The king had been told, on the day the Bastille was taken, that his capital was in a state of revolution; but, nearly three months afterwards, he was still wondering what the event might mean; talking over with the queen the kindnesses he had always intended showing to his people, and assuring the people’s parliament that the best thing he could do for them was to preserve his dignity and prerogative. He could still at Versailles ride abroad unmolested in the mornings, feast his body-guard in the middle of the day, and look on while the ladies of the court were dancing in the evening, and sleep the whole night without hearing the drums and larums which kept all Paris awake; and could not therefore believe that all would not come right, when the people should have been persuaded of the atrocious unreasonableness of the Declaration they wanted him to sign. When he heard that they drowned their flour in hatred of him, he did all he could think of in ordering that more should be given them; and when the queen discovered that which every one would have kept from her,—that she was hated,—she curled her proud lip, and reared her graceful head, and thought that the citizens must be ignorant indeed if they fancied they could understand her springs of action, or believed that they could intimidate her. With the dauphin at her knee, she expatiated to the ladies of her court on the misfortune of kings and queens having any connexion at all with the people beneath them, whom it was at all times difficult to manage, and who might, as now, cause serious trouble, and interfere materially with the peace of royalty. She had at that moment little idea how the peace of royalty was to be invaded this very day. A murmur of horror and looks of dismay penetrated even into the presence of her majesty, when tidings arrived of the approach of an army of women from Paris. “Of women!” cried the gouvernante of the dauphin. “Is it because they can crave bread with a shriller wail?” “Of women!” exclaimed the lady Alice de Thou. “They come to plead for the rights of their children. I remember when they brought the little ones in their arms after the storm, and we gave them all we had.” “Of women!” said the queen, thoughtfully. Then, with fire in her eyes, she continued, looking steadfastly on the trembling chamberlain who brought the news, “Since they are women, it is _my_ head they want. Is it not so? Speak. Are they not come for me?” As soon as the chamberlain could speak, he muttered that he feared they were indeed not women, but ruffians in disguise. “Aye, just so,” observed the queen. “Their womanhood is emblematical; and the hint of their purpose is not lost upon me. I hope they are indeed men, and can handle arms. I would take my death more willingly, being shot at as a mark, than being torn to pieces by the foul hands of the rabble. A death-blow from afar rather than a touch from any one of them!”