A larger man touched nearer to the life, though it was but an interjection; for Mirabeau, ever vividly grasping facts and things, had hinted at the Queen: that mob was marching on the Queen. He had said that he would sign if, in whatever might follow, “The King alone should be held inviolate.” And there is one witness who affirms that he added in a whisper, which those on the benches about him clearly heard, that he meant specifically to exclude from amnesty and from protection the woman against whom so many and such varied hatreds had now converged, and who stood to a million men for innumerable varied reasons a legendary enemy, but one in her flesh and blood to be hated—the negation of all the hope of the moment and of French honour and of the national will.
This woman, upon whom already lay the weight of so much discontent and terror, sat that morning for the last time in Trianon, where the rain was beating against Gabriel’s graceful, tall windows and streaming down the panes. Some ill-ease compelled her, though the place was protected, remote and silent, and though the weather was so drear, to wander in her gardens and to cross the paths between the showers. In the early afternoon she was in the Grotto, and it was there that the news came to her, for a messenger found her also as that other one had found her husband. He bade her come at once to the palace, and told her that the mob had filled the town.
She came; it was still the middle afternoon, and such light as the day afforded was still full, when she saw from the windows of the ante-chamber, looking over the full length of the courtyard, beyond the line of soldiers, that eddying volume of the populace and heard the noise of their mingled cries. It was the first time in her life that she had seen the people menacing. She listened to the distant roaring for a long time in silence, with her women about her, until the noise of horse-hoofs clattered upon the flags below, and she knew that Louis had returned. He came, booted and splashed, up the great stairs; there members of his Ministry and his advisers were ready. Marie Antoinette entered with them into the Council Room, and as the door was shut behind her there was shut out, though barely for an hour, the instant noise of that peril.
This is the way in which Paris came to Versailles and began its usurpation of the Crown.
There is a tall window in Versailles in the corner of the Council Room whence one can see the Courts opening outwards before the palace and so beyond to the wide Place d’Armes. Through that window, streaming with rain under the declining light of the pouring October day, could be seen the tumult.
All the wide enclosure before the palace was guarded and bare. Over its wet stones came and went only hurried messengers—orderlies from the armed forces or servants from the Court. Holding the long 300 yards of gilded railing was the double rank of the Guards, mounted, swords drawn; next, the Dragoons, a clear and detached line of cavalry; in front of these, in triple rank, the Regiment of Flanders.
Three armed bodies thus guarded the sweep of the railings and the approach to the palace in parallel order, and beyond them, right into the depths of the landscape, stretched a vast and confused mob filling up the three great avenues and crowding half the Place d’Armes; in that mob many of the armed Militia of Versailles, met at first in formation but now mingled with the populace, could be distinguished. At such a distance no distinct voices could be heard, but a roaring sound or murmur like the noise of a beach rose from the multitude and outweighed the furious patter of the rain on the glass: at rare intervals a shot was fired, wantonly, but no news of bloodshed came. From time to time a patrol of the Guard could be seen, towering on chargers high above the populace, forcing its way through; swords also sometimes striking could be distinguished. This uncertain and menacing sight, blurred in the rain, was all that the Queen could distinguish.
Within the King’s room was a deputation of women, and Mounier, the President of the Assembly, had been received; council upon council was held, that the Queen at least should retire to some neighbouring town, that the King should fly—but nothing was determined, and to that reiterated policy of flight so often suggested since July, now so pressing, the King murmured as he paced back and forth, “A King in flight!...” It is said that the horses were ordered; but with every moment the plan became more difficult. Darkness fell upon a sky still stormy; the troops still held their lines, but the noises seemed nearer and more menacing. It was imagined better to withdraw the Guard at least, as the pressure upon them increased.