"Fresh troops," said he, "are daily advancing; all communications are intercepted. All the bridges and promenades are converted into military posts. Movements, public and secret, hasty orders and counter-orders, meet all eyes. Soldiers are hastening hither from all quarters. Thirty-five thousand men are already cantoned in Paris and Versailles. Twenty thousand more are expected. They are followed by trains of artillery; spots are marked for batteries; every communication is secured, every pass is blocked up; our streets, our bridges, our public walks are converted into military stations. Events of public notoriety, concealed facts, secret orders, precipitate counter-orders--in a word, preparations for war strike every eye and fill every heart with indignation." At the same time a pamphlet was circulated through Paris, stating that the king was to hold another royal sitting on the 13th; that he had determined to enforce his declarations of the 23d of June; that the National Assembly was to be dissolved by violence, its leaders arrested, and Necker to be driven from the kingdom. The tidings excited great consternation in the city, and the crowd in the Palais Royal began to talk of arming in self-defense. In the evening of that day an artillery company, which had been posted at the Hôtel des Invalides, came to the Palais Royal to fraternize with the people there. The citizens gave them a supper in the Elysian Fields, where they were joined by many troops from other regiments, and the friendly festivities were continued late into the hours of the warm summer night.[143] This speech of Mirabeau was received with applause, and a deputation of twenty-four members was sent with a petition to the king. The address was drawn up by Mirabeau, and is of world-wide celebrity.[144] "It is not to be dissembled," says Bailly, "that Mirabeau was in the Assembly its principal force. Nothing could be more grand, more firm, more worthy of the occasion than this address to the king. The great quality of Mirabeau was boldness. It was this that fortified his talents, directed him in the management of them, and developed their force. Whatever might be his moral character, when he was once elevated by circumstances he assumed grandeur and purity, and was exalted by his genius to the full height of courage and virtue." Though Necker earnestly advised the removal of the troops, the king, now in the hands of his worst counselors, returned to the Assembly almost an insulting answer. He affirmed that the troops were mustered for the maintenance of public order and for the protection of the Assembly; and that if the members of the Assembly were afraid of their protectors, they might adjourn to Noyon or to Soissons, cities some fifty or sixty miles north of Paris, where, removed from the protection of the capital, they would have been entirely at the mercy of their enemies.[145]