The Bodyguards file off, as we hint; giving and receiving shots; drawing no life-blood; leaving boundless indignation.  Some three times in the thickening dusk, a glimpse of them is seen, at this or the other Portal:  saluted always with execrations, with the whew of lead.  Let but a Bodyguard shew face, he is hunted by Rascality;—­for instance, poor ’M. de Moucheton of the Scotch Company,’ owner of the slain war-horse; and has to be smuggled off by Versailles Captains.  Or rusty firelocks belch after him, shivering asunder his—­hat.  In the end, by superior Order, the Bodyguards, all but the few on immediate duty, disappear; or as it were abscond; and march, under cloud of night, to Rambouillet. (Weber, ubi supra.)

We remark also that the Versaillese have now got ammunition:  all afternoon, the official Person could find none; till, in these so critical moments, a patriotic Sublieutenant set a pistol to his ear, and would thank him to find some,—­which he thereupon succeeded in doing.  Likewise that Flandre, disarmed by Pallas Athene, says openly, it will not fight with citizens; and for token of peace, has exchanged cartridges with the Versaillese.

Sansculottism is now among mere friends; and can ‘circulate freely;’ indignant at Bodyguards;—­complaining also considerably of hunger.

Chapter 1.7.VIII.

The Equal Diet.

But why lingers Mounier; returns not with his Deputation?  It is six, it is seven o’clock; and still no Mounier, no Acceptance pure and simple.

And, behold, the dripping Menads, not now in deputation but in mass, have penetrated into the Assembly:  to the shamefullest interruption of public speaking and order of the day.  Neither Maillard nor Vice-President can restrain them, except within wide limits; not even, except for minutes, can the lion-voice of Mirabeau, though they applaud it:  but ever and anon they break in upon the regeneration of France with cries of:  “Bread; not so much discoursing!  Du pain; pas tant de longs discours!”—­So insensible were these poor creatures to bursts of Parliamentary eloquence!

One learns also that the royal Carriages are getting yoked, as if for Metz.  Carriages, royal or not, have verily showed themselves at the back Gates.  They even produced, or quoted, a written order from our Versailles Municipality,—­which is a Monarchic not a Democratic one.  However, Versailles Patroles drove them in again; as the vigilant Lecointre had strictly charged them to do.

A busy man, truly, is Major Lecointre, in these hours.  For Colonel d’Estaing loiters invisible in the Oeil-de-Boeuf; invisible, or still more questionably visible, for instants:  then also a too loyal Municipality requires supervision:  no order, civil or military, taken about any of these thousand things!  Lecointre is at the Versailles Townhall:  he is at the Grate of the Grand Court; communing with Swiss and Bodyguards.  He is in the ranks of Flandre; he is here, he is there:  studious to prevent bloodshed; to prevent the Royal Family from flying to Metz; the Menads from plundering Versailles.