sailles. In October Paris laid its
hand on its prey. For some weeks the idea of escaping had been
entertained. Thirty-two of the principal royalists in the Assembly
were consulted, and advised that the king should leave Versailles and
take refuge in the provinces. The late minister, Breteuil, the
Austrian ambassador, Mercy, were of the same opinion, and they carried
the queen with them. But Necker was on the other side.

Instead of flight they resolved upon defence, and brought up the
Flanders regiment, whose Colonel was a deputy of the Left. In the
morning the Count d'Estaing, who held command at Versailles, learnt
with alarm that it had been decided to omit the health of the nation.
The Prussian envoy writes that the officers of the Guards, who had
not yet adopted the Tricolor, displayed the utmost contempt for it. It
required no exaggeration to represent the scene in a light odious to
the public. When Madame Campan came home and described with admiration
what she had just beheld, Beaumetz, a deputy, and friend of
Talleyrand, became very grave, and took his leave, that he might make
up his mind whether he should not emigrate at once. Hostile witnesses
reported the particulars to the press next day, and it was stated,
figuratively or literally, that the Royal Guards had trampled the
national colours under foot. Marat came over to inquire, and Camille
Desmoulins says that he hurried back to Paris making as much noise as
all the trumpets of the Last Day.

The feast had been held on a Thursday. On the Sunday, October 4, Paris
was in a ferment. The insult to the nation, the summoning of troops,
the projected flight, as was now supposed, to the fortress of Metz,
were taken to mean civil war, for the restoration of despotism. At the
Palais Royal the agitators talked of going out to Versailles, to
punish the insolent guards. On the evening of Sunday, one district of
the city, the Cordeliers, who were governed by Danton, were ready to
march. The men of other districts were not so ready for action, or so
zealous to avenge the new cockade. To carry the entire population more
was required than the vague rumour of Metz, or even than the
symbolical outrage.

There was hunger among the 800,000 inhabitants of Paris, between last
year's corn that was exhausted, and the new harvest that was not yet
ground. Nobody, says Dumont, could wonder if so much suffering led to
tumult. The suffering was due to poverty more than to scarcity; bu