Never, I believe, had
that square been more crowded--not even in the days when it was known as
the Place Louis Quinze, and when hundreds of people were crushed to death
there whilst witnessing a display of fireworks in connection with the
espousals of the future Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, not even when it
had become the Place de la Revolution and was thronged by all who wished
to witness the successive executions of the last King and Queen of the old
French monarchy. From the end of the Rue Royale to the bridge conducting
across the Seine to the Palais Bourbon, from the gate of the Tuileries
garden to the horses of Marly at the entrance of the Champs Elysees,
around the obelisk of Luxor, and the fountains which were playing as usual
in the bright sunshine which fell from the blue sky, along all the
balustrades connecting the seated statues of the cities of France, here,
there, and everywhere, indeed, you saw human heads. And the clamour was
universal. The great square had again become one of Revolution, and yet
it remained one of Concord also, for there was absolute agreement among
the hundred thousand or hundred and fifty thousand people who had chosen
it as their meeting-place, an agreement attested by that universal and
never-ceasing cry of "Dethronement!"
As the armed National Guards debouched from the Rue Royale, their solitary
drummer plied his sticks.
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