1I could not sleep all night.

2I had seen so much since my arrival, and had been in company with so many great men—Mirabeau, Robespierre, Lameth, Laclos, Chemier, Talma, David, Laharpe, Danton, Marat, Desmoulins, Anacharsis Clootz, and Herbert—that their names continued to ring in my soul like an alarm bell.

3And through them all passed the beautiful amazon in her red robe; and that seemed so strange to me, coming as I had for the first time from the Forest of Argonne, and feeling, as it were, in another world, or else in a state of furious delirium.

4I arose at daybreak. Alas! the morning was dark and rainy-looking; thick black clouds were chasing each other over the sky once so pure and brilliant, but now changing its opinions, and becoming aristocratic.

5I awoke M. Drouet. I was astonished that any one could sleep on the night heralding in such a day. He jumped up and dressed himself. We took our guns, and descended.

6We soon joined our friends of St. Menehould and Islettes, formed rank, and marched to the Champ de Mars.

7At the door of Sainte Honoré, we met the orator of the human race, who had passed the night at the Cordeliers.

8He had with him a body of men, Poles, Russians, Turks, Persians, all in their national costumes. He took them to the federation of France before he took them to the federation of the world.

9We marched by the river’s side, and soon arrived at the Champ de Mars.

10A hundred and sixty thousand people were seated on the slopes, a hundred and fifty thousand on the plain itself, and yet there was sufficient space left to accommodate fifty thousand of the National Guard.

11A second amphitheatre in a semi-circle formed in the space between Chaillot and Passy accommodated more than a hundred thousand people.

12Anacharsis Clootz was right. This looked well for a federation of the world.

13We crossed the river by the wooden bridge thrown over it at Chaillot, and passing under the Arc de Triomphe, entered the Champ de Mars, and arranged ourselves in front of the altar of the country. The honors were for the provincial National Guard.

14We were removed only a hundred paces from the raised seats destined for the King, the Queen, and the National Assembly.

15All in a moment it began to rain. It was now eight o’clock, and as the King and Queen were not expected till ten, there was plenty of time to get both wet and cold. Some of the National Guards began to dance a farandole to keep the warmth in them; the example was contagious, the muskets were stacked, and each man choosing a partner from among the female spectators, the extraordinary spectacle of two thousand people dancing at one time commenced.

16At half-past ten the cannon announced the arrival of the King, and the drum recalled each man to his post. The female dancers were re-conducted to their friends, and the guard presented arms.

17The carriages of the King, Queen, and other dignitaries of the realm came at a foot pace. They stopped at the raised benches; the King, descending first, gave his hand to the Queen, and they took their respective places, accompanied by the Assembly.

18Now, not only had the day, but the moment arrived.

19Stationed close to the benches, of which we had an excellent view, I had been awaiting with impatience the arrival of the King and Queen, of whose personal appearance I had formed my own ideas, which I am bound to say were very far from the truth.

20The King was not sufficiently kingly. The Queen was too much a queen.

21While the King was bowing to the people, and seating himself in the midst of the cries of “Vive le Roi!” M. de Talleyrand, the lame bishop, the Mephistopheles to another Faust, whose name was Napoleon, proceeded, attended by two hundred priests, to the altar of the country. All wore tri-colored sashes.

22The regimental bands strike up, but are scarcely heard. But forty pieces of cannon, discharged at the same time, command silence.

23The taking of the oath followed.

24Three hundred thousand hands are uplifted at one and the same time on the Champ de Mars. The rest of France was joined in spirit to those who swore in the name of all.

25They had hoped that the King would descend from his seat, mount the altar, and there, holding up his hand, swear in the sight of all his people.

26They were mistaken. The King swore from his seat, placed in the shadow—in fact, almost hidden. The idea that struck the hearts of all, was that the King swore with regret, and without intending to keep the oath that he had taken.

27This was the oath that all knew beforehand, but which few could hear, thanks to the fashion in which the King spoke:—

28“I, King of the French, swear to the nation to employ all the power which has been delegated to me by constitutional law, in maintaining the constitution and executing the laws.”

29Ah, King, King! it is with greater heart and better faith that your people have sworn.

30The Queen did not swear; she sat in a reserved seat, with the Dauphin and the princesses. On hearing the King’s voice trembling and hesitating she smiled, a singular light gleaming in her eyes the while.

31M. Drouet, as well as myself, remarked that smile, and he frowned.

32“Ah, M. Drouet,” said I, “I like not that smile! And I never could have believed that that beautiful Queen could have smiled in such a fashion.”

33“The Queen’s smile matters little,” replied M. Drouet. “The King has sworn—that is the great point. The oath is registered at this moment in the hearts of twenty-five millions of Frenchmen. It will be worse for him if the oath be not kept.”

34Every time that I have been to Paris since that day, I have paid a visit to the Champ de Mars, the only monument left of the Revolution.

35The last time I made the pilgrimage was in 1853. I had come to buy the History of the French Revolution, by Michelet.

36I seated myself on a hillock, and much in the same way as M. Chateaubriand on the ruins of Sparta, cried out in a loud voice, three times, “Leonidas! Leonidas! Leonidas!” I read aloud the following lines of the eloquent historian, which chimed in so well with my own thoughts:—

37“The Champ de Mars is the sole monument left of the Revolution. The Empire has the Arc de Triomphe. Royalty has its Louvre and its Invalides. The feudal Church of 1,200 has its throne in Notre Dame.

38“But the Revolution has alone for its monument an empty space.

39“This monument is sand, and desert as the plains of Arabia. A mound to the right, a mound to the left, like those which the Gauls erected in memory of their fallen heroes.

40“Though the plain be dry, and the grass be withered, still a day will come when it shall be again clothed in green.

41“For mingled with this earth is the sweat of the brow of those who on a sacred day raised these hills—on a day when, awakened by the cannon of the Bastille, France poured in from the north and south—on a day when three millions as one man swore eternal peace.

42“Ah! poor Revolution, so confiding in the first blush of thy youth, thou hast invited the world to love and peace.

43“Oh, my enemies! said’st thou, there are no longer enemies.

44“Thou heldest out thine hand to all—thou hast offered the cup to drink to the peace of nations, but they would not.”