After a time, would now and then escape from these horribly fantastic groups lugubrious howling; in the midst of these agonized faces would appear eyes flashing lightning.
Also, from time to time, all these hands, abandoning the railings which sustained them, were thrust through the space between them, and stretched forth towards the palace.
Some of them were open and trembling; these were soliciting.
Others were clinched and nervously agitated; these were threatening.
Oh, the picture was a gloomy one!
The rain and mud,—so much for the heavens and earth.
Hunger and threatening gestures,—so much for the besiegers.
Pity and doubt,—such were the feelings of the defenders.
While waiting the return of Louis XVI., agitated but firmly resolved, the queen gave orders for the defence of the palace. By degrees, the courtiers, the officers, and the high dignitaries of the State grouped themselves around her.
In the midst of them she perceived Monsieur de Saint Priest, the minister for Paris.
“Go and inquire, sir,” said she to him, “what it is these people want.”
Monsieur de Saint-Priest immediately went down the staircase, crossed the courtyard, and approached the railing.
“What is it that you demand?” said he to the women.
“Bread! bread! bread!” simultaneously cried a thousand voices.
“Bread!” replied Monsieur de Saint-Priest, impatiently; “when you had but one master, you never were in want of bread. Now that you have twelve hundred, you see to what they have reduced you.”
And Monsieur de Saint-Priest withdrew amid the threatening shouts of these famished creatures, giving strict orders that the gates should be kept closed.
But a deputation advances, before which it is absolutely necessary that the gates should be thrown open.
Maillard had presented himself to the National Assembly in the name of the women; he had succeeded in persuading them that the president with a deputation of twelve women should proceed to the palace to make a statement to the king as to the position of affairs.
At the moment when the deputation, with Mounier at its head, left the Assembly, the king returned to the palace at full gallop, entering it by the stable-yard.
De Charny had found him in the forest of Mendon.
“Ah! it is you, sir,” cried the king, on perceiving him. “Is it I whom you are seeking?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“What, then, has happened? You seem to have ridden hard.”
“Sire, there are at this moment ten thousand women at Versailles, who have come from Paris, and who are crying for bread.”
The king shrugged his shoulders, but it was more from a feeling of compassion than of disdain.
“Alas!” said he, “if I had bread for them, I should not have waited their coming from Paris to ask it of me.”
But without making any farther observation, he cast a mournful look towards the place where the hounds were continuing their chase of the stag which he was obliged to abandon.
“Well, then, sir, let, us go to Versailles,” said he.
And he rode off towards Versailles.
He had just arrived there, as we have said, when frightful cries were heard proceeding from the Place d’Armes.
“What is the meaning of that?” inquired the king.
“Sire,” cried Gilbert, entering the room, pale as death, “they are your guards, who, led on by Monsieur George de Charny, are charging upon the president of the National Assembly, and a deputation which he is leading here,”
“Impossible!” exclaimed the king.
“Listen to the cries of those whom they are assassinating! Look! look at the people who are flying in terror!”
“Let the gates be thrown open!” cried the king. “I will receive the deputation.”
“But, Sire!” exclaimed the queen.
“Let the gates be opened,” said Louis XVI.; “the palaces of kings ought to be considered as asylums.”
“Alas! excepting perhaps for kings themselves,” said the queen.
Chapter XXIII
The Evening of the Fifth and Sixth of October
DE CHARNY and Gilbert rushed downstairs.
“In the name of the king!” cried the one.
“In the name of the queen!” cried the other.
And both of them added:—
“Open the gates!”
But this order was not executed quickly enough to prevent the president of the National Assembly from being thrown down in the courtyard and trampled under foot.