The crowd was very thick here; the Barriere Menilmontant was close by, and beyond it there was the cemetery of Pere Lachaise.

It was the nearest gate to the Temple Prison, and the mob wanted to be up and doing, not to spend too much time running along the muddy streets and getting wet and cold, but to repeat the glorious exploits of the 14th of July, and capture the barriers of Paris by force of will rather than force of arms.
In this rushing mob the four men, with Juliette in their midst, remained quite unchallenged, mere units in an unruly crowd.
In a quarter of an hour Menilmontant was reached.
The great gates of the city were well guarded by detachments of the National Guard, each under command of an officer.

Twenty strong at most--what was that against such a throng?
Who had ever dreamed of Paris being stormed from within?
At every gate to the north and east of the city there was now a rabble some four or five thousand strong, wanting it knew not what.

Everyone had forgotten what it was that caused him or her to rush on so blindly, so madly, towards the nearest barrier.
But everyone knew that he or she wanted to get through that barrier, to attack the soldiery, to knock down the captain of the Guard.
And with a wild cry every city gate was stormed.
Like one huge wind-tossed wave, the populace on that memorable night of Fructidor, broke against the cordon of soldiery, that vainly tried to keep it back.

Men and women, drunk with brandy and exultation, shouted "_Quatorze Juillet!_" and amidst curses and threats demanded the opening of the gates.
The people of France _would_ have its will.
Was it not the supreme lord and ruler of the land, the arbiter of the Fate of this great, beautiful, and maddened country?
The National Guard was powerless; the officers in command could offer but feeble resistance.
The desultory fire, which in the darkness and the pouring rain did very little harm, had the effect of further infuriating the mob.
The drizzle had turned to a deluge, a veritable heavy summer downpour, with occasional distant claps of thunder and incessant sheet-lightning, which ever and anon illumined with its weird, fantastic flash this heaving throng, these begrimed faces, crowned with red caps of Liberty, these witchlike female creatures with wet, straggly hair and gaunt, menacing arms.
Within half-an-hour the people of Paris was outside its own gates.
Victory was complete.