And so, on the second day of May 1775, these waste multitudes do here, at Versailles Chateau, in wide-spread wretchedness, in sallow faces, squalor, winged raggedness, present, as in legible hieroglyphic writing, their Petition of Grievances.

The Chateau gates have to be shut; but the King will appear on the balcony, and speak to them.

They have seen the King's face; their Petition of Grievances has been, if not read, looked at.

For answer, two of them are hanged, 'on a new gallows forty feet high;' and the rest driven back to their dens,--for a time.
Clearly a difficult 'point' for Government, that of dealing with these masses;--if indeed it be not rather the sole point and problem of Government, and all other points mere accidental crotchets, superficialities, and beatings of the wind! For let Charter-Chests, Use and Wont, Law common and special say what they will, the masses count to so many millions of units; made, to all appearance, by God,--whose Earth this is declared to be.

Besides, the people are not without ferocity; they have sinews and indignation.