The first rumblings of the storm began. People quarrelled and fought in the Palais Royal, the cafés, and the theatres. Half of the National Guard sided with the court, and the other half with the people. To seditious speeches were added songs full of insults to the King and Queen. These songs, sold on every corner, applauded in every tavern, and repeated by the wives and children of the people, propagated revolutionary fury. There was a constant succession of gatherings, brawls, and riots. The Assembly had declared the country in danger. Rumors of every sort excited popular imagination. It was said that priests who refused the oath were in hiding at the Tuileries, which was, moreover, full of arms and munitions. The Duke of Brunswick's manifesto exasperated national sentiment. It was read aloud in every street. The leaders neglected nothing likely to excite the populace, and prepared their last attack on the throne, their afterpiece of June 20, with as much audacity as skill. In order to subdue the court, it was necessary to destroy its only remaining means of defence. To {268} leave plenty of elbow-room for the riot, the Assembly, on July 15, ordered the troops of the line to be sent some thirty-five miles beyond Paris and kept there. A singular means was devised for breaking up the choice troops of the National Guard, who were royalists. They were told that it was contrary to equality for certain citizens to be more brilliantly equipped than others; that a bearskin cap humiliated those who were entitled only to a felt one; and that there was a something aristocratic about the name of grenadier which was really intolerable to a simple foot-soldier. The choice troops were dissolved in consequence, and the grenadiers came to the Assembly like good patriots to lay down their epaulettes and bearskin caps and assume the red cap. On July 30, the National Guard was reconstructed, by taking in all the vagabonds and bandits that the clubs could muster. The famous federates of Marseilles, who were to take such an active part in the coming insurrection, arrived in Paris the same day. The Girondins, having failed to obtain their camp of twenty thousand men before Paris, had devised instead of it a reunion of federate volunteers, summoned from every part of France. The roads were at once thronged by future rioters whom the Assembly allowed thirty cents a day.