Lafayette encouraged them by his enthusiastic presence, and filled and trundled a barrow with his own hands; and when the king appeared one day to view the strange scene he was greeted with extravagant joy. Though this went on for weeks, the undertaking was so vast and the best efforts of duchesses and school-boys so far from adequate, that a hurry call had to be sent out, in response to which it was estimated that during the last few days of preparation two hundred and fifty thousand people were busy there. Evil rumors were busy, too, under cover of the music, and whispers went through the crowd that no provisions were to be allowed to enter Paris during the entire week of festivities and that the field had been honeycombed with secret passages and laid [Pg 210]with mines to blow up the whole great throng. Such rumors were answered by a municipal proclamation which ended with the words, "Cowards may flee these imaginary dangers: the friends of Revolution will remain, well knowing that not a second time shall such a day be seen." The miracle was accomplished. By the 14th of July the whole Champs de Mars had been transformed into an amphitheater of terraced greensward, approached through a great triumphal arch. But on the day itself not a single green terrace was visible, so thick were the masses of people crowding the amphitheater and covering the hills on the other side of the river. Opposite the triumphal arch a central pavilion for the king, with covered galleries on each side, had been built against the walls of the military school. On the level green in the center of the great Champs de Mars stood an altar to "The Country," reached by a flight of fifty steps. One hundred cannon, two thousand musicians, and two hundred priests with the Tricolor added to their vestments, were present to take part in the ceremonies. A model of the destroyed Bastile lay at the foot of the altar. Upon the altar itself were inscriptions, one of which bade the spectators "Ponder the three sacred words that guarantee our decrees. The Nation, the Law, the King. You are the Nation, the Law is your will, the King is the head of the Nation and guardian of the Law."