BOOK XVI.
I.
In proportion as power snatched from the hands of the king by the Assembly disappeared, it passed into the commune of Paris.

The municipality, that first element of nations which are forming themselves, is also the last asylum of authority when they are crumbling to pieces.

Before it falls quite to the people, power pauses for a moment in the council-chamber of the magistrates of the city.

The Hotel de Ville had become the Tuileries of the people; after La Fayette and Bailly, Petion reigned there: this man was the king of Paris.

The populace (which has always the instinct of position) called him _King Petion_.