Neither had uniforms nor muskets, but tattered coats and smocks; quaint arms snatched up in the first impulse of self-defense and anger: pikes, cooking-spits, jagged spears, hiltless swords, knives lashed to long poles, broad-axes, stone-masons' hammers and curriers' knives.
For standards, a gallows with a dangling doll, meant for the queen; a bull's head, with an obscene card stuck on the horns; a calf's heart on a spit, with the motto: "An Aristocrat's;" while flags showed the legends: "Sanction the decrees, or death!"—"Recall the patriotic ministers!"—"Tremble, tyrant; your hour has come!"
At every crossing and from each by-way the army was swollen.
The mass was silent, save now and then when a cheer burst from the midst, or a snatch of the "It shall go on" was sung, or cries went up of "The nation forever!"—"Long live the Breechless!"—"Down with Old Veto and Madame Veto!"
They came out for sport—to frighten the king and queen, and did not mean murdering. They demanded to march past the Assembly through the Hall, and for three hours they defiled under the eyes of their representatives.
It was three o'clock. The mob had obtained half their programme, the placing of their petition before the Assembly. The next thing was to call on the king for his sanction to the decree.
As the Assembly had received them, how could the king refuse? Surely he was not a greater potentate than the Speaker of the House, whose chair was like his and in the grander place?
In fact, the king assented to receiving their deputation of twenty.
As the common people had never entered the palace, they merely expected their representatives would be received while they marched by under the windows. They would show the king their banners with the odd devices and the gory standards.
All the palace garden gates were closed; in the yards and gardens were soldiers with four field-pieces. Seeing this apparently ample protection, the royal family might be tranquil.