Revolutionizing of the Revolution 403
clubs, the fédérés gave the Parisians the sense that throughout all France these were
men who were on their side. They were, in the words of Albert Mathiez, the yeast
in the revolutionary dough of the summer of 1792, though the substance of this
dough was furnished by ordinary inhabitants of the city. The agitation of the fédérés
made the upheaval seem more national and less purely Parisian than that of the
first Bastille Day in 1789.
The effect of the manifesto was precisely the opposite of its purpose. It led
within a week to the attack on the Tuileries which it so explicitly forbade. With
the usual aid of organizers hard to identify, the insurrection was generated at the
popular level of the “sections” of the city, the forty- eight neighborhood subdivi-
sions of the municipality as set up in 1790. During the summer of 1792 these
sections underwent small internal revolutions. Since 1790, and by the constitution
of 1789–1791, it was the “active” citizens who had the right to attend the section
assemblies, where votes were taken and public business discussed. Now a great
many “passive” citizens began to take part in these neighborhood meetings also,
especially in the populous quarters where the “active” citizens were themselves men
of small means, shopkeepers, master- craftsmen, and the like, who, alarmed by the
political and military crisis, welcomed or solicited the influx of neighbors and em-
ployees only slightly below them on the socio- economic scale.
The militant sectionnaires of the less fashionable parts of the city had lost all
confidence in the various constituted authorities. The king and queen were sus-
pected, correctly, of collusion with the invaders. In the army, the enlisted ranks
were full of enthusiasm but weakened by revolutionary disorganization; most of
the officers were ex- nobles; and the troops were in retreat. Lafayette, commanding
on the frontier, had left his post on a political errand to Paris, intending to take the
king and queen under his protection and to rally the constitutionalists against
radicalism. The sectionnaires replied with charges of military dictatorship. The Leg-
islative Assembly was paralyzed; its Feuillant and Jacobin members feared and
detested each other; it could take no action, but only called for calm and legality,
and by a vote of 406 to 224 it absolved Lafayette of any misconduct. The enraged
sectionnaires called the Assembly “corrupt.”
The sections began to act as little independent republics. There was no armed
force in the city to hold them down. Apart from the Swiss Guard at the palace, the
only armed force consisted of the National Guard of the sections themselves, each
of which had a battalion formed of its own residents. The National Guardsmen of
the popular quarters greatly outnumbered those of the upper- class quarters which
were more favorable to the king.
Various of the sections demanded the dethronement of Louis XVI, “as the first
link in the chain of Counter- Revolution.”^3 On July 31 the Monconseil section
announced that it no longer recognized him. Plans for insurrection went ahead
without attempt at concealment. The red flag made a brief first appearance as a
Revolutionary symbol during these preparations, originating as a grim political
joke. By an earlier provision of the Revolution, a large red flag was used as a sign of
martial law, displayed by the authorities as a warning that they were about to fire
3 Mathiez, op.cit., 75, quoting a section petition of August 3.