To Versailles.
For, indeed, about this same moment, Maillard has halted his
draggled Menads on the last hill-top; and now Versailles, and the
Château of Versailles, and far and wide the inheritance of
Royalty opens to the wondering eye. From far on the right, over
Marly and Saint-Germains-en-Laye; round towards Rambouillet, on
the left: beautiful all; softly embosomed; as if in sadness, in
the dim moist weather! And near before us is Versailles, New and
Old; with that broad frondent _Avenue de Versailles_
between,—stately-frondent, broad, three hundred feet as men
reckon, with four Rows of Elms; and then the _Château de
Versailles_, ending in royal Parks and Pleasances, gleaming
lakelets, arbours, Labyrinths, the _Ménagerie_, and Great and
Little Trianon. High-towered dwellings, leafy pleasant places;
where the gods of this lower world abide: whence, nevertheless,
black Care cannot be excluded; whither Menadic Hunger is even now
advancing, armed with pike-thyrsi!
Yes, yonder, Mesdames, where our straight frondent Avenue,
joined, as you note, by Two frondent brother Avenues from this
hand and from that, spreads out into Place Royale and Palace
Forecourt; yonder is the _Salle des Menus_. Yonder an august
Assembly sits regenerating France. Forecourt, Grand Court, Court
of Marble, Court narrowing into Court you may discern next, or
fancy: on the extreme verge of which that glass-dome, visibly
glittering like a star of hope, is the—Œil-de-Bœuf! Yonder, or
nowhere in the world, is bread baked for us. But, O Mesdames,
were not one thing good: That our cannons, with Demoiselle
Théroigne and all show of war, be put to the rear? Submission
beseems petitioners of a National Assembly; we are strangers in
Versailles,—whence, too audibly, there comes even now sound as of
tocsin and _générale!_ Also to put on, if possible, a cheerful
countenance, hiding our sorrows; and even to sing? Sorrow, pitied
of the Heavens, is hateful, suspicious to the Earth.—So counsels
shifty Maillard; haranguing his Menads, on the heights near
Versailles.[241]
Cunning Maillard’s dispositions are obeyed. The draggled
Insurrectionists advance up the Avenue, “in three columns”, among
the four Elm-rows; “singing _Henri Quatre_,” with what melody
they can; and shouting _Vive le Roi_. Versailles, though the
Elm-rows are dripping wet, crowds from both sides, with: ‘_Vivent
nos Parisiennes_, Our Paris ones for ever!’
Prickers, scouts have been out towards Paris, as the rumour
deepened: whereby his Majesty, gone to shoot in the Woods of
Meudon, has been happily discovered, and got home; and the
_générale_ and tocsin set a-sounding. The Bodyguards are already
drawn up in front of the Palace Grates; and look down the Avenue
de Versailles; sulky, in wet buckskins. Flandre too is there,
repentant of the Opera-Repast. Also Dragoons dismounted are
there. Finally Major Lecointre, and what he can gather of the
Versailles National Guard; though, it is to be observed, our
Colonel, that same sleepless Count d’Estaing, giving neither
order nor ammunition, has vanished most improperly; one supposes,
into the Œil-de-Bœuf. Red-coated Swiss stand within the Grates,
under arms. There likewise, in their inner room, “all the
Ministers,” Saint-Priest, Lamentation Pompignan and the rest, are
assembled with M. Necker: they sit with him there; blank,
expecting what the hour will bring.
President Mounier, though he answered Mirabeau with a _tant
mieux_, and affected to slight the matter, had his own
forebodings. Surely, for these four weary hours, he has reclined
not on roses! The order of the day is getting forward: a
Deputation to his Majesty seems proper, that it might please him
to grant “Acceptance pure and simple” to those
Constitution-Articles of ours; the “mixed qualified Acceptance,”
with its peradventures, is satisfactory to neither gods nor men.
So much is clear. And yet there is more, which no man speaks,
which all men now vaguely understand. Disquietude, absence of
mind is on every face; Members whisper, uneasily come and go: the
order of the day is evidently not the day’s want. Till at length,
from the outer gates, is heard a rustling and justling, shrill
uproar and squabbling, muffled by walls; which testifies that the
hour is come! Rushing and crushing one hears now; then enter
Usher Maillard, with a Deputation of Fifteen muddy dripping
Women,—having by incredible industry, and aid of all the macers,
persuaded the rest to wait out of doors. National Assembly shall
now, therefore, look its august task directly in the face:
regenerative Constitutionalism has an unregenerate Sansculottism
bodily in front of it; crying, ‘Bread! Bread!’
Shifty Maillard, translating frenzy into articulation; repressive
with the one hand, expostulative with the other, does his best;
and really, though not bred to public speaking, manages rather
well:—In the present dreadful rarity of grains, a Deputation of
Female Citizens has, as the august Assembly can discern, come out
from Paris to petition. Plots of Aristocrats are too evident in
the matter; for example, one miller has been bribed “by a
banknote of 200 livres” not to grind,—name unknown to the Usher,
but fact provable, at least indubitable. Further, it seems, the
National Cockade has been trampled on; also there are Black
Cockades, or were. All which things will not an august National
Assembly, the hope of France, take into its wise immediate
consideration?
And Menadic Hunger, impressible, crying ‘Black Cockades,’ crying
‘Bread, Bread,’ adds, after such fashion: ‘Will it not?—Yes,
Messieurs, if a Deputation to his Majesty, for the “Acceptance
pure and simple,” seemed proper,—how much more now, for “the
afflicting situation of Paris;” for the calming of this
effervescence!’ President Mounier, with a speedy Deputation,
among whom we notice the respectable figure of Doctor Guillotin,
gets himself forthwith on march. Vice-President shall continue
the order of the day; Usher Maillard shall stay by him to repress
the women. It is four o’clock, of the miserablest afternoon, when
Mounier steps out.
O experienced Mounier, what an afternoon; the last of thy
political existence! Better had it been to “fall suddenly
unwell,” while it was yet time. For, behold, the Esplanade, over
all its spacious expanse, is covered with groups of squalid
dripping Women; of lankhaired male Rascality, armed with axes,
rusty pikes, old muskets, ironshod clubs (_batons ferrés_, which
end in knives or sword-blades, a kind of extempore
billhook);—looking nothing but hungry revolt. The rain pours:
Gardes-du-Corps go caracoling through the groups “amid hisses;”
irritating and agitating what is but dispersed here to reunite
there.
Innumerable squalid women beleaguer the President and Deputation;
insist on going with him: has not his Majesty himself, looking
from the window, sent out to ask, What we wanted? ‘Bread and
speech with the King (_Du pain, et parler au Roi_),’ that was the
answer. Twelve women are clamorously added to the Deputation; and
march with it, across the Esplanade; through dissipated groups,
caracoling Bodyguards, and the pouring rain.
President Mounier, unexpectedly augmented by Twelve Women,
copiously escorted by Hunger and Rascality, is himself mistaken
for a group: himself and his Women are dispersed by caracolers;
rally again with difficulty, among the mud.[242] Finally the
Grates are opened: the Deputation gets access, with the Twelve
Women too in it; of which latter, Five shall even see the face of
his Majesty. Let wet Menadism, in the best spirits it can expect
their return.