"Good," said the stranger; "to-morrow is Sunday, the seventeenth; let all the boys come out here to sign the petition as amended to our liking. I, Billet, will get the right sort ready."
At this name everybody recognized Farmer Billet, the Taker of the Bastile, the hero of the people, the volunteer envoy who had accompanied Lafayette's dandy aid to Varennes where he arrested the King whom he had brought back to Paris.
Thus, at the first start, the boldest of the politicians had been surpassed by—a man of the people, the embodied instincts of the masses! The other leaders said that a storm would be raised and that they had best get permission of the Mayor to hold this meeting on the morrow.
"Very well," said Billet, "obtain leave, and if refused you, I will wrest it from them."
Mayor Bailly was absent when Brissot and Desmoulins called for the leave: his deputy verbally granted it, but sent word to the House what he had done.
The House was caught napping, for it had done nothing in fixing the status of the King after his flight. As if from an enemy of the rulers, the decree was passed that "The suspension of the executive power will last until the King shall have accepted and signed the Constitutional Act." Thus he was as much of a king as before; the popular petition became useless.
Whoever claimed the dethronement of a monarch who was constitutionally maintained by the House, so long as the King agreed to accomplish this condition, was a rebel, of course. The decree was to be posted throughout the town next morning at eight.
Prudent politicians went out of the town. The Jacobins retired, and their vulgar member, Santerre, the great brewer of the working quarter, was chosen to go and withdraw the petition from the Altar of the Country.
But those meant to attend, spite of governmental warning, who are like the wolves and vultures who flock to the battlefields.