Subject: Jacques and Lucréte Meet Where: Champs de Mars, July 17, 1791 Who: Jacques Belmont Warnings: Mob and National Guard Related Violence Open to: Lucréte Vernet
Like every good good Jacobin, Jacques and his law-school friends flocked to the Champs de Mars to sign the petition to remove Louis XVI. They were all extremely excited, shouting at each other over the roar of the crowd, singing off-key snatches of Ça ira, and quoting the latest pamphlets. Jacques himself was almost besides himself with unadulterated glee.
This was the political process at work! This was the culmination of a furious battle for represenation! The people's opinions actually mattered. For the first time in centuries, a ruler's right to rule was being questioned. For the first time, the people could express their opinions and they would have an impact on their society. Jacques could hardly keep still and soon got into a vicious argument about the actual circumstances regarding the king's mysterious flight to Varennes on June 20th. Jacques's neighbor still thought the king had been kidnapped, as the National Assembly had rather confusedly stated, but Jacques was convinced that the royal family had tried to run off to Austria, and he'd be damned before he let anyone go on in such a state of delusion.
Jacques was still very far from the petition on the altar in the center of the ampitheatre when he began to realize that there was something more going on besides a massive crowd trying to sign one piece of paper. It appeared that two people had been lynched as spies. Jacques and his friends had hardly discovered this when Jacques turned and caught sight of a red flag on the Grande Rue de Challiot. Jacques had memorized French law for the past several years. He knew immediately that, for no reason what-so-ever, the city was under martial law.
"We have to get out," Jacques croaked, breaking out of line. "We have to- the red flag- in the name of the Supreme Being, that's martial law, they're going to-"
The first volley of gunfire from the National Guards drowned him out.