Alice’s tearful eyes had besought mercy for her parent long before the queen seemed disposed to yield it. While the adherence of the noblesse to the royal cause was regarded as a matter of course, and therefore not rewarded with extraordinary gratitude, all symptoms of halting or defection were observed with scorn, and commented on without reserve by the haughty woman who regarded her rank and empire as natural, instead of conventional, and would as soon have dreamed of being denied the use of her limbs and senses as the privileges of royalty. It was through her influence that the king refused to sign the declaration till the last moment,—when he was compelled to do so at a tremendous sacrifice of regal dignity;—at the bidding, namely, of twelve poissardes who forced their way into the presence with the deputies from the Assembly, and under the compulsion of threats of what might be expected from the army of eighteen thousand men who had marched from Paris during the afternoon, under the enforced command of Lafayette. Never was anything beheld more dreary than the aspect, more disgusting than the incidents of this day and night. The skies frowned upon the scene, and wind and rain added to the difficulty of what was achieved, and the horror of what was witnessed. The deputies and their attendants, the poissardes, appeared in the king’s presence, covered with mud and drenched with rain; the House of Assembly was crowded with women, who came in for shelter, taking their seats among the members, now eating and drinking, and now lifting up an outcry to drown the voice of an unpopular deputy; the fires of the bivouacs in the streets were quenched with torrents of rain, again and again, and the peaceable inhabitants were in fear of being compelled at length to throw open their gates to the rabble. The leading figure of the mob, however, had a peculiar reason for disliking the weather, as he took care to show everybody. He was a gaunt-looking ruffian, with a high pointed cap, and grotesque garb, well armed, but especially proud of an axe which he carried, ready for immediate use at the slightest hint from the leaders of the mob. With all his fear,—the only fear he seemed capable of,—that it should be rusted with the wet, and he thus delayed in his vocation, he could not refrain from brandishing it over his head, and displaying it in sight of the sentinels, and such of the body-guards as looked out now and then from the palace. This ruffian took his stand immediately under the king’s window, prepared a cannon as a convenient block, and waited impatiently for victims. He could not be persuaded to quit his post for shelter; but he did once step aside for brandy. On his return, he found two poissardes sitting astride on his cannon, face to face, tossing off their drams, and devouring the rations which their prompting demon had taken care to provide. The executioner warned them off, and prevailed by the offer of a better seat within five minutes.