She could see that many were disguised; and one woman, whose veil of black lace, with which she concealed her features, showed that she did not belong to the lowest class, seized her violently by the arm, calling her by her name, and bid her "go and tell her queen not to interfere any more in the Government, but to leave her husband and the good States-general to work out the happiness of the people." Others she heard uttering threats of vengeance against Madame de Polignac.

And one, while pouring forth "a thousand invectives" against both king and queen, declared that it should soon be impossible to find even a fragment of the throne on which they were now seated.
Marie Antoinette was greatly alarmed, not for herself, but for her husband; and, now that he had determined on withdrawing the soldiers from the capital, she earnestly entreated him to accompany them, taking the not unreasonable view that the violence of the Parisian mob would be to some extent quelled, and the well-intentioned portion of the Assembly would have greater boldness to support their opinions, if the king were thus placed out of the reach of danger from any fresh outbreak; and it was generally understood that an attack on Versailles itself was anticipated.[3] She felt so certain of the wisdom of such a course, and so sanguine of prevailing, that she packed up her diamonds, burned many of her papers, and drew up a set of orders for the arrangement of the details of the journey.

But on the morning of the 16th she was compelled to inform Madame Campan that the plan was given up.

Large portions of the Parisian mob, and among them one deputation of the fish-women, who in this, as well as on more festive occasions, claimed equally to take the lead, had come out to demand that the king should visit Paris; and the Ministerial Council thought it safer for him to comply with that petition than to throw himself into the arms of the soldiers, a step which might not improbably lead to a civil war.
To the queen this seemed the most dangerous course of all.

She knew that both at Versailles and at Paris the agents of the Duke of Orleans had been scattering money with a lavish hand; and she scarcely doubted that either on his road, or in the city, her husband would be assassinated, or at the least detained by the mob as a prisoner and a hostage.
Had she not feared to increase his danger, she would have accompanied him; but at such a crisis it required more courage and fortitude to separate herself from him; and the most courageous part was ever that which was most natural to her.