They see above and in a circle around them drilled adversaries, eight or nine hundred heads packed "in the great gallery at the bottom, under a deep and silent vault," and, besides these, on the sides, a thousand or fifteen hundred more, two immense tribunes completely filled.[3425] The galleries of the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, compared with these, were calm.

Nothing is more disgraceful to the Convention, writes a foreign spectator,[3426] than the insolence of the audience.

One of the regulations prohibits, indeed, any mark of approval or disapproval, "but it is violated every day, and nobody is ever punished for this delinquency." The majority in vain expresses its indignation at this "gang of hired ruffians," who beset and oppress it, while at the very time that it utters its complaints, it endures and tolerates it.
"The struggle is frightful," says a deputy,[3427] "screams, murmurs, stampings, shouts...

The foulest insults were launched from the galleries." "For a long time," says another, "no one can speak here without obtaining their permission."[3428] The day that Buzot obtains the floor to speak against Marat, "they break out furiously, yelling, stamping, and threatening";[3429] every time that Buzot tries to begin his voice is drowned in the clamor, while he remains half an hour in the tribune without completing a sentence.

On the calls of the House, especially, their cries resemble those of the excited crowd at a Spanish bull-fight, with their eager eyes and heaving breasts, watching the contest between the bull and the picadores; every time that a deputy votes against the death of the King or for an appeal to the people, there are the "vociferations of cannibals," and "interminable yells" every time that one votes for the indictment of Marat.