the forces, were given authority to take all measures necessary for the safety of the Convention. This was done all the more thoroughly when it was learned, through those who had been present at the preparations for the following day, that there was to be a meeting of armed citizens at the Odéon the following evening, and their anxiety reached a culminating point.
The next day, the 3d of October (11th Vendémiaire), had been set apart for a funeral celebration, to be held in the[Pg 283] Hall of Sessions itself, in memory of the Girondins. Several members proposed that the ceremony should be postponed for another day, but Tallien arose and said that it was unworthy of the Convention not to attend to its duties in times of danger even as in times of peace.
In permanent session, the Convention issued a decree ordering all illegal meetings of electors to disperse. The night passed in the midst of uproars which beggar description in all parts of the city. Shots were fired and people were knocked down. Whenever bands of the Sections and the Convention met, blows invariably ensued.
The Sections, on the other hand, in virtue of the rights of sovereignty they had assumed, issued their own decrees. Thus it was as a result of a decree of the Section Le Peletier that the meeting at the Odéon had been set for the 11th Vendémiaire.
Every moment brought in most disastrous news from the towns around Paris where the royalist committee had established its agencies. Risings had occurred at Orléans, Dreux, Verneuil, and Nonancourt. At Chartres, Tellier, the representative, had endeavored to prevent an insurrection, and finding that his efforts were unavailing, he blew out his brains. The Chouans had cut down all the trees planted in honor of the 14th of July—those glorious symbols of the people's triumph. They had hurled the Statue of Liberty into the mud; and in the provinces, as well as in Paris, patriots had been assaulted in the streets.
While the Convention was deliberating against the conspirators, the latter, in their turn, were acting against the Convention. About eleven in the morning the electors began to put in appearance at the Odéon, although only the more adventurous had taken this risk, and had they been counted they would scarcely have comprised a full thousand. In their midst a crowd of young men passed to and fro, shouting, scraping the railings and overturning the seats with their swords. But the number of chasseurs and grenadiers sent by the Sections did not exceed four[Pg 284] hundred. More ............