This was so clear that, though noon was barely past, shopkeepers had closed their shops and bakers their bakehouses; and a calm, more ominous than the storm that had preceded it, brooded over the town. The majority of the Assembly had dispersed in haste, for I saw none of the Members, though I heard that a large body had gone to the barracks. No one molested me--the fall of the Bastille served me so far--and I mounted, and rode out of town, without seeing any one, even Louis. To tell the truth, I was in a fever to be at home; in a fever to consult the only man who, it seemed to me, could advise me in this crisis. In front of me, I saw it plainly, stretched two roads; the one easy and smooth, if perilous, the other arid and toilsome. Madame had called me the Tribune of the People, a would-be Retz, a would-be Mirabeau. The people had cried my name, had hailed me as a saviour. Should I fit on the cap? Should I take up the _rôle?_ My own caste had spurned me. Should I snatch at the dangerous honour offered to me, and stand or fall with the people? With the people? It sounded well, but, in those days, it was a vaguer phrase than it is now; and I asked myself who, that had ever taken up that cause, had stood? A bread riot, a tumult, a local revolt--such as this which had cost M. de Launay his life--of things of that size the people had shown themselves capable; but of no lasting victory. Always the King had held his own, always the nobles had kept their privileges. Why should it be otherwise now? There were reasons. Yes, truly; but they seemed less cogent, the weight of precedent against them heavier, when I came to think, with a trembling heart, of acting on them. And the odium of deserting my order was no small matter to face. Hitherto I had been innocent; if they had put out the lip at me, they had done it wrongfully. But if I accepted this part, the part they assigned to me, I must be prepared to face not only the worst in case of failure, but in success to be a pariah. To be Tribune of the People, and an outcast from my kind! I rode hard to keep pace with these thoughts; and I did not doubt that I should be the first to bring the tale to Saux. But in those days nothing was more marvellous than the speed with which news of this kind crossed the country. It passed from mouth to mouth, from eye to eye; the air seemed to carry it. It went before the quickest traveller.