three and four in the afternoon
Maillard reached Versailles with his column of women. Their quality
had deteriorated by the recruits made on the way, and there had been a
large accession of ferocity. Besides the women who followed Maillard
from the Hotel de Ville, some of whom believed that hunger is caused
by bad government, and can be appeased by good, others displayed the
aprons in which they meant to carry the queen to Paris, bit by bit.
And there was a group, more significant than either, who were well
supplied with money, to be distributed among the soldiers of the
Flemish regiment, and who effectually performed their office.

Maillard, who had prevented depredation by the way, made straight for
the Assembly, and was admitted with a deputation of his followers.
They arrived at a moment of excitement. The king had accepted the
nineteen paragraphs of the Constitution, with the proviso that he
retained the executive power undiminished. He had put off the Rights
of Man until it should be seen how they were affected by the portions
of the constitution yet to pass. The reply was not countersigned by a
minister; and the deputies saw in it an attempt to claim the right of
modifying the fundamental laws. They brought up the imprudences of the
dinner of welcome, and argued that there must be a plot.

Mirabeau had never stood in a more difficult position. He clung to the
monarchy, but not to the king. He was ready to serve the Count of
Provence, or even the Duke of Orleans, but not a feeble executive; and
he judged that, as things were going, there would soon be no king to
serve. Through his friend La Marck he had attempted to terrify the
Court, and to induce them to accept his services. La Marck had
represented to the queen the immense value of the aid of such a man;
and the queen had replied, decisively, that she hoped they would
never fall so low as to need help from Mirabeau.

He defended the king's answer on the ground he had held before, that
the Declaration ought to follow the Constitution, and ought not to
precede it. Speaking of the scene at the officers' dinner, he said
that the king was inviolable--the king, and no other person. The
allusion was so clear that the royalists were reduced to silence. The
Assembly resolved that the king should be requested to give his
assent, unconditionally. Before the deputation had left, Maillard
entered the Assembly.

Mirabeau had received early notice of the intended attack b