It sounded the knell of all hope of
redress of their wrongs.
He beheld a slight young man with a pock-marked face, redeemed
from utter ugliness by a pair of magnificent eyes, leap to a table
outside the Caf? de Foy, a drawn sword in his hand, crying, "To
arms!" And then upon the silence of astonishment that cry imposed,
this young man poured a flood of inflammatory eloquence, delivered
in a voice marred at moments by a stutter. He told the people that
the Germans on the Champ de Mars would enter Paris that night to
butcher the inhabitants. "Let us mount a cockade!" he cried, and
tore a leaf from a tree to serve his purpose - the green cockade of
hope.
Enthusiasm swept the crowd, a motley crowd made up of men and women
of every class, from vagabond to nobleman, from harlot to lady of
fashion. Trees were despoiled of their leaves, and the green
cockade was flaunted from almost every head.
"You are caught between two fires," the incendiary's stuttering
voice raved on. "Between the Germans on the Champ de Mars and the
Swiss in the Bastille.
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