What a fearful mass! Howling, shrieking women, with loosened hair, and with menacing gestures, extended their naked arms toward the palace defiantly, their eyes naming, their mouths overflowing with curses. Wild men's figures, with torn blouses, the sleeves rolled up over dusty and dirty arms, and bearing pikes, knives, and guns, here and there members of the National Guard marching with them arm in arm, pressed on toward the palace. Sometimes shrieks and yells, sometimes coarse peals of laughter, or threatening cries, issued from the confused crowd. Nearer and nearer surged the dreadful wave of destruction to the royal palace. Now it has reached it. Maddened fists pounded upon the iron gates before the inner court, and threatening voices demanded entrance: hundreds and hundreds of women shrieked with wild gestures:
"We want to come in! We want to speak with the baker! We will eat the queen's guts if we cannot get any thing else to eat!"
And thousands upon thousands of women's voices repeated--"Yes, we will eat the queen's guts, if we get nothing else to eat!"
Marie Antoinette withdrew from the window; her bearing was grave and defiant, a laugh of scorn played over her proudly-drawn-up upper-lip, her head was erect, her step decisive, dignified.
She went again to the king and his ministers. "Sire," said she, "the people are here. It is now too late to supplicate them, as you wanted to do. Nothing remains for you except to defend yourself, and to save the crown for your son the dauphin, even if it falls from your own head."
"It remains for us," answered the king, gravely, "to bring the people back to a sense of duty. They are deceived about us. They are excited. We will try to conciliate them, and to show them our fatherly interest in them."
The queen stared in amazement at the pleasant, smiling face of the king; then, with a loud cry of pain, which escaped from her breast like the last gasp of a dying man, she turned around, and went up to the Prince de Luxemburg, the captain of the guard, who just then entered the hall.
"Do you come to tell us that the people have taken the palace?" cried the queen, with an angry burst from her very soul.
"Madame," answered the prince, "had that been the case, I should not have been here alive. Only over my body will the rabble enter the palace."
"Ah," muttered Marie Antoinette to herself, "there are men in Versailles yet, there are brave men yet to defend us!"
"What news do you bring, captain?" asked the king, stepping up.
"Sire, I am come to receive your commands," answered the prince, bowing respectfully. "This mob of shameless shrews is growing more maddened, more shameless every moment. Thousands and thousands of arms are trying the gates, and guns are fired with steady aim at the guards. I beg your majesty to empower me to repel this attack of mad women!"
"What an idea, captain!" cried Louis, shrugging his shoulders.
"Order to attack a company of women! You are joking, prince!"
[Footnote: The king's own words.--See Weber, "Memoires," vol. t, p.
433.]
And the king turned to Count de la Marck, who was entering the room.
"You come with new news. What is it, count?"
"Sire, the women are most desirous of speaking with your majesty, and presenting their grievances."
"I will hear them," cried the king, eagerly. "Tell the women to choose six of their number and bring them into my cabinet. I will go there myself."
"Sire, you are going to give audience to revolution," cried Marie Antoinette, seizing the arm of the king, who was on the point of leaving the room. "I conjure you, my husband, do not be overpowered by your magnanimous heart! Let not the majesty of the realm be defiled by the raging hands of these furies! Remain here. Oh, sire, if my prayers, my wishes have any power with you, remain here! Send a minister to treat with these women in your name. But do not confront their impudence with the dignity of the crown. Sire, to give them audience is to give audience to revolution; and from the hour when it takes place, revolution has gained the victory over the kingly authority! Do not go, oh do not go!"
"I have given my word," answered Louis, gently. "I have sent word to the women that I would receive them, and they shall not say that the first time they set foot in the palace of their king, they were deceived by him. And see, there comes the count to take me!"
And the king followed with hasty step Count de la Marck, who just then appeared at the door.
Six women of wild demeanor, with dusty, dirty clothes, their hair streaming out from their round white caps, were assembled in the cabinet of the king, and stared at him with defiant eyes as he entered. But his gentle demeanor and pleasant voice appeared to surprise them; and Louise Chably, the speaker, who had selected the women, found only timid, modest words, with which to paint to the king the misfortune, the need, and the pitiable condition of the people, and with which to entreat his pity and assistance.
"Ah, my children," answered the king with a sigh, "only believe me, it is not my fault that you are miserable, and I am still more unhappy than you. I will give directions to Corbeil and D'Estampes, the controllers of the grain-stores, to give out all that they can spare. If my commands had always been obeyed, it would be better with us all! If I could do every thing, could see to it that my commands were everywhere carried into effect, you would not be unhappy; and you must confess, at least, that your king loves you as a father his children, and that nothing lies so closely at his heart as your welfare. Go, my children, and tell your friends to prove worthy of the love of their king, and to return peaceably to Paris."
[Footnote: The king's own words.--See. A. de Beauchesne, "Louis XVI.. sa Vie, son Agonie, "etc., vol. i., p. 43.]
"Long live the king! Long live our father!" cried the touched and pacified women, as trembling and with tears in their eyes, they left the royal cabinet, in order to go to the women below, and announce to them what the king had said.