The fate of liberty seemed to depend upon this question, as the absolute veto would enable the court, through the king, to annul every popular measure. The crowds in Paris became turbulent and menacing. Threatening letters were sent to members of the National Assembly. The Parisian mob even declared its determination to march to Versailles, and drive from the Assembly those in favor of the veto. The following letter, addressed to the Bishop of Langres, then president of the Assembly, may be presented as a specimen of many with which the hall was flooded: "The patriotic assembly of the Palais Royal have the honor to make it known to you, sir, that if the aristocratic faction, formed by some of the nobility and the clergy, together with one hundred and twenty ignorant and corrupt deputies, continue to disturb the general harmony, and still insist upon the absolute veto, fifteen hundred men are ready to _enlighten_ their country seats and houses, and particularly your own."[213] "I shall never forget," writes Dumont, "my going to Paris one of those days with Mirabeau, and the crowd of people we found waiting for his carriage about Le Say the bookseller's shop. They flung themselves before him, entreating him, with tears in their eyes, not to suffer the absolute veto." "They were in a phrensy. 'Monsieur le Comte,' said they, 'you are the people's father. You must save us. You must defend us against those villains who are bringing back despotism. If the king gets this veto, what is the use of the National Assembly? We are all slaves! All is undone.'[214] There was as much ability in the tumultuous gathering at the Palais Royal as in the National Assembly, and more of impassioned, fiery eloquence. This disorderly body assumed the name of the Patriotic Assembly, and was hourly increasing in influence and in the boldness of its demands. Camille Desmoulins was one of its most popular speakers. He was polished, keen, witty, having the passions of his ever-varying, ever-excitable audience perfectly at his command. He could play with their emotions at his pleasure, and though not an _earnest_ man, for jokers seldom are, he was eager and reckless."[215] St. Huruge was, however, the great orator of the populace, the Mirabeau of the Palais Royal. A marquis by birth, he had suffered long imprisonment in the Bastille by _lettre de cachet_. Oppression had driven him mad, and _he_ was thoroughly earnest. Every day he uttered the most fierce and envenomed invectives against that aristocratic power by whose heel he had been crushed. He was a man of towering stature, impassioned gesticulation, and with a voice like the roar of a bull.