The discontent of the soldiers reached the ears of their officers. Apprehensive that by association with the people the troops might become allied to them by a common sympathy, the officers commanded the guards no longer to go into the streets, and consigned them to imprisonment in their barracks. This of course increased their exasperation, and, being left to themselves and with nothing to do, they held meetings very much like those which they had attended in the Palais Royal, and talked over their grievances and the state of the monarchy.[134] Patriotic enthusiasm rapidly gained strength among them, and they took an oath that they would not fire upon the people. The colonel of the regiment arrested eleven of the most prominent in this movement and sent them to the prison of the Abbaye, where they were to await a court-martial and such punishment as might be their doom. This was the 30th of June.[135] On the evening of that day, as a vast and agitated multitude was assembled at the Palais Royal, listening to the speakers who there, notwithstanding reiterated municipal prohibitions, gave intelligence of all that was passing at Versailles, tidings came of the arrest of the soldiers. A young man, M. Lourtalot, editor of a Parisian paper, mounted a chair and said, "These are the brave soldiers who have refused to shed the blood of their fellow-citizens. Let us go and deliver them. To the rescue!" There was an instantaneous cry, rising from a thousand voices in the garden and reverberating through the streets, "To the Abbaye!" The throng poured out of the gate, and, seizing axes and crowbars as they rushed along, every moment increasing in numbers, soon arrived at the prison, six thousand strong. There was no force there which could for a moment resist them. The doors were speedily battered down, the soldiers liberated and conducted in triumph to the Palais Royal. Here they were provided with food and lodging, and placed under the protection of a citizens' guard. While on their way to the Palais Royal a squadron of cavalry was ordered to charge upon the people. They approached at full gallop, and then, regardless of their officers, reined in their horses, and, lifting their caps, with true French politeness saluted their citizen-friends. There was then a scene of _fraternization_ such as the French metropolis alone can exhibit. Men and women ran out from the houses and the shops presenting to the dragoons goblets of wine, shouting "Vive le Roi! Vive la Nation!"[136]