THE TWELFTH VENDéMIAIRE  
On the morning of the 12th Vendémiaire, all the walls were covered with posters enjoining the national guards to report at their several Sections, which were threatened by the Terrorists, or, in other words, the Convention.
At nine o'clock in the morning the Section Le Peletier declared its sessions permanent, and proclaimed revolt by beating to arms in all the quarters of Paris. The Convention, exasperated, did likewise. Messengers were sent through the streets to reassure the citizens and to vouch for those to whom arms had been given. The air was filled with those strange thrills which betray the fevers of great cities, and which are the symptoms of great events. It was recognized that, so far as the Sections were concerned, the rebellion had gained such strength that it was no longer a question of reclaiming and convincing them, but of crushing them.
None of the days of the Revolution had yet dawned with such terrible presages—not the 14th of July, nor the 10th of August, nor even the 2d of September.
About eleven o'clock in the morning the Convention felt that the moment for action had arrived. Seeing that the Section Le Peletier was the headquarters, it was resolved to disarm it, and General Menou was ordered to march against it with a sufficient body of troops and artillery.
The general came from Sablons and crossed Paris. But when he reached the city he saw something that he had not suspected; namely, that he was opposing the nobility and the richer citizens, the class which represented public opinion. It was not the faubourgs, as he had supposed,[Pg 287] which were to be swept with hot shell, it was the Place Vend?me, the Rue Saint-Honoré, the Boulevards, and the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
The man of the 1st Prairial hesitated on the 12th Vendémiaire. He went on, however, but so reluctantly that the Convention was obliged to send Representative Laporte to urge him on. All Paris was watching this great duel. Unfortunately the Section Le Peletier had for a president the man whom we already know from his interviews with the president of the Convention and the Chouan general; he was as rapid in his decisions as Menou was feeble and hesitating.
Therefore it was already eight o'clock in the evening when General Verdières received orders from General Menou to take sixty grenadiers of the Convention, one hundred of the battalion of the Oise, and twenty horsemen, to form a column on the left side of the Rue des Filles-de-Saint-Thomas, and there to await orders.
Scarcely, however, had he entered the Rue Vivienne than Morgan appeared at the door of the Convent of the Daughters of Saint-Thomas, where the Section Le Peletier was in session, and ordered out a hundred of the Sectional party, commanding them to shoulder arms. Morgan's grenadiers obeyed without hesitation. Verdières gave the same order to his troops, but murmurs of dissent were heard.
"Friends," cried Morgan, "we shall not fire first, but when the fighting has once begun you need expect no quarter from us. If the Convention wants war it shall have it."
Verdières's grenadiers wished to reply, but the general called out: "Silence in the ranks!"
He was obeyed. Then he ordered the cavalry to draw their sabres and the infantry to ground arms. In the meantime the centre column arrived by way of the Rue Vivienne, and the right by the Rue N?tre-Dame-des-Victoires.
The entire assembly had been converted into an armed force; a thousand men issued from the convent and formed[Pg 288] in the portico. Morgan, sword in hand, placed himself a few steps in advance of the rest.
"Citizens," he said, addressing the Sectionists under his orders, "you are for the most part married men and fathers of families; I am, therefore, responsible for more lives than yours; as much as............