'Oh ecstasy! oh raptures!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden; 'what sport! it is as good as a play. I shall accompany you, and Gabrielle shall come too.'
'What, to Versailles?' asked the little peasantess in dismay; 'I pray you let me remain behind.'
'No, come with me, I will protect you; the day is fine, and we shall have a charming expedition, and shall see such dresses. Ecstasy! raptures!'
In vain did Gabrielle plead; Madame Deschwanden linked her arm within her own and drew her along.
Onward drave the concourse of women—shop-girls, milliners, portresses, servants, market-women—till they reached the Place de Grève. The cavalry of the national guard were drawn up there; the women charged them, and with a volley of stones drove them back, for the soldiers could not make up their minds to fire upon them.
They would have burnt the Hôtel de Ville, in their ravenous wildness, because it contained no bread, had not the solemn, gigantic Stanislas Maillard, one of the conquerors of the Bastille, arrested them. He beat a drum and obtained a hearing. He offered to conduct the crowd to Versailles, and the women, liking his appearance and knowing his name, put themselves under his order. In half an hour the army of women was in marching order; they drew with them the cannon of the Place de Grève, and were armed with sticks, cutlasses, and a few guns.
Whilst this troop of women marched to Versailles, Paris was in ebullition.
Early in the morning, the alarm-bell had been rung by the fellow now in command of the men who marched after the women. He had been caught in the act and hung, but his bull-neck had saved him, and the women had cut him down. The national guard, assembling first in their districts, betook themselves in a mass to the Hôtel de Ville and filled La Grève, crying, 'To Versailles!' A deputation of grenadiers sought out Lafayette, who, along with the municipality, used his utmost endeavours to arrest the movement. One of these men addressed the general, told him he was being deceived, that it was time that things should be brought to a climax, that the people were wretched, that the source of the evil was at Versailles, and that they were resolved on bringing the king to Paris.