ction of the king had a public banquet in the saloon of the
opera. All the rank and elegance which had ventured yet to linger around
the court graced the feast with their presence in the surrounding boxes.
In the midst of their festivities, their chivalrous enthusiasm was
excited in behalf of the king and queen. They drank their health--they
vowed to defend them even unto death. Wine had given fervor to their
loyalty. The ladies showered upon them bouquets, waved their
handkerchiefs, and tossed to them white cockades, the emblem of Bourbon
power. And now the cry arose, loud, and long, and enthusiastic, for the
king and queen to come and show themselves to their defenders. The door
suddenly opened, and the king and queen appeared. Enthusiasm immediately
rose almost to phrensy. The hall resounded with acclamations, and the
king, entirely unmanned by these expressions of attachment, burst into
tears. The band struck up the pathetic air, "O Richard! O my king! the
world abandons you." There was no longer any bounds to the transport.
The officers and the ladies mingled together in a scene of indescribable
enthusiasm.

The tidings of this banquet spread like wildfire through Paris,
magnified by the grossest exaggerations. It was universally believed
that the officers had contemptuously trampled the tri-colored cockade,
the adopted emblem of popular power, under their feet; that they had
sharpened their sabers, and sworn to exterminate the National Assembly
and the people of Paris. All business was at a stand. No laborer was
employed. The provisions in the city were nearly all consumed. No baker
dared to appear with his cart, or farmer to send in his corn, for
pillage was the order of the day. The exasperated and starving people
hung a few bakers before their own ovens, but that did not make bread
any more plenty. The populace of Paris were now starving, literally and
truly starving. A gaunt and haggard woman seized a drum and strode
through the streets, beating it violently, and mingling with its din her
shrieks of "Bread! bread!" A few boys follow her--then a score of female
furies--and then thousands of desperate men. The swelling inundation
rolls from street to street; the alarm bells are rung; all Paris
composes one mighty, resistless mob, motiveless, aimless, but ripe
for any deed of desperation. The cry goes from mouth to mouth "To
Versailles! to Versailles!" Why, no one knows, only that the king and
queen are there. Im