THE HOTEL OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN  
As Coster de Saint-Victor had announced, Barras had been appointed about one o'clock in the morning commander of the forces within and without Paris, and all civil and military authorities were placed under his orders.
This choice did not deserve Coster de Saint-Victor's derision. Barras was brave, cool, and devoted to the cause of liberty, and at Toulon he had given irrefutable proofs of his bravery and patriotism. He did not deceive himself in regard to the danger of the situation, and the terrible responsibility which rested upon his shoulders. Nevertheless, he remained perfectly calm. Even while pushing his appointment with all his might, he had known of an auxiliary, unknown to all others, upon whom he could rely.
He therefore left the Tuileries immediately after his nomination, attired in a long dark overcoat, and hesitated a moment whether to take a carriage or not; but thinking that a carriage would attract notice and might be stopped, he drew a large pair of pistols from his pocket, and contented himself with securing them in his deputy's sash beneath his overcoat. Then he set off on foot through the Echelle wicket. He went along the Rue Traversière, passed the Palais Royal, followed the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs[Pg 307] for a few steps, and found himself opposite the Rue des Fosses-Montmartre. It had been pouring in torrents during all this time.
Everything was in frightful confusion, a fact of which Barras was well aware. He knew that the artillery was still in the camp at Sablons, and that it was guarded by one hundred and fifty men only. He also knew that there were only eighty thousand cartridges in the magazine, and that there were no provisions and no brandy. He knew that all communication with the staff, who had their headquarters on the Boulevard des Capucines, was cut off by the Sectionists of the Club Le Peletier, who had extended their line of sentinels from the Rue des Filles de Saint-Thomas as far as the Rue Saint-Pierre-Montmartre and the Place Vend?me. He was aware of the exasperated pride of the Sectionists, who, as we have seen, had raised the standard of revolt; he knew of the expedition of the preceding day, so shamefully conducted by Menou, and so vigorously received by Morgan, which had doubled their actual strength and quadrupled their moral strength.
On all sides the report was rife that this Section, hemmed in by thirty thousand Conventionals, had overawed them by their courage, and had repulsed them, and forced them to shameful retreat by the skilful disposition of their troops.
Every one spoke of the audacity which Morgan had displayed in placing himself between the two troops, of his lofty air, and that hauteur with which he had addressed General Menou and Representative Laporte. It was whispered, but whispered with the greatest precautions, that he was a great personage, a very great personage, who had only returned to Paris some three or four days before, bearing letters of the highest recommendation to the royalist committees in Paris from the royalist committees in London.
The Convention was already no longer hated; it was despised. And, in truth, what had the Sections to fear from it, spared because of its weakness? They had united during the night of the 11th, and on the 12th had sent de[Pg 308]tachments to support the Mother Section. They therefore felt that the National Convention would be annihilated, and were prepared to sing the De Profundis over its corpse.
Thus, on his way across Paris, Barras was constantly confronted by one or another of those Sections which had come to the assistance of the Mother Section, and who accosted him thus: "Who goes there?"
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