BOOK XI.
I.
The echo of these triumphs of insubordination and murder was felt every where in the mutinous conduct of the troops, the disobedience of the national guard, and the risings of the populace; whilst at Paris they _feted_ the Swiss of Chateauvieux, the mob of Marseilles demanded with much violence that the Swiss regiment of _Ernst_ should be expelled from the garrison at Aix, under pretext that they favoured the aristocracy, and that the security of Provence was thereby menaced.

On the refusal of this regiment to quit the city, the Marseillaise marched upon Aix as the Parisians had marched upon Versailles in the days of October.

They by violence compelled the national guard to accompany them, who had been destined to repress them; they surrounded the regiment of Ernst with cannon, made them lay down their arms, and shamefully drove them before sedition.

The national guard, a force essentially revolutionary, because it participates, like the people, in the opinions, feelings, and passions, which, as a civic guard, it ought to repress, followed in every direction, from weakness or example, the fickle impressions of the mob.

How could men, just leaving clubs, where they had been listening to, applauding, and frequently exciting sedition in patriotic discourses,--how could they, changing their feelings and part at the door of popular societies, take arms against the seditious?
Thus they remained spectators, when they were not accomplices, of insurrections.
The scarcity of colonial produce, the dearness of grain, the rigour of a hard winter, all contributed to disturb the people: the agitators turned all these misfortunes of the times into accusations and grounds of hatred against royalty.
II.
The government, powerless and disarmed, was rendered responsible for the severities of nature.