dangerous elements. The grilles and
walls, the courts, the grounds and the buildings of the palace, covered
a wide area. The organization for defence was defective; the _gardes
du corps_ were trustworthy but not numerous; the King gave few orders,
and those benevolent or timid; the unrest and pressure of the mob was
irresistible. In the early hours of the morning a determined group of
men got into the palace, and immediately began to force their way
towards the Queen's apartment.

As the 6th of October opened, a scene of great excitement took place
within the palace. _Gardes du corps_ were cut down while protecting
the Queen's flight to the King's apartments. La Fayette was sent for
in haste, and some sort of order was restored. But meanwhile the mob
had invaded the main courtyard, and it required all La Fayette's great
popularity and tact to avert a fatal outbreak. As it was, he persuaded
Louis that the only course was to accept the popular demand for his
removal to Paris; he harangued the mob; he induced the {88} King and
Queen to show themselves at a window; he gracefully kissed the Queen's
hand; and he eventually prevailed.

At noon Paris began to flow back from Versailles to the capital once
more, but now Louis and his family were in the midst of the throng. In
a great lumbering coach, surrounded by the populace, Louis and his wife
and children were proceeding from the palace of Versailles to that of
the Tuileries; an epoch of French history was coming to a close. The
Austrian princess, looking out and seeing a man of the people riding on
the step of her coach, declared contemptuously that this was the first
occasion on which an individual not wearing knee breeches, an
individual _sans culotte_, had occupied so honourable a position. The
cry of _sans culotte_ was taken up, and approved on the spot as the
symbol of worthy citizenship. But the cant phrase that belongs most
closely to the event of the 6th of October, was that whereby the
Parisians declared triumphantly that they had now brought into their
midst _le boulanger, la boulangere, et le petit mitron_,--the baker,
the baker's wife and the little cook boy.

{89}

CHAPTER VII

THE ASSEMBLY DEMOLISHES PRIVILEGE

In the preceding chapter, stress has been laid on the economic causes
that had led to the rooting up of the Bourbons from Versailles; in this
one the political significance of the event must be accentuated. In
the history of th