[Illustration: THE ROYAL FAMILY CONVEYED TO PARIS, OCT. 6, 1789.] It was one o'clock when the carriages containing the royal family left Versailles.[232] The whole mob of Paris, men and women, a tumultuous, clamorous multitude, went in advance. Following immediately the carriages of the court came the hundred deputies, also in coaches. Then came the National Guard. Carts laden with corn and flour, escorted by Grenadiers, followed the immense train. None were so malignant and merciless as the degraded women who composed so large a part of this throng. "We shall now," they exclaimed, "have bread, for we have with us the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's boy." It required seven hours for this unwieldy mass to urge its slow progress to Paris. The king was conducted to the Hôtel de Ville, where he was received by M. Bailly, the mayor. The royal family descended from their carriages by torch-light, and entered the great hall, where they were received with acclamations. After the ceremony of reception by the municipality of Paris was over, the king and his family were conducted to the Tuileries. The vast palace had not been the residence of the royal family for a hundred years, and its spacious and poorly-furnished apartments presented but a cheerless aspect. The National Guard were stationed around the palace, and thus La Fayette was made responsible for the safe-keeping of the person of the king. Thus terminated the eventful days of the 5th and 6th of October, 1789. The king was now virtually a prisoner, and the nobles could no longer avail themselves of his name in enforcing, by the aid of foreign armies, despotism upon France. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 225: Mounier, who was strongly in favor of two chambers and an absolute veto, in his _Report to his Constituents_, writes, in reference to some private and friendly conferences held at this time: "These conferences, twice renewed, were unsuccessful. They were recommenced at the house of an American known for his abilities and his virtues, who had both the experience and the theory of the institutions proper for maintaining liberty. He gave an opinion in favor of my principles." This American was unquestionably Thomas Jefferson. He saw the peril with which the Revolution was menaced, and that freedom needed as strong a guard against the blind impulses of the populace as against the encroachments of the court. Two houses might perhaps have checked the rush to ruin, but could hardly have averted the disaster. For ages the nobles had been "sowing the wind." It was the decree of God that they should "reap the whirlwind." "He visiteth the iniquities of the fathers upon the children."] [Footnote 226: Brouillon: le Lettre de M. d'Estaing à la Reine (in Histoire Parlementaire, vol. iii., p. 24).] [Footnote 227: "Le ministre de la guerre multiplia les congés de semestre, afin d'avoir un corps de volontaires royaux, composé de douze cent cents officiers."--_Villiaumé_, p. 34.]