y a large
body of Parisians, and had advised Mounier to adjourn in time. Mounier
fancied that Mirabeau was afraid, and said that every man must die at
his post. When Maillard appeared with a few women, he allowed him to
speak. As the orator of the women whom he had brought from the Hotel
de Ville, Maillard asked for cheap bread, denounced the artificial
famine and the Royal Guards. When rebuked by Mounier for using the
term "citizens," he made a very effective point by saying that any man
who was not proud to be a citizen ought at once to be expelled. But he
admitted that he did not believe all the imputations that were made by
his followers; and he obtained a cheer for the Royal Guard by
exhibiting a regimental cocked hat with the tricolor cockade.

The Assembly gave way, and sent Mounier at the head of a deputation to
invite the king's attention to the demands of his afflicted subjects.
Whilst the deputies, with some of the women, stood in the rain,
waiting for the gates to be opened, a voice in the crowd exclaimed
that there was no want of bread in the days when they had a king, but
now that they had twelve hundred they were starving. So that there
were some whose animosity was not against the king, but against the
elect of the people.

The king at once conceded all that Mounier asked for his strange
companions, and they went away contented. Then their friends outside
fell upon them, and accused them of having taken bribes; and again it
became apparent that two currents had joined, and that some had
honestly come for bread, and some had not. Those who had obtained the
king's order for provisioning Paris, and were satisfied, went back to
bring it to the Hotel de Ville. They were sent home in a royal
carriage. Maillard went with them. It was fully understood that with
all his violence and crudity he had played a difficult part well.

Mounier remained at the Palace. He was not eager to revisit the scene
of his humiliation, where vociferous women had occupied the benches,
asking for supper, and bent on kissing the President. He wished the
king now to accept the Rights of Man, without waiting for the
appointed deputation from the Assembly. Although they were in part his
work, he was no longer wedded to them as they stood, and thought, like
Mirabeau, that they were an impediment. But a crisis had arrived, and
this point might be surrendered, to save the very existence of
monarchy. He waited during many eventful hours, a