It was a gloomy sight.
"What do you want?" challenged St. Priest, Minister of Paris.
"Bread," was the cry.
"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:
"Bread, my lord!"
"Help," cried the King.