Their unexpected appearance, for they had intercepted all the couriers who might have announced it, excited the terrors of the court. The troops of Versailles flew to arms and surrounded the château, but the intentions of the women were not hostile. Maillard, their leader, had recommended them to appear as suppliants, and in that attitude they presented their complaints successively to the assembly and to the king. Accordingly, the first hours of this turbulent evening were sufficiently calm. Yet it was impossible but that causes of hostility should arise between an excited mob and the household troops, the objects of so much irritation. The latter were stationed in the court of the château opposite the national guard and the Flanders regiment. The space between was filled by women and volunteers of the Bastille. In the midst of the confusion, necessarily arising from such a juxtaposition, a scuffle arose; this was the signal for disorder and conflict. An officer of the guards struck a Parisian soldier with his sabre, and was in turn shot in the arm. The national guards sided against the household troops; the conflict became warm, and would have been sanguinary, but for the darkness, the bad weather, and the orders given to the household troops first to cease firing and then to retire. But as these were accused of being the aggressors, the fury of the multitude continued for some time; their quarters were broken into, two of them were wounded, and another saved with difficulty. During this tumult, the court was in consternation; the flight of the king was suggested, and carriages prepared; a picket of the national guard saw them at the gate of the Orangery, and, after closing the gate, compelled them to go back; moreover, the king, either ignorant of the designs of the court, or conceiving them impracticable, refused to escape. Fears were mingled with his pacific intentions, when he hesitated to repel the aggression or to take flight. Conquered, he apprehended the fate of Charles I. of England; absent, he feared that the duke of Orleans would obtain the lieutenancy of the kingdom. But, in the meantime, the rain, fatigue, and the inaction of the household troops, lessened the fury of the multitude, and Lafayette arrived at the head of the Parisian army.