Charles and his little son could not help following to look on, when the mob proceeded with the flour down to the river. They stood on the outskirts of the crowd, watching sack after sack as, with hoarse shouts, it was heaved into the water so as to make the heaviest splash possible. A new amusement presently occurred to some of the leaders; that of testing the political opinions of the passers by by the judgment they should pronounce on the quality of the flour. Those who declared it good must, of course, be parasites of the court; those who made mouths at it were the friends of the people; and the moment this point was settled, every gazer from a distance was hauled to the water’s edge to undergo the test; every approaching carriage was waylaid and stopped, and its inmates brought on the shoulders of the mob. Of course, all gave judgment on the same side;—a thing likely to happen without much dishonesty, when the raw flour was crammed into the mouth by foul and sometimes bloody hands. It would have been difficult to pronounce it very good under such circumstances of administration. Among the most piteous looking of those under test was the marquis de Thou, who was taken from a non-descript sort of carriage, on his way, as he vowed, to the duke of Orleans, but certainly attended by more than one servant of the royal household. While prosecuting his explanations with gesture and grimace, uplifted as he was above the crowd, he looked so like a monkey riding a bear that a universal shout of mockery arose. He was lowered for a moment, out of sight; and the laugh rose louder than ever when he reappeared, held at arms’ length by a hundred hands, powdered all over like a miller. His position made the judgment he had to give all the more difficult, for it enabled him to perceive the royal servants watching him on one side, the duke of Orleans and some of his fiercest followers on another, and the pitiless mob around. “Ah! it is very, very good food for the poor, without doubt,” he declared, while in full view of the court party, and with his mouth stuffed with a compound which had just been taken from a puddle underfoot. “Very fine nourishment for a good king to buy dear, and give away to a hungry people.—Ah! no more,—no more, I pray you! I shall presently dine, and it is enough. I cannot praise it more than I have done.—Ah! but” (seeing the duke frowning) “I do not say but it may be a little sour,—and somewhat bitter,—yes, O yes, and gritty,—and, O do not murder me, and I will also say hurtful.—And poisonous? Yes, no doubt it is poisonous,—clearly poisonous.—But, how bountiful of the king to think of how the poor should be fed!”