"She had better have remained at home!" sneered a Dynastic bitterly.
"The poor little children!" exclaimed a young woman more remarkable for prettiness than neatness, and more remarkable still for the scantiness of her attire, nearly all of which had been torn from her rounded shoulders in the throng.
The spirit which pervaded the mass was, evidently, by no means unfriendly to the Royal family, and it was as evidently misunderstood by them, for, suddenly, as if by fatality, on the very spot where Louis XVI. was beheaded, just beyond the Pont Tournant, on the pavement of the Obelisk of Luxor, the whole party, with no apparent necessity, came to a dead and complete halt. Instantly the multitude was crowded upon them, and this augmented their terror. The King dropped the Queen's arm and hastily raising his hat cried, "Vive la Réforme!" All was in a moment uproar and confusion. The Queen in terror at finding her husband's arm was gone turned hurriedly on every side.
"Fear not, Madame," said a mild voice beside her. "The people will do you no harm."
This was M. Maurice, editor of "Le Courrier des Spectacles."
"Leave me, leave me, Monsieur!" she exclaimed, in great excitement, evidently mistaking the words. Then regaining her husband, she again grasped his arm, and the mass at the same time opening its ranks, the two hastened on to a couple of those little black one-horse vehicles, chancing there to stand, which run to St. Cloud. In one of these already sat the Duchesses of Montpensier and Nemours with two of the children. In the other stood the two remaining children. Into the latter hurriedly stepped the Royal pair. The door was instantly closed and the vehicle drove off at a furious rate, surrounded by an escort of dragoons, cuirassiers and National Guards, two hundred in number, taking the water-side toward St. Cloud. The other carriage, similarly escorted, followed at a like rapid pace, the children standing at the windows, their faces pressed to the glass, gazing eagerly, with the innocent curiosity of infancy, on a scene from which their future fate would take shape.
"He is gone!" shouted a stentorian voice, breaking the momentary stillness as the carriages, surrounded by their escort, swept from the view.
"Let him go! Let him go!" was the stern and significant response. "We are not regicides!"
"To the Tuileries! To the Tuileries!" was now the tremendous shout which rose from the multitude, as they rushed toward the deserted palace.
But the Tuileries had already fallen. It was no longer the dwelling-place of kings.
Even before the Royal abdication was declared, even before it was signed, the troops of the Line in the courtyard of the palace--infantry, artillery, dragoons--to the number at least of twenty-five thousand, were summoned to surrender their posts, while the fraternal shout, "Vive la Ligne!" elicited from the lips of many of the soldiers the answering cry of "Vive la Réforme!" In vain was it that Marshal Bugeaud, the veteran of a hundred battles, menaced and blasphemed. In vain did his old protégé and subaltern, but now bitter foe, General Lamoricière, dashing from one end of the line to the other on his white horse, entreat and persuade with his eloquent tongue. The people insisted--the National Guard fraternized--the Line wavered. And yet most imminent at that moment was their own peril.