tes," and
boasted that they should have ample opportunity of proving their title to
it.

In addition to the warnings previously received, a rumor had reached the
palace on the preceding evening that the Duc d'Orleans had come down to
Versailles in disguise,[4] a movement which could hardly have an innocent
object; but so little heed had been given to the intelligence, or, it may
perhaps be said, so little was it supposed that, if such an attack was
really meditated, any warning would have been given, that Monsieur de
Chinon found the palace empty. Louis had gone to hunt in the Bois de
Meudon; Marie Antoinette was at the Little Trianon. But messengers easily
found them. The queen came in with speed from her garden, which she was
destined never to behold again; the king hastened hack from his coverts;
and by the time that they returned, the Count de St. Priest, the Minister
of the Household, had their carriages ready for them to retire to
Rambouillet, and he earnestly pressed the adoption of such a course.
Louis, as usual, could not make up his mind. He sat in his chair,
repeating that it was a moment to think seriously. "Rather," said Marie
Antoinette, "say that it is a time to act promptly." He would gladly have
had her depart with her children, but she refused to leave him, declaring
that her place was by his side; that, as the daughter of Maria Teresa, she
did not fear death; and after a time he changed his mind and ceased to
wish even her to retire, clinging to his old conviction that conciliation
was always possible. He believed that he had won over even the worst of
the mob, and that all danger was past.

Versailles witnessed a strange scene that morning. The moment that the mob
reached the town, they forced their way into the Assembly Hall, where
Maillard, as their spokesman, after terrifying the members with ferocious
threats against the whole body of the Nobles, demanded that the Assembly
should send a deputation to the king to represent to him the distress of
the people, and that a party of the women should accompany it. Louis
consented to receive them, and when they reached the palace, the women,
disorderly and ferocious as they were, were so awed by the magnificence
and pomp which they beheld, and by the actual presence of the king and
queen, that they could only summon up a few modest and humble words of
petition, and one, a young and pretty girl of seventeen, fainted with the
excitement. One of the princes