Ange Pitou; Or Taking the Bastile Volume 32

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ... serious nature of the circumstances. These men smiled because the ill they had not dared to commit they would gladly have seen committed by the most inoffensive half of the human kind. In about half an hour there were ten thousand women assembled on the Place de Greve. These ladies, seeing that their numbers were sufficient, began to deliberate with their arms akimbo. The deliberation was by no means a calm one; those who deliberated were for the most part porteresses, marketwomen, and prostitutes. Many of these women were royalists, and, far from thinking of doing any harm to the king and queen, would have allowed themselves to be killed to serve them. The noise which was made by this strange discussion might have been heard across the river, and by the silent towers of Notre-Dame, which, after seeing so many things, were preparing themselves to hear things still more curious. The result of the deliberation was as follows: --"Let us just go and burn the Hotel de Ville, where so many musty papers are made out to prevent our eating our daily food." And in the H6tel de Ville they were at that moment trying a baker who had sold bread to the poor under weight. It will be easily comprehended, that the dearer bread is, the better is every operation of this nature; only the more lucrative it is, the more dangerous. In consequence, the admirers of lamp justice were only waiting for the baker with a new rope. The guards of the Hotel de Ville wished to save the unhappy culprit, and used all their strength to effect it. But for some time past it has been seen that the result but ill accorded with these philanthropic intentions. The women rushed on these guards, dispersed them, made a forcible entry into the Hotel de Ville, and the sack...