The storm had broken at last. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt hurried to Versailles, entered the King’s chamber, and told him the news. “Why,” exclaimed Louis XVI., “this is a revolt!”
“No, sire,” answered the Duke, “it is a revolution!”
Next morning the Marshal de Broglie, who found that instead of a competent army, he had only a few disorganized troops at his command, resigned. The King, seeing his army melting away, decided that his only chance of restoring order lay in making friends with the Assembly, and appeared before it, begging it to aid him, and promising to recall the dismissed ministers.
The Assembly, delighted at this evidence of its power, agreed to aid the King, and sent Lafayette, with fifty other deputies, to see what could be done to quiet the people in Paris. They found the city in the wildest confusion. Shops were closed, barricades blocked the streets, and gangs of ruffians were fighting everywhere. The deputies brought some order, Lafayette made a speech to the people at the Hôtel de Ville, and told them that the Assembly was glad that they had won liberty. Then it was decided that a mayor must be chosen to govern Paris and a National Guard formed to preserve order. Moreau de Saint Méry, who was presiding, pointed to the bust of Lafayette that the State of Virginia had sent to the city of Paris. His gesture was understood and Lafayette was immediately chosen to command the National Guard. Bailly was by a like unanimous vote elected mayor.
So, at thirty-two, Lafayette gave up his seat in the National Assembly and became Commander of the National Guard.
The deputies, on their return to Versailles, told their fellow-members that the only way in which confidence could be restored in the crown was for the King personally to visit Paris. This Louis XVI. agreed to do on July seventeenth. In the meantime Lafayette had collected the nucleus of a guard, had restored some sort of order, and made arrangements to receive the King. When Louis arrived at the city gates he was met by the mayor, Bailly, who handed him the keys of Paris, saying, “They are the same keys that were presented to Henry IV. He had reconquered his people; now it is the people who have reconquered their king.”
The King was escorted to the Hôtel de Ville through a double line of National Guards. There he was given the new national cockade, which he fixed in his hat. Afterward speeches were made and then King Louis rode back to Versailles. He was still the sovereign in name, but his real power was gone, shorn from him by the obstinacy of his nobles and himself.
Lafayette had no easy task in keeping order in Paris. His Guards obeyed his commands, but many of the mob, having tasted revolt, continued on a wild course, and they were now joined by many of the worst element from the provinces. Two innocent men were murdered in spite, and Lafayette could do nothing to prevent it. Disgusted at the trend of events he soon resigned his office of Commander, but since no one else appeared able to fill it he finally consented to resume it.
Meantime the Assembly was uprooting the old feudal laws and doing away with almost all forms of taxation. Their object was to tear down, not to build up; and the result was that in a very short time people throughout France were making their own laws in every city and village and paying no attention to the needs of the nation.
As autumn approached the population of Paris became restless. The Assembly at Versailles was not sufficiently under the people’s thumb, the lower classes especially were eager to get both Assembly and King and Queen in their power. A reception given by Louis to the National Guards at Versailles roused great indignation. The court, so the people said, was as frivolous and extravagant as ever, and was trying to win the Guards over to its side. The excitement reached its climax when, on October fifth, Maillard, a leader of the mob, called on the people of Paris to march to Versailles. At once the cry “To Versailles!” echoed through the city, and men and women flocked to answer the cry.