“The King’s heart was beginning to fail him; he perceived that the Queen was in peril.  However agonizing it was to his conscience to consecrate the legislative work of philosophy, at ten o’clock in the evening he signed the Declaration of Rights.

“Mounier was at last able to depart.  He hastened to resume his place as president before the arrival of that vast army from Paris, whose projects were not yet known.  He reentered the hall; but there was no longer any Assembly; it had broken up; the crowd, ever growing more clamorous and exacting, had demanded that the prices of bread and meat should be lowered.  Mounier found in his place, in the president’s chair, a tall, fine, well-behaved woman, holding the bell in her hand, who left the chair with reluctance.  He gave orders that they were to try to collect the deputies again; meanwhile, he announced to the people that the King had just accepted the constitutional article.  The women, crowding about him, then entreated him to give them copies of them; others said:  ’But, Monsieur President, will this be very advantageous?  Will this give bread to the poor people of Paris?’ Others exclaimed:  ’We are very hungry.  We have eaten nothing to-day.’  Mounier ordered bread to be fetched from the bakers.  Provisions then came in on all sides.  They all began eating in the hall with much clamour.”

At midnight Lafayette arrived at the head of twenty thousand men of the National Guard.  To the amazement of the soldiers and onlookers, he dared to pass unattended through the palace doors to the Bull’s Eye.  “He appeared very calm,” says Madame de Stael, Necker’s observant daughter.  “Nobody ever saw him otherwise.”  When he had reported his arrival to the King, Lafayette stationed guards about the palace, and, worn with hours of marching in the rain and mud, so far forgot his duty to his Sovereign and his command that he retired to his house in the town of Versailles to seek sleep.  In the masses of people outside the gates were thieves and men of violence.  “What a delightful prospect was opened for pillage in the wonderful palace of Versailles, where the riches of France had been amassed for more than a century!” exclaims the commentator, Michelet.  Here follows a dramatic account of what followed, based on the story of Madame de Stael, who witnessed many of the bloody scenes in person.  “At five in the morning, before daylight, a large crowd was already prowling about the gates, armed with pikes, spits, and scythes.  About six o’clock, this crowd, composed of Parisians and people of Versailles, scale or force the gates, and advance into the courts with fear and hesitation.  The first who was killed, if we believe the Royalists, died from a fall, having slipped in the Marble Court.  According to another and a more likely version, he was shot dead by the body-guard.