The delegates, twenty thousand in number, ranged beneath eighty-three banners, emblematic of the departments of France, formed in line on the site of the demolished Bastille, and, with a very magnificent array of troops of the line, sailors of the royal navy, and the National Guard, marched through the thronged and garlanded streets of St. Martin, St. Denis, and St. Honoré, and by the _Cours la Reine_ to a bridge of boats constructed across the river. All the way they were greeted with acclamations, and the ladies regaled them sumptuously by letting down in baskets from the windows wine, ham, and fruits. The country members shouted "Long live our Parisian brothers!" and the Parisians responded with accordant greetings and with exuberant hospitality and loving-kindness. To the patriot La Fayette this was an hour of inexpressible triumph. As he rode along the lines on a noble charger he was every where greeted with shouts of heartfelt affection. A man whom nobody knew pressed through the crowd, and, approaching the general, with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, said, "General, you are hot. Take a glass." Raising the bottle he filled the tumbler and presented it to La Fayette. The marquis took the glass, fixed his eye for a moment upon the stranger, and drank the wine at a draught. This confidence of La Fayette in the multitude gave rise to a burst of applause.[255] Just as the procession had entered the field, and the shouts of the congregated thousands were ringing through the air, the rain ceased to fall, the clouds broke, and the sun came out in glorious brilliance. The spectacle now assumed an aspect of unparalleled sublimity. Near the centre of the field there was constructed an immense altar of imposing and antique architecture, upon whose spacious platform, twenty-five feet high, three hundred priests were assembled, in white surplices and broad tricolored sashes. Near this altar a majestic throne was reared, where the king sat, the acknowledged sovereign of France, attended by the queen, the court, and all the deputies of that Constituent Assembly which had conferred the inestimable boon of a free constitution upon France.