ONE:CHAPTER XI POP! GOES OUR MYSTERY!Before leaving, the courteous officer permitted Bailly and about half-a-dozen deputies to enter and bring out their papers. The carpenters were already at work making preparations for the royal sance, which was intended for a counter-manifestation, and as the body of the deputies, now nearly completing their six hundred, marched through the streets, they heard the heralds[361] proclaiming it for Monday, the 22nd. Bailly felt that there was more indignity intended than even that of turning them so unceremoniously out of their house, for a message had been sent to him from the king, announcing the sance, but it had not been delivered to him, as etiquette required, at the hall, but at his private house, and not by a written dispatch, but verbally by De Brz, the master of ceremonies. When the deputies, with their president at their head, reached the Tennis Court, they found it a very spacious apartment, but naked, unfurnished, and desolate. There were no seats for the deputies, and a chair being offered to Bailly he declined it, saying he would not sit whilst the other members were standing. A wooden bench was brought, and served for a desk, two deputies were stationed as doorkeepers, and the keeper of the Court appeared and offered them his services. Great numbers of the populace crowded in, and the deliberations commenced. There were loud complaints of the interruption of their sitting, and many proposals to prevent such accidents in future. It was proposed to adjourn to Paris, where they would have the support of the people, and this project was received with enthusiasm; but Bailly feared that they might be attacked on the way, and, moreover, that such a measure would give an advantage to their enemies, looking like a desertion of their ground. Mounier then proposed that the deputies should bind themselves by an oath never to separate till they had completed the Constitution. This was hailed with enthusiasm. The oath was drawn up, and Bailly, standing on the bench, read it aloud:"You solemnly swear never to separate, and to re-assemble whenever circumstances shall require it, until the Constitution of the kingdom is founded and established on a solid basis." As he read this all the deputies held up their right hands, and repeated after him the words, "We swear!" The formula was read so loud that not only the spectators within but numbers without heard it, and all joined in the cry, "We swear!" Then followed loud acclaims of "Vive l'Assemble!" "Vive le Roi!"
TWO:"That will do," said Landor. "See there is no delay," and he wheeled about and went back to his tent with Brewster.On the 4th of May, 1789, Versailles was crowded by immense masses of people from Paris and the country round, to see the grand procession of the deputies of the three Orders advancing from the church of Notre Dame to that of St. Louis. The whole of the costumes, the order of march, and the spectacle had been carefully studied by the Court, so as to impress deeply the distinctions of the three Orders, and to humiliate the Tiers tat. The evening before, the deputies had waited on the king, and even then he had greatly incensed those of the Tiers tat who came most favourably disposed to him. Even whilst he[359] hoped to obtain essential advantages from the people against the presumption of the privileged orders, Louis or his advisers could not refrain from humiliating the Third Estate. Instead of receiving the deputies in one body, they had been carefully separated; the clergy were received first, the nobles next, and then, not till after a considerable pause, the Tiers tat. Now, on the great morning, all Paris and the vicinitythousands from distant townswas astir. The streets of Versailles were lined with French and Swiss guards and made gay with garlands of flowers, and from the windows hung rich tapestries. The balconies and windows were crowded with spectators of all ages and both sexesthe handsomest ladies gorgeously attired. The deputies, instead of one thousand, amounted to one thousand two hundred. First marched the members of the Tiers tat, six hundred in number, all clad in plain black mantles, white cravats, and slouched hats. Next went the nobles in black coats, but the other garments of cloth of gold, silk cloak, lace cravat, plumed hat turned up la Henry IV.; then the clergy, in surplice, with mantle, and square cap; the bishops in their purple robes, with their rochets. Last came the Court, all ablaze with jewels and splendid robes; the king in good spirits, the queen anxious, and dimly conscious even then of the miseries that were to follow. Her eldest son, the Dauphin, was lying at the point of death in the palace, and her reputation was being daily murdered by atrocious calumnies. Yet still Marie Antoinette, the daughter of the great Maria Theresa, the once light-hearted, always kind and amiable woman, was the perfect queen in her stately beauty. Two things were remarkedthe absence of Siys, and the presence of Mirabeau, two men who had already become popular leaders. Siys had not yet arrived; Mirabeau drew all eyes. His immense head of hair; his lion-like appearance, marked by an ugliness quite startling, almost terrifying; the spectators seemed fascinated by his look. He marched on visibly a man; the rest, compared with him, were mere shadows.
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