Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini

A few days later Le Chapelier returned André Louis' visit. He came to the Rue du Hasard with definite news that all was well at Gavrillac, and that the people of M. de Kercadiou had taken no part in the recent provincial disturbances, now happily quelled.

And now, save that the pinch of want was still being felt by the poor, and that the queues outside the bakers' shops increased as the autumn advanced, life resumed its habitual course. Naturally there were constant explosions of feeling in Paris, but the Parisians were becoming accustomed to living in an explosive atmosphere, and they no longer permitted it seriously to interfere with their affairs and their amusements. Even those explosions might have been avoided, but that Privilege determined to fight to the last ditch, still offered a stubborn resistance on one side, even whilst on the other it was already flinging great offerings on the altar of the fatherland. In the coming of the regiment of Flanders to Versailles in September the people saw a new menace, perceived in it a sign that Privilege was rearing again its hideous greedy head. There was a plot afoot to coerce them, to starve them at need into submission. Hence that excursion, so-called of Maenads, that march to Versailles of the market-women of Paris, led by the unique Maillard, and as an outcome in early October, the Palace of the Tuileries was cleared of all the vermin, human and otherwise, that infested it, to make room for the King. The King was to come and live among his people. His loving people desired to have him in their midst -- as a hostage for their own safety. If they must starve, he should starve with them.