The sky was menacing and rain began to dot the dust, but Versailles was filling with people who had heard a noise like approaching thunder.
The soldiers took up their muskets slowly and the horseguards got into the saddle with the hesitation of the soldier when his adversaries are beneath his notice.
What could be done against women who had thrown down their weapons on the road and had scarce the power to drag themselves into the town? Half way they had divided eight loaves found at Sevres--thirty-two pounds of bread among seven thousand!
Maillard had accompanied them and induced the last who were armed to lay aside their weapons at the first houses of the place. He suggested that they should sing "Long live Henry Fourth!" to show that they had no ill feelings against royalty. They sang in a feeble whine.
Great was the amazement at the palace, where the harpies and Furies were expected, to see the tottering singers, hunger giving the giddiness of intoxication, pressing their haggard, thinned, livid, blotched and dusty faces against the gilded bars of the gates, and hanging on by their bony hands. From the weird groups came wails and howls while the dull eyes emitted sparks.
Now and again the hands let go the bars to be brandished in threat or held out imploringly.
"What do you want?" challenged St. Priest, Minister of Paris.
"When you had but one master you were never hungry," he replied testily; "you see how you stand since you have twelve hundred."
He came away, yelled at while he ordered the gates to be kept closed. But they had soon to be opened to a deputation from Parliament which Maillard had obtained. Unfortunately, Valence Charny with the guards had ridden against the mob. Two women of the twelve with the deputation were wounded, to whom Charny who had returned to announce the arrival of the King, and Gilbert rushed to assist.
"Open the doors," called out the King. "A palace is a sanctuary--it must receive all callers."
"An asylum for all but the kings and queens," muttered Marie Antoinette.
Deputy Mounier spoke for the deputation while a flowergirl who had started this woman's war by beating the "fall in" on a drum, undertook to address the King. Unfortunately she was so weak that she fainted after gasping:
