" "Down with the
skull-cap; the priests are the cause of our trouble! " -- "Monsieur
Mounier, why did you advocate that villainous veto? Beware of the
lamp post ! "
Under this pressure, a deputation of the Assembly, with the
President at its head, sets out on foot, in the mud, through the
rain, and watched by a howling escort of women and men armed with
pikes: after five hours of waiting and entreaty, it wrings from the
King, besides the decree on subsistence, about which there was no
difficulty, the acceptance, pure and simple, of the Declaration of
Rights, and his sanction to the constitutional articles. -- Such is
the independence of the King and the Assembly.[35] Thus are the new
principles of justice established, the grand outlines of the
Constitution, the abstract axioms of political truth under the
dictatorship of a crowd which extorts not only blindly, but which is
half-conscious of its blindness.
"Monsieur le President," some among the women say to Mounier, who
returns with the Royal sanction, "will it be of any real use to us?
will it give poor folks bread in Paris?"
Meanwhile, the scum has been bubbling up around the chateau; and the
abandoned women subsidized in Paris are pursuing their calling.
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