Louis-Philippe d'Orleans was then forty-two years old. He had the Bourbon cast of countenance, but his features were not so gross as those of the King, and his manner, in contrast to that of his awkward cousin, was gay, easy and affable. As Due de Chartres, before the death of his father, he had already acquired the reputation of a rather stupid and very dissipated young man. He was a close friend of the equally dissipated Prince of Wales, and often stayed with him in England.
D'Orleans was not distinguished for his courage. With the prospect of succeeding his father-in-law, the Due de Penthievre, as Grand Admiral of France, he had been sent to serve in the Navy during the late war; but in the only engagement at which he was present, although then a man of thirty-one, he had hidden himself in the hold of the Flagship. Madame Marie Antoinette had protested that, after disgracing himself in such a fashion, it was unthinkable to give him the post of Grand Admiral, so he had been made Colonel-General of the Hussars instead; and it was this, added to the fact that while still a young girl she had repulsed his amorous advances, that had resulted in the bitter hatred he bore the Queen.
Roger mingled with some of the groups by the wall and got in conversation with them. Among other things he learnt that the pretty woman seated next to the Duke was his English mistress, Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott, who now shared his affections with the Comtesse de Buffon. At the moment, he gathered, Monsieur d'Orleans' prospects were temporarily under a cloud, as the King had lost his sovereign power without the Duke gaining anything thereby, and the hopes of the nation were becoming more and more centred in the National Assembly, to the detriment of any individual who might aspire to personal aggrandizement through the eclipse of the throne.
While standing near one group Roger caught the phrase: "It would be folly to give out the women's clothes until a really first-class opportunity presents itself."
Greatly intrigued by this, he strained his ears to hear more; but, just at that second, he caught sight of a familiar figure hurrying past an open doorway on the far side of the big room. It was de Roubec.
Thrusting his way through the crowd Roger hastened in pursuit of his enemy. When he reached the door he found the corridor down which de Roubec had been passing to be empty; but there was a staircase at its far end. Running to the stairs Roger pelted down them, but de Roubec was nowhere to be seen. Turning, he dashed up them again, three at a time, and on up to the second floor. There was still no sign of the rogue whose ears and nose he had promised to cut off when next they met. Furious, and frantic now, he threw open door after door along the corridor, disturbing a score of people employed in either work or pleasure; and, without waiting to apologize, dashed on to invade other apartments. But his efforts were in vain. At length he was compelled to conclude that de Roubec must, after all, have gone down the stairs, and quickly enough to disappear among the crowd in the garden.
For the two days that followed, Roger haunted the Palais Royal. He did not care to risk enquiring for his enemy, in case his enquiry was reported and a description of himself given to de Roubec, which might put the villain on his guard. But he hoped that if he hung about long enough he would catch sight of him again and, with luck, be able to follow him unobserved to a quiet spot where vengeance could be exacted with small risk of interference.
His patience went unrewarded. For hours on end he scanned the faces in the Duke's salon, patrolled the corridors, and occasionally made a hurried round of the garden. Not once did he see, even in the distance, a figure remotely resembling de Roubec's. Neither did he overhear any further mention of the giving out of women's clothes, which had so puzzled him. This fruitless hunt occupied most of his time during the opening days of October, and it was not until the evening of the 2nd that he heard anything about the banquet at Versailles.
The facts were as follows. The Flanders Regiment had recently arrived to do a tour of duty in the royal town and, following an ancient custom, the Garde du Corps gave a dinner of welcome to the officers, to which they also invited the officers of the local National Guard. On the evening of October ist the dinner was held on the stage of the palace theatre. The orchestra was occupied by a military band, and the pit and boxes by numerous officials and servants of the palace.
Towards the end of the banquet the band played the air O Richard O mon Roi, and this was received with such thunderous applause that a deputation was sent to ask the Royal Family to honour the gathering with its presence.
The King had not yet returned from his day's hunting, and the Queen, fearing that a royal appearance at a military gathering of such a nature might be misconstrued, at first refused. But the King came in at that moment, and on somebody remarking that the sight would amuse the Dauphin, it was agreed that they should go.
Their appearance in the royal box was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm. O Richard O mon Roi was played again, the officers nearly raised the roof with their shouts of " Vive le Roi!" and " Vive la Reine!", then they begged the Queen to bring the Dauphin down so that they might see him at close quarters. Accompanied by the King still in his hunting-clothes, and her little daughter, Madame Royale, aged ten and a half, she did so.
The Dauphin, who, until his elder brother's recent death, had borne the title Due de Normandie, was a fine healthy child of four. He was set down on the table and walked fearlessly along it, the sight raising still further the pitch of excited loyalty. Oaths of undying devotion were freely sworn to him, the King, Queen and whole Royal Family. Amidst renewed acclamations of faith and love, such as they had not heard for many months, they at length withdrew.
The officers of the National Guard were so affected by the scene that they reversed the tricolor cockades they were wearing, so that the royal white of their linings should show instead; and the private soldiers assembled outside, catching the enthusiasm, gathered under the King and Queen's windows to sing loyal songs late into the night.
But the affair was very differently reported in Paris. It was said that the banquet had been deliberately planned to suborn the loyalty of the troops at Versailles from the Nation; that the Queen was plotting to use them to arrest the National Assembly, after which she meant to withdraw with the King to some strong place in the country from which the Army could be directed against Paris; and that the tricolor cockade had been trampled underfoot with the vilest insults.
On the 3rd and 4th of the month indignation meetings were held in many parts of the capital, and a renewed outbreak of bread riots added to the general unrest. The two issues—that Paris would not be safe from attack until the King came to live there, and that the city would be properly fed if only he were in it—coalesced in the minds of the agitated multitude. On the morning of the 5th a large crowd of fishwives set out from the market to march to Versailles with the object of demanding bread. A little later a mob of roughs broke into the armoury at the Hotel de Villet and, having seized the weapons there, followed them, with an unproclaimed but more sinister purpose.
Lafayette was sent for, and called out the National Guard. Instead of giving orders at once for the closing of the roads to Versailles, he spent most of the day in the Place de Greve debating with the officers and men what action, if any, should be taken. It was not until late in the evening that he finally decided to intervene and set off with his troops for the royal town.