Thou wast named in conjunction with Brissot to draw up this petition.

You both escaped the prey of La Fayette, who caused the slaughter of ten thousand patriots.

Brissot remained calmly in Paris, and thou didst hasten to Arcis-sur-Aube, to pass some agreeable days.

Can one fancy thy tranquil joys--thou being one of the drawers up of this petition, whilst those who signed the document were loaded with irons, or weltering in their blood?
You were then--thou and Brissot--objects for the gratitude of tyranny; because, assuredly, you could not be the objects of its detestation!" Camille Desmoulins thus justifies the absence of Danton, himself, and Freron, by asserting that Danton had fled from proscription and assassination to the house of his father-in-law, at Fontenay, on the previous night, and was tracked thither by a band of La Fayette's spies; and that Freron, whilst crossing the Pont Neuf, had been assailed, trampled under foot, and wounded by fourteen hired ruffians; whilst Camille himself, marked for the dagger, only escaped by a mistake in his description.

History has not put any faith in these pretended assassinations of La Fayette.
Camille, invisible all day, repaired in the evening to the Jacobins.
XIII.
In the mean while the crowd began to congregate in vast masses in the Champ-de-Mars--agitated, but inoffensive--the national guard, every battalion of whom La Fayette had ordered out, were under arms.