He pointed out that every day fresh bodies of soldiers were arriving, that the bridges and promenades were changed into military posts, that the sight of adjutants dashing about with orders and counter-orders despatched from the palace or from the house of the Marshal de Broglie at all moments of the day, gave to the town the appearance of being the seat of war.
'More soldiers are shown us menacing the nation,' said he, 'than would be marched against an invading foe, and a thousand times more than would be assembled to succour friends martyred for their fidelity.'
The address to the king, proposed by Mirabeau, was carried all but unanimously, four voices alone being found to oppose it. The answer of the king was equivocal.
He said that the soldiers were there to preserve tranquillity, and not to intimidate the Assembly, and that if the army caused alarm, he was ready to transfer the States to Soisson or Noyon. With this answer the Assembly was forced to remain content, unsatisfactory as it seemed.
The plans of the queen, the Count d'Artois, the Princes of Condé and Conti, and the Dukes of Polignac and d'Enghien, were now complete. The capital and Versailles were invested, and at a signal the army would fall upon them, and trample under foot all opposition. The last blow had to be struck, and Marie Antoinette was the person to strike it. It was to fall on Necker, the prime minister, whom the Court party detested, and whom it could never forgive for having persuaded the king to summon the States-General, and thus to imperil their supremacy over king and country.
On Saturday evening, July 11th, Lindet was walking with the Abbé Grégoire along the Paris road, beyond the barrier at the end of the Avenue.
'What will happen next?' asked the Curé of Bernay. 'It appears evident that the queen intends a coup d'état, but what it will be no one knows exactly.'
'The time for a coup d'état is passed,' said Grégoire; 'on the twenty-third of last month the decisive blow was struck, and it was struck by the Assembly. Consider, my friend, what can the Court do now? The Assembly represents twenty-five millions of men, the court represents a few thousands. The prestige of royalty burst like a bubble on that day in May. The king is the head of a party, a little miserable party, ranged against the vast bulk of the French people.'
'You forget the army,' said Lindet; 'the court can always summon to its aid brute force to crush right and reason, as it has crushed it for centuries with the same means.'