; haranguing his Menads, on the heights near Versailles. (See
Hist. Parl. iii. 70-117; Deux Amis, iii. 166-177, &c.)

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 generale 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
Oeil-de-Boeuf. 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