ipal Council. Bailly offered to the king a tricolor cockade,
which had been recently adopted as the national emblem, Lafayette,
in devising it, having added white, the Bourbon color, to the red
and blue that were the colors of Paris, to show the fidelity of the
people to the institution of royalty. The king accepted the badge,
pinned it to his breast, appeared with it on the balcony before the
vast throng, and returned to Versailles with the feeling, on his
part and that of others, that the reconciliation between all parties
was complete and that the era of popular government had begun.
Instead of that, the troubles continually increased, and Lafayette
was placed in a most trying position, equally opposed to the
encroachments of the destructionists and to the intrigues of the
court, and longing as eagerly for the retention of the monarchy as
for the establishment of the constitution. The brutal murder of
Foulon, the superintendent of the revenue, and of his son-in-law
Berthier, who were torn in pieces by the enraged populace on the
22d, in spite of the commands, entreaties, and even tears of
Lafayette, so disgusted him that he resigned his command, and
resumed it only when the sixty districts of Paris agreed to support
him in his efforts to maintain order. On October 5th a mob of
several thousand women set out from Paris to march to Versailles,
with vague ideas of extorting from the National Assembly the passage
of laws that should remove all distresses, of obtaining in some way
a supply of food that should relieve the immediate needs of the
capital, and of bringing back with them the royal family. The
National Guard were urgent to accompany the women, partly from a
desire to protect them in case of a possible collision with the
royal troops, but still more to bring on a conflict with a regiment
lately brought from the frontier, and to exterminate the body-guard
of the king, the members of which had, at a supper given a few
nights before, been so indiscreet as to trample the tricolor under
their feet and pin the white cockade to their lapels. Lafayette did
all in his power to prevent the march of the National Guard, sitting
on his horse for eight hours in their midst, and refusing all their
entreaties to give the word of command, till the Municipal Council
finally issued the order and the troops set forth. Arrived at
Versailles he posted one of his regiments in different parts of the
palace, to protect it in case it wer