Maillard, who had prevented depredation by the way, made straight for the Assembly, and was admitted with a deputation of his followers. They arrived at a moment of excitement. The king had accepted the nineteen paragraphs of the Constitution, with the proviso that he retained the executive power undiminished. He had put off the Rights of Man until it should be seen how they were affected by the portions of the constitution yet to pass. The reply was not countersigned by a minister; and the deputies saw in it an attempt to claim the right of modifying the fundamental laws. They brought up the imprudences of the dinner of welcome, and argued that there must be a plot. Mirabeau had never stood in a more difficult position. He clung to the monarchy, but not to the king. He was ready to serve the Count of Provence, or even the Duke of Orleans, but not a feeble executive; and he judged that, as things were going, there would soon be no king to serve. Through his friend La Marck he had attempted to terrify the Court, and to induce them to accept his services. La Marck had represented to the queen the immense value of the aid of such a man; and the queen had replied, decisively, that she hoped they would never fall so low as to need help from Mirabeau. He defended the king's answer on the ground he had held before, that the Declaration ought to follow the Constitution, and ought not to precede it. Speaking of the scene at the officers' dinner, he said that the king was inviolable--the king, and no other person. The allusion was so clear that the royalists were reduced to silence. The Assembly resolved that the king should be requested to give his assent, unconditionally. Before the deputation had left, Maillard entered the Assembly. Mirabeau had received early notice of the intended attack by a large body of Parisians, and had advised Mounier to adjourn in time. Mounier fancied that Mirabeau was afraid, and said that every man must die at his post. When Maillard appeared with a few women, he allowed him to speak. As the orator of the women whom he had brought from the Hotel de Ville, Maillard asked for cheap bread, denounced the artificial famine and the Royal Guards. When rebuked by Mounier for using the term "citizens," he made a very effective point by saying that any man who was not proud to be a citizen ought at once to be expelled. But he admitted that he did not believe all the imputations that were made by his followers; and he obtained a cheer for the Royal Guard by exhibiting a regimental cocked hat with the tricolor cockade.