Along the way, they recruited their ranks steadily from among their own sex. The Old Iron Quay was thronged with women recruiting agents and the troops they had marshalled. The robust kitchen maid, the trim modiste, and the humble sempstress, all swelled the phalanx of warriors. The old devotee, who was on her way to mass, found herself carried off for the first time in her life, and protested vehemently against the abduction! The women elected a president and a council board. All who were "borrowed" from their husbands or parents were first presented before the president and her aides-de-camp, who pledged themselves to watch over the morals and honor of all who joined the troop. And the promise was religiously kept; not the slightest disorder marred the journey. The vanguard of women arrived at Versailles. Usher Maillard counseled his companions to send a committee of twelve to the National Assembly, to request that several Representatives of the people be added to their number to accompany them before the King. The Assembly granted their request, and commissioned several of its members to conduct to the palace the delegates of the women of Paris. The deputation was brought before Louis XVI. He greeted the women with apparent good will, and promised them to watch over the provisioning of Paris. But during this very talk of the King with the delegation of women, a plot was being hatched out for Louis's flight. The plot was discovered in time, and the palace placed under the surveillance of the National Guard. During the night, the multitude of men and women from Paris, augmented by Lafayette's army, sought shelter in the churches, or bivouacked on the palace grounds. At early dawn, several citizens, seeing a trooper at one of the windows, addressed some insults to him. The latter loaded his gun, took deliberate aim at a citizen, and killed him. The pretorians of Louis XVI opened the fight. The Parisian women and the National Guards, yielding to their legitimate indignation, invaded the palace. Blood was shed. The victorious people demanded and secured the return of the King and the royal family to Paris. Such were the results of the days of the 5th and 6th of October, 1789. CHAPTER II. MIRABEAU. At the end of that same year of 1789, the National Assembly decreed the abolition of tithes, without redemption, and the immediate sale of the properties of the clergy. The value of these properties amounted to more than four thousand million francs. At the beginning of the year 1790, the Assembly decreed itself the Convention. In that memorable session, Mirabeau took the floor, concluding a magnificent speech with this peroration: