"I declare," say deputies in the tribune, "that I am not free here; I declare that I am forced to debate under the knife."[3430] Charles Villette is told at the entrance that "if he does not vote for the King's death he will be massacred."-- And these are not empty threats.

On the 10th of March, awaiting the promised riot, "the tribunes, duly advised,...

had already loaded their pistols."[3431] In the month of May, the tattered women hired for the purpose, under the title of "Ladies of the Fraternity," formed a club, came daily early in the morning to mount guard, with arms in their hands, in the corridors of the Convention; they tear up all tickets given to men or women not of their band; they take possession of all the seats, show pistols and daggers, and declare that "eighteen hundred heads must be knocked off to make things go on right." Behind these two first rows of assailants is a third, much more compact, the more fearful because it is undefined and obscure, namely, the vague multitude forming the anarchical set, scattered throughout Paris, and always ready to renew the 10th of August and 2nd of September against the obstinate majority.

Incendiary motions and demands for riots come incessantly from the Commune, and Jacobin, Cordeliers, and l'Eveche clubs; from the assemblies of the sections and groups stationed at the Tuileries and in the streets.

"Yesterday," writes the president of the Tuileries section,[3433] "at the same moment, at various points about Paris, the Rue du Bac, at the Marais, in the Church of St.Eustache, at the Palace of the Revolution, on the Feuillants terrace, scoundrels were preaching pillage and assassination."-- On the following day, again on the Feuillants terrace, that is to say, right under the windows of the Convention, "they urge the assassination of Louvel for having denounced Robespierre.