d were occasionally accompanied by great
violence. And when the deputies assembled at Versailles there was
behind them a great popular force, already half unloosed, that looked
to the States-General for appeasement or for guidance.

The procedure which the Third Estate and National Assembly stumbled
into, gave this popular force an opportunity for expressing itself.
The public was admitted to the opening session, and it continued to
come to those that followed. From the public galleries came the
loudest sounds of applause that greeted the patriotic orator. The
Parisian public quickly fell into the way of making the journey to
Versailles to join in these demonstrations, and soon transferred them
from the hall of the assembly to the street outside. Mirabeau, Sieyes,
Mounier, and other popular members were constantly receiving
ovations--and soon learnt to {61} convert them into political weapons;
while members who were suspected of reactionary tendencies, especially
the higher clergy, met with hostile receptions. And all this, well
known both to Court and assembly, was but a faint echo of the great
force rumbling steadily twelve miles away in the city of Paris.

The leaders of the assembly did not scruple to use this pressure of
public opinion, of popular violence, for all it was worth. And placed
as they were it was not surprising that they should have done so. The
deputies were only a small group of men in the great royal city
garrisoned with all the traditions of the French royalty and 5,000
sabres and bayonets besides. It was natural that they should seek
support then, even if that support meant violence, lawlessness or
insurrection.

Thus Paris encouraged the assembly, and the assembly Paris. The
ferment in the capital was reaching fever-heat just at the moment that
the assembly had won its victory over the orders. The working classes
were raging for food, the bankers, capitalists and merchants saw in the
States-General the only hope of avoiding bankruptcy, the intellectual
and professional class was more agitated than any other. The cafes and
pamphlet shops of the {62} Palais Royal were daily more crowded, more
excited. And on the 30th of June the army itself began to show
symptoms of following the general movement.

The regiment of French guards was a body of soldiers kept permanently
quartered in the capital. The men were, therefore, in closer touch
with the population than would be the case in ord