Still without any evil idea, the crowd asked for the gates to be opened which allowed entrance on the Feuillants Terrace.
Three municipal officers went in and got leave from the king for passage to be given over the terrace and out by the stable doors.
Everybody wanted to go in as soon as the gates were open, and the throng spread over the lawn; it was forgotten to open the outlet by the stables, and the crush began to be severe. They streamed before the National Guards in a row along the palace wall to the Carrousel gates, by which they might have resumed the homeward route. They were locked and guarded.
Sweltering, crushed, and turned about, the mob began to be irritated. Before its growls the gates were opened and the men spread over the capacious square.
There they remembered what the main affair was—to petition the king to revoke his veto. Instead of continuing the road, they waited in the square for an hour, when they grew impatient.
They might have gone away, but that was not the aim of the agitators, who went from group to group, saying:
"Stay; what do you want to sneak away for? The king is going to give his sanction; if we were to go home without that, we should have all our work to do over again."
The level-headed thought this sensible advice, but at the same time that the sanction was a long time coming. They were getting hungry, and that was the general cry.
Bread was not so dear as it had been, but there was no work going on, and however cheap bread may be, it is not made for nothing.
Everybody had risen at five, workmen and their wives, with their children, and come to the palace with the idea that they had but to get the royal sanction to have hard times end. But the king did not seem to be at all eager to give his sanction.