At Paris, a similar petition, drawn up by two former Constituents, contains 247 pages of signatures attested by 99 notaries.[2604] Even in the council-general of the commune a majority is in favor of publicly censuring the mayor Petion, the syndic-attorney Manuel, and the police administrators Panis, Sergent, Viguer, and Perron.[2605] On the evening of June 20th, the department council orders an investigation; it follows this up; it urges it on; it proves by authentic documents the willful inaction, the hypocritical connivance, the double-dealing of the syndic-attorney and the mayor;[2606] it suspends both from their functions, and cites them before the courts as well as Santerre and his accomplices.

Lafayette, finally, adding to the weight of his opinion the influence of his presence, appears at the bar of the National Assembly and demands "effectual" measures against the usurpations of the Jacobin sect, insisting that the instigators of the riot of the 20th of June be punished "as guilty of lese-nation." As a last and still more significant symptom, his proceedings are approved of in the Assembly by a majority of more than one hundred votes.[2607] All this must and will be crushed out.

For on the side of the Constitutionalists, whatever they may be, whether King, deputies, ministers, generals, administrators, notables or national-guards, the will to act evaporates in words; and the reason is, they are civilized beings, long accustomed to the ways of a regular community, interested from father to son in keeping the law, disconcerted at the thought of consequences, upset by multifaceted ideas, unable to comprehend that, in the state of nature to which France has reverted, but one idea is of any account, that of the man who, in accepting a declared war, meets the offensive with the offensive, loads his gun, descends into the street and contends with the savage destroyers of human society .-- --Nobody comes to the support of Lafayette, who alone has the courage to take the lead; about one hundred men muster at the rendezvous named by him in the Champs-Elysees.

They agree to march to the Jacobin club the following day and close it, provided the number is increased to three hundred; but the next day only thirty turn up.

Lafayette can do no more than leave Paris and write a letter containing another protest .-- Protestations, appeals to the Constitution, to the law, to public interest, to common sense, well-reasoned arguments; this side will never resort to anything else than speeches and paperwork; and, in the coming conflict words will be of no use .-- Imagine a quarrel between two men, one ably presenting his case and the other indulging in little more than invective; the latter, having encountered an enormous mastiff on his road, has caressed him, enticed him, and led him along with him as an auxiliary.