avorite air
from one of the new operas, "Peut-on affliger ce qu'on aime?" which those
who saw the anxiety which recent events had already stamped upon the
queen's majestic brow could hardly avoid applying to their royal mistress;
and when it followed it up by Blondel's lamentation for Richard, "O
Richard, O mon roi, l'univers t'abandonne," the first notes of the
well-known song touched a chord in every heart, and the whole company,
courtiers, ladies, soldiers, and deputies, were all carried away in a
perfect delirium of loyal rapture. The whole company escorted the royal
family back to their apartments; though it was remarked afterward that
some of the soldiers, who on this occasion were the most vociferous in
their exultation, were, before the end of the same week, among the most
furious threateners and assailants of the palace.

But a demonstration such as this, in which the whole number of the
soldiers concerned did not exceed fifteen hundred men, could not deter the
organizers of the impending riot from carrying out their plan: if it did
not even aid them by the opportunities which it afforded for spreading
abroad exaggerated accounts of what had taken place, as an additional
proof of the settled hatred and contempt which the court entertained for
the people. Mirabeau had suggested that the best chance of success for an
insurrection in Paris lay in placing women at its head; and, in compliance
with his hint, at day-break on the appointed morning a woman of notorious
infamy of character moved toward the chief market-place of Paris, beating
a drum, and calling on all who heard her to follow her.[3] She soon
gathered round her a troop of followers worthy of such a leader, market-
women, fish-women, and men in women's clothes, whose deep voices, and the
power with which they brandished their weapons, betrayed their sex through
their disguise.

One man, Maillard, who had been conspicuous as one of the fiercest of the
stormers of the Bastile, disdained any concealment or dress but his own;
they chose him for their leader, mingling with their cries for bread
horrid threats against the queen and the aristocrats. Their numbers
increased till they felt themselves strong enough to attack the Hotel de
Ville. A detachment of the National Guard who were on duty offered them no
resistance, pleading that they had received no orders from La Fayette; and
the rioters, now amounting to many thousands, having armed themselves from
the