In exitu Israel

by S. Baring-Gould

The women were no sooner in the town than they invaded the court of Menus-Plaisirs, and demanded to be admitted to the Assembly.

Maillard and half-a-dozen women were alone admitted, after some difficulties had been made; one of these was Madeleine with her drum, and another was Gabrielle, who clung to her. A third bore a tambourine at the end of a long pole.

'We come,' said Maillard, sword in hand, his black suit splashed with mud and tattered, 'we come to demand bread, and the punishment of the body-guard who have insulted the national cockade. We are good patriots; on our road we have torn down the black cockades, and I will have the pleasure of tearing one before the Assembly.'

Whereupon another man, he with the bull-neck, told his story, how he had been nearly hung that morning for having rung the alarm-bell. 'We will force every one to wear the patriotic badge,' he said. Thereupon murmurs arose; turning towards those who uttered these sounds of dissatisfaction, he asked, 'What! are we not all brothers?'

Mounier, the president, replied calmly, 'No one in this Assembly will deny that all men are to be considered as brothers; the indignation you resent was aroused by your menace of using force. Speak with respect where you are.'

Thereupon the women began to cry out for bread. The president assured them that the Assembly was distressed to learn the state of famine in which the capital was plunged, and that it would use its utmost endeavours to obtain a free circulation of corn, and provide for the regular supply of grain. He told them that their presence at Versailles was of no earthly use, that it impeded the debates, and could not relieve the scarcity of provisions.

'That is not enough,' said the great Maillard; and the women exclaimed again, 'Bread, bread!'

A member then proposed that a deputation should be sent to the king to inform him of the starving condition of the capital. This proposition was accepted. The Bishop of Langres took the president's chair, and Mounier set out, moodily, at the head of a deputation, followed by the women in a crowd.