When the priest bearing the Host passes along the street, the crowd "gathers from all sides, men, women, and children, young and old, and fall on their knees in worship."[3356] The day on which the relics of saint Leu are borne in procession through the Rue St.Martin, "everybody kneels; I did not see a man," says a careful observer, "that did not take off his hat.

At the guard-house of the Mauconseil section, the entire company presented arms." At the same time the "citoyennes around the markets talked with each other to know if there was any way of decking houses with tapestry."[3357] The following week they compel the revolutionary committee of Saint-Eustache[3358] to authorize another procession, and again each one kneels: "everybody approved of the ceremony, no one, that I heard of; making any objection.
This is a striking picture....

I saw repentance, I saw the parallel each is forced to draw between the actual state of things and the former one.

I saw what a privation the people had to endure in the loss of that which, formerly, was the most imposing of all church ceremonies.

People of all ranks and ages were deeply affected and humble, and many had tears in their eyes." Now, in this respect, the Girondists, by virtue of being philosophers, are more iconoclastic, more intolerant than any one, and there is no reason for preferring them to their adversaries.