"To Versailles, to Versailles! All mothers and women to Versailles!"
Who was able to resist obeying this command, which no one had given,
which was heard by no single ear, yet was intelligible to every
heart--who could resist it?
The men had stormed the Bastile, the women must storm the heart of
the baker's wife in Versailles, till it yield and give to the
children of the poor the bread for which they hunger.
"Up, to Versailles! All wives and mothers!"
The cry sweeps like a hurricane through the streets, and everywhere
finds an echo in the maddened, panic-stricken, despairing, raging
hearts of the women who see their children hunger, and suffer hunger
themselves.
"The baker's wife feeds her apprentices with cakes, and we have not
a crumb of bread to give to our poor little ones!"
In whole crowds the women dashed into the largest squares, where
were the men who fomented the revolution, Marat, Danton, Santerre,
Chaumette, and all the rest, the speakers at the clubs; there they
are, giving their counsels to the maddened women, and spurring them
on!
"Do not be afraid, do not be turned aside! Go to Versailles, brave
women! Save your children, your husbands, from death by starvation!
Compel the baker's wife to give bread to you and for us all! And if
she conceals it from you, storm her palace with violence; there will
be men there to help you.
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