Boisrond-Tonnerre read the proclamation of independence at the place d’Armes, and the assembly repeated its oath.

Citizens, officers and soldiers all raised their hands, accepting the formula with the cry, repeated a thousand times, of Long live liberty.

“And you, continued Boisrond, people too long unfortunate, witness of the oath we pronounce, remember that it is on your constancy and your courage that I counted when I launched myself into the career of liberty to combat the despotism and the tyranny under which you groaned for fourteen years; recall that I sacrificed everything to fly to your defense, parents, children, fortune; and that now I am rich only in your liberty; that my name has become a horror to all the peoples who desire enslavement, and that despots and tyrants pronounce it only while cursing the day that saw me born; and if ever you should refuse, or should receive with murmuring the laws that the genius who watches over your destinies shall dictate to me for your happiness, you will deserve the fate of ungrateful peoples.

“But far from me be that frightful thought; you will be the support of the liberty you cherish, the prop of the chief who commands it.

“Take then into his hands the oath to live free and independent, and to prefer death to all that would tend to put you again under the yoke. Swear, finally, to pursue forever the traitors and the enemies of independence.”

The assembly repeated with unheard-of enthusiasm these last words, which fresh salvos of artillery carried from town to town, from city to city, to the two extremities, north and south, of the country.