CHAPTER XXIII.
The Reveillon Riot .-- Opening of the States-general .-- The Queen is insulted by the Partisans of the Duc d'Orleans .-- Discussions as to the Number of Chambers .-- Career and Character of Mirabeau .-- Necker rejects his Support.
-- He determines to revenge himself .-- Death of the Dauphin.
The meeting of the States-general, as has been already seen, was fixed for the 4th of May, 1789; and, as if it were fated that the bloody character of the period now to be inaugurated should be displayed from the very outset, the elections for the city of Paris, which were only held in the preceding week, were stained with a riot so formidable as to be commonly spoken of in the records of the time as an insurrection.[1] One of the candidates for the representation of the Third Estate was a paper-maker of the name of Reveillon, a man eminent for his charity and general liberality, but one who was believed to regard the views of the extreme reformers with disfavor.

He was so popular with his own workmen, who were very numerous, and with their friends, who knew his character from them, that he was generally expected to succeed.

The opposite party, who had candidates of their own, and had the support of the purse of the Duc d'Orleans, were determined that he should not; and no way seemed so sure as to murder him.

Bands of ferocious-looking ruffians were brought in from the country districts, armed with heavy bludgeons, and, as was afterward learned, well supplied with money; and on the morning of the 28th of April news was brought to the Baron de Besenval, the commander of the Royal Guards, that a mob of several thousand men had collected in the streets, who had read a mock sentence, professing to have been passed by the Third Estate, which condemned Reveillon to be hanged, after which they had burned him in effigy, and then attacked his house, which they were sacking and destroying.

They even ventured to attack the first company of soldiers whom De Besenval sent to the rescue; and it was not till he dispatched a battalion with a couple of field-pieces to the spot that the plunderers were expelled from the house and the riot was quelled.