"Arms, arms," they yelled at him as soon as they saw him.
"No arms here, but there must be some at the Arsenal," he replied.
So five thousand men ran over to the Arsenal to find it was bare. They returned howling to the City Hall. The provost had no firearms or he would not tell of them. He packed them off to the Old Carthusian Monastery, but it was empty too. Not so much as a pocket pistol rewarded them.
Meanwhile Flesselles, learning that Marat and Billet were still busy getting out the powder, suggested sending a deputation to Governor Launay to induce him to draw in the cannon. He had made the populace howl dreadfully on the evening before by running out his guns through the embrasures. Flesselles hoped that by having them taken in, the people would be satisfied and settle down.
The deputation was starting when the arm-seekers came back enraged.
On hearing their vociferations, Billet and Marat came up out of the underground.
On a lower balcony the provost was trying to quiet the multitude. He proposed a resolution that the wards should forge fifty thousand pikes. The people were jumping at the offer.
"Truly this fellow is playing with us," said the surgeon.
He turned to his new friend, saying:
"Go and get to work at the Bastile. In an hour I shall be sending you twenty thousand muskets with a man to each butt."