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Updated: April 30, 2025
At the moment when the struggle was expected, the leaders of the projected movement were invisible. The night was spent in military preparations against the meeting on the morrow. On the 17th, very early in the morning, the people, without leaders, began to collect in the Champ-de-Mars, and surround the altar of the country, raised in the centre of the large square of the confederation.
The house of the Maréchal Lobau, forming the corner of the Rue de Bourbon, is the one I prefer of all those I have yet seen, although it has many désagrémens for so large an establishment as ours. But I am called to go to the review in the Champ-de-Mars, so allons for a spectacle militaire, which, I am told, is to be very fine.
After the massacre of the Champ-de-Mars, accused of having conspired with the originators of the petition of forfeiture, and threatened with vengeance by the National Guard, Robespierre was obliged to conceal himself. Madame Roland, accompanied by her husband, went at 11 o'clock at night to his retreat in the Marais, to offer him a safer asylum in their own house.
On that day the crowd was immense in the Champ-de-Mars and in the Temple of Mars, the name which at that the Church of the Invalides still preserved. Lucien delivered a speech on the encouraging prospects of France, and Lannes made an appropriate address on presenting to the Government the flags taken at Marengo.
"We swear it," said in its turn the whole army, while the bands played the celebrated march known as "The March of the Standards." This intense enthusiasm was communicated to the spectators, who, in spite of the rain, pressed in crowds upon the terraces which surrounded the enclosure of the Champ-de-Mars.
At length, when well-nigh exhausted in defence of the emblem of a moderate Republic, he exclaimed: "The red flag has been nowhere except around the Champ-de-Mars, trailed in the blood of the people, while the tri-color has been around the world with our navy, our glory and our liberties!"
They breakfasted together, after which his Majesty, accompanied by the King of Saxony, his brothers and nephews, repaired to the meadow behind the palace, where fifteen thousand men of the guard awaited him in as fine condition as on the most brilliant parades on the Champ-de-Mars.
La Fayette, Bailly, and the municipal authorities commenced their march preceded by the red flag, and followed by 10,000 national guards, the paid battalions of grenadiers of this army of citizens formed the advanced guard. An immense concourse of people followed by a natural impulse this mass of bayonets that slowly descended the quays and the rue du Gros-Caillou, towards the Champ-de-Mars.
It is true, the object of the occasion was imposing; but how could an impressive ceremony be held in a deluge of melted snow, and amid a sea of mud, which was the appearance the Champ-de-Mars presented that day? The troops were under arms from six in the morning, exposed to rain, and forced to endure it with no apparent necessity so at least they regarded it.
"What do you think of it?" added he, smiling; "does the site appear well chosen?" One morning in the month of March, the Emperor brought his son to a review on the Champ-de-Mars; he was received with indescribable enthusiasm, the sincerity of which was undoubted; and it could easily be seen that these acclamations came from the heart.
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