They had been horror-struck at the words and actions of the Marseillais, and felt that this was the beginning of the fulfilment of the rumours of the last few days.
The murder of the first prisoner was indeed the signal for every man of thought or feeling and of heart to draw back from the Revolution.

Thousands of earnest men who had at first thought that the hour of life and liberty commenced with the meeting of the States-General, and who had gone heart and soul with that body in its early struggles for power, had long since shrunk back appalled at the new tyranny which had sprung into existence.
Each act of usurpation of power by the Jacobins had alienated a section.

The nobles and the clergy, many of whom had at first gone heartily with the early reformers, had shrunk back appalled when they saw that religion and monarchy were menaced.

The bourgeoisie, who had made the Revolution, were already to a man against it; the Girondists, the leaders of the third estate, had fallen away, and over their heads the axe was already hanging.

The Revolution had no longer a friend in France, save among the lowest, the basest, and the most ignorant.