It is thus that in a conflagration the most tainted substances oft light the fire; the combustible matter is foul, but the flames pure; the flame of the Revolution was liberty; the factious might dim, they could not stain, its brightness.
Whilst the conspirators of Charenton distributed their _roles_ and recruited their forces, the king trembled for his wife and children at the Tuileries.

"Who knows," said he, to M.de Malesherbes, with a melancholy smile, "whether I shall behold the sun set to-morrow ?" Petion, by ordering the municipal forces and the national guards under his orders to resist, could have entirely put down the sedition.

The directory of the department presided over by the unfortunate Duc de la Rochefoucauld, summoned Petion in the most energetic terms to perform his duty.

Petion smiled, took all on himself, and justified the legality of the proposed meetings and the petitions presented _en masse_ to the Assembly.
Vergniaud in the tribune repelled the alarm felt by the constitutionalists, as calumnies against the innocence of the people.
Condorcet laughed at the disquietude manifested by the ministers, and the demands for armed force they addressed to the Assembly.

"Is it not amusing," said he, addressing his colleagues, "to see the executive power demanding the means of action from the legislators?
let them save themselves, it is their trade." Thus derision was united to the plots against the unfortunate monarch; the legislators derided the power their hands had disarmed, and applauded the factious.
IX.
It was under these auspices that the 20th of June dawned.