In vain Lafayette refuses, and harangues them on the Place de Grève; in vain he resists for hours, now addressing them and now imposing silence. Armed bands, coming from the Faubourgs Saint-Antoine and Saint-Marceau, swell the crowd; they take aim at him; others prepare the lamp-post. He then dismounts and endeavors to return to the Hôtel-de-Ville, but his grenadiers bar the way: "Morbleu, General, you will stay with us; you will not abandon us!" Being their chief it is pretty plain that he must follow them; which is also the sentiment of the representatives of the commune at the Hôtel-de-Ville, who send him their authorization, and even the order to march, "seeing that it is impossible for him to refuse." Fifteen thousand men thus reach Versailles, and in front of and along with them thousands of ruffians, protected by the darkness. On this side the National Guard of Versailles, posted around the chateau, together with the people of Versailles, who bar the way against vehicles, have closed up every outlet.[1439] The King is prisoner in his own palace, he and his, with his ministers and his court, and with no defense. For, with his usual optimism, he has confided the outer posts of the chateau to Lafayette's soldiers, and, through a humanitarian obstinacy which he is to maintain up to the last,[1440] he has forbidden his own guards to fire on the crowd, so that they are only there for show. With common right in his favor, the law, and the oath which Lafayette had just obliged his troops to renew, what could he have to fear? What could be more effective with the people than trust in them and prudence? And by playing the sheep one is sure of taming brutes!