5. Procédure Criminelle, Première Partie, No. XXX, 58.

a. Jean-Louis Brousse des Faucherets, forty-three years old, advocate of parliament, lieutenant of the mayor in the department of public buildings, dwelling in Paris, Rue de Paradis, in the Marais, deposes that Monday, October 5th last, at half past nine or thereabout in the morning, going to the city hall to perform his functions as secretary of the commune, he saw the Place de Grève filled by an enormous crowd of people, who, after having lowered the lantern, cried that they needed bread and demanded the punishment of the authors of the famine they were suffering. Having gone a few steps, he encountered the troops who were on duty to defend the square retiring in confusion, having the butts of their muskets in the air. Among the troops he recognized soldiers of the central troop of his district, of whom he demanded the reason of their departure. These soldiers replied that they were sent away, and when he asked them who had done it, they added, while still retreating, that it was the people. [Finding it impossible to get into the city hall, Brousse returned to his district and remained there until one o’clock.] Then he went to the city hall. He found the large hall, where the general assemblies are usually held, entirely vacant. They told him that the few representatives who were then in the city hall were assembled in the room where the police committee usually meets. He went there. On reaching the antechamber he found the door crowded with four or five grenadiers of the French guards, one of whom was speaking, but he could not hear what he said. When he came near one of them, he heard silence imposed upon the soldier near him, who was trying to speak. They said to him: "Let him speak; he speaks well." Then he saw M. de Lafayette come out and try to appease these soldiers, who said to him all together: "It is useless to convince us, for all our comrades think the same way, and even if you convinced us you would not change them." M. de Lafayette followed them into the square, and he went with him. . . . He saw the useless efforts made by the commanding general to appease the cries and impetuosity of the soldiers united with the people. There was but one cry: "Let us go to Versailles!" Seeing that he could do no good, and as his duty called him elsewhere, he reentered the city hall, where he encountered a representative whose name he cannot recall, who told him that the grenadiers, who talked at the moment he presented himself at the door of the room of the police committee, had said to M. de Lafayette: "General, the people lack bread; the committee on food either deceive you or they are themselves deceived. We are in a position which cannot last. There is only one way to put an end to it. Let us go to Versailles. They say the king is an imbecile; we will place the crown on the head of his son; a council of regency will be named, and Prance will be better governed." Tile person who told him this said that this soldier had a very fine face and a choice of language which surprised everybody who heard him, and a coolness which astonished still more. [Brousse left the city hall at half past three.] He returned an hour later to the city hall and learned that M. de Lafayette had been compelled by the absolute violence of his troops to march at their head to Versailles, after having obtained an order of the commune which enjoined him to do so. [December 23, 1789.]