he mud, through the rain, and watched by
a howling escort of women and men armed with pikes: after five hours
of waiting and entreaty, it wrings from the King, besides the decree on
subsistence, about which there was no difficulty, the acceptance,
pure and simple, of the Declaration of Rights, and his sanction to the
constitutional articles.--Such is the independence of the King and the
Assembly.[1435] Thus are the new principles of justice established, the
grand outlines of the Constitution, the abstract axioms of political
truth under the dictatorship of a crowd which extorts not only blindly,
but which is half-conscious of its blindness.

"Monsieur le President," some among the women say to Mounier, who
returns with the Royal sanction, "will it be of any real use to us? will
it give poor folks bread in Paris?"

Meanwhile, the scum has been bubbling up around the chateau; and the
abandoned women subsidized in Paris are pursuing their calling.[1436]
They slip through into the lines of the regiment drawn on the square, in
spite of the sentinels. Theroigne, in an Amazonian red vest, distributes
money among them.

"Side with us," some say to the men; "we shall soon beat the King's
Guards, strip off their fine coats and sell them."

Others lie sprawling on the ground, alluring the soldiers, and make such
offers as to lead one of them to exclaim, "We are going to have a jolly
time of it!" Before the day is over, the regiment is seduced; the women
have, according to their own idea, acted for a good motive. When a
political idea finds its way into such heads, instead of ennobling them,
it becomes degraded there; its only effect is to let loose vices which a
remnant of modesty still keeps in subjection, and full play is given to
luxurious or ferocious instincts under cover of the public good.--The
passions, moreover, become intensified through their mutual interaction;
crowds, clamor, disorder, longings, and fasting, end in a state of
frenzy, from which nothing can issue but dizzy madness and rage.--This
frenzy began to show itself on the way. Already, on setting out, a woman
had exclaimed,

"We shall bring back the Queen's head on the end of a pike!"[1437]

On reaching the Sevres bridge others added,

"Let us cut her throat, and make cockades of her entrails!"

Rain is falling; they are cold, tired, and hungry, and get nothing to
eat but a bit of bread, distributed at a late hour, and with difficulty,
on the Place d'