Within a few minutes, however, there was a renewed assault upon the locked doors, one of which was forced off its hinges with a splintering of wood and a shower of plaster. Once more the mob rushed in as the deputies on the lower seats scrambled towards the upper benches, out of harm’s way. At this moment, men armed with muskets and bayonets from one of the sections loyal to the Convention, appeared on the scene and managed to drive the assailants back. But the crowd outside the hall was constantly growing until, shortly before three o’clock, though the men who had come to the Convention’s defence stood by the doors with crossed bayonets, the mob forced their way in yet again, those in front being pushed forward by the pressure of bodies behind. The deputies rose from their seats shouting ‘The Republic for ever!’ as shots were fired and musket balls ricochetted about the walls. One brave deputy, a young man from the valley of the Douro named Jean Féraud, came forward to face the invaders, throwing himself down in front of them, and crying out, ‘Kill me! You will have to pass over my body before you take another step.’ The invaders ignored him, trampling over him and, while some sat down in the seats vacated by the deputies who had moved to those higher up the hall, others advanced towards the President’s chair, now occupied by Boissy d’Anglas instead of the exhausted Dumont.
Seeing his new President thus threatened, the intrepid Féraud jumped to his feet, ran to protect him and was shot and killed in the ensuing scuffle. His body, kicked by wooden sabots, was dragged outside, decapitated by a tavern-keeper who ‘sliced off his head like a turnip’ and threw it back to the crowd. It was then taken back into the hall, impaled upon a pike, to intimidate the President. Boissy d’Anglas remained calm and collected, at first holding up his arm to screen his eyes from the horrible sight of Féraud’s dripping head, then bowing sadly and respectfully towards it. And while the crowd shouted, beat drums and rattled the staffs of their pikes on the floor, various deputies endeavoured to make themselves heard above the uproar, the Montagnards amongst them apparently ready to give way to some of the demonstrators’ demands. But exactly what these demands were it was difficult to determine. Some, amidst cries for bread and the 1793 Constitution, called for the release of all patriots, others for the re-establishment of the Commune. One man repeatedly shouted for the arrest of all émigrés, another for house to house searches for hidden food, and a third kept up for half an hour an insistent chant of ‘The arrest of all rogues and tyrants! The arrest of all rogues and tyrants!’ For two hours the wild confusion continued unabated until one of the leaders of the demonstrators, whose name was never discovered, proposed that the deputies should be brought down from the seats to which they had climbed for refuge, collected on the floor of the hall and forced to discuss the people’s plight. This was done, and there followed an inconclusive debate in which nothing of importance was decided and votes were registered in such a chaotic manner that it was impossible to determine who had voted for what. In any case the Government Committees had already decided that no measures which might be adopted under duress were to be considered binding.
The Committees had by now assembled sufficient forces to disperse the rioters, and at about half-past eleven the leading columns arrived at the Tuileries. Their commander, Danton’s friend, the butcher Legendre, who had become one of the principal proponents of reaction, mounted the rostrum and shouted above the din, ‘I exhort the Convention to stand firm. And, in the name of the law, I command the citizens who are here to withdraw.’
He was shouted down by the rioters, but, after a brief struggle in which a few men were wounded, the insurgents were at long last cleared out of the building. As they fled through the doors and jumped from the windows, a deputy stood up to speak. ‘So this assembly,’ he said, ‘the cradle of the Republic, has once more almost become its tomb. Fortunately the crimes of the conspirators have been averted. But, fellow-representatives, you would not be worthy of the nation if you were not to avenge them in a signal manner.’ Cheers and clapping greeted these words from all sides, and fourteen Montagnards who had spoken in defence of the demonstrators, or were believed to be in sympathy with them, were immediately arrested. The names of other Montagnards who had earned unfortunate reputations for themselves in the provinces were then called out and the arrest of these men, too, was demanded to enthusiastic shouts of ‘The Convention for ever!’
‘Let us have no more half measures,’ cried Tallien, whose behaviour at Bordeaux had for a time been far more merciless than that of any of the commissioners now denounced. ‘The aim of today’s violent demonstration was to re-establish the Commune and to restore the Jacobins to power. We must destroy all that remains of them…We must have vengeance…We must profit by the inefficiency of these men who fancy themselves the equals of those who overthrew the throne, who try to bring about revolutions and succeed only in provoking riots…We must lose no time in punishing them and putting an end to the Revolution.’
Tallien’s words also were loudly applauded. But when the session was closed and the deputies departed at three o’clock in the morning, the men whose condign punishment he had advocated were already planning another attempt to overawe the Convention. It was to take place that very day. Setting out from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine a large body of demonstrators, better armed and disciplined than those who had marched the day before, were to advance upon the Tuileries and to threaten the Convention with cannon. The march began as planned, and the deputies who had reassembled in their hall after only a few hours’ sleep were soon to learn that their own gunners had defected to the insurgents, taking their cannon with them. Legendre stood up in an attempt to reassure them. ‘Representatives,’ he said, ‘keep calm and remain at your posts…Good citizens are ready to defend you.’
The hall had, indeed, been surrounded by troops and by several units of the National Guard; yet the desertion of the artillery made it seem likely that, were fighting to break out, the forces at the Convention’s disposal might be unable to hold the assailants back. For several minutes conflict appeared imminent as the opposing forces faced each other, their muskets loaded. But then men from both sides began to protest at having to fight their fellow-citizens. Gradually they broke ranks and walked across to talk to each other, and eventually it was agreed that twelve members of the Convention should be invited to leave their hall and to come down to discuss the grievances of the hostile sections. Twelve deputies were accordingly selected and went to fraternize with the sans-culottes who, after prolonged negotiations, persuaded them to allow a deputation of demonstrators to present a petition to the Convention. Upon their appearance in the hall, where they reiterated their demands, there were loud shouts of ‘Down with the Jacobins!’ from the public galleries. The President called for silence, and, having imposed it, addressed a few mollifying remarks to the deputation whose colleagues in the streets outside were already beginning to abandon their posts and go home.