The dauphin cried aloud with fright, for the bloody hands of two yelling women were extended after him. A grenadier sprang forward, seized the boy with his strong arm, and raised him upon his shoulder.
"My son, give me back my son!" cried the queen, wildly. The grenadier bowed to her. "Do not be afraid, do you not recognize me?"
Marie Antoinette looked at him, and the hint of a smile passed over her face. She did indeed recognize him who, like a good angel, was always present when danger and death threatened her. It was Toulan, the faithful one, by her side in the uniform of a National Guardsman.
"Courage, courage, good queen, the demons are loose, but good angels are near thee too; and where those curse and howl, these bring blessing and reconciliation."
"Down with the tyrants!" roared the savage women.
"Do not be afraid, my prince," said the grenadier, to the dauphin whom he carried upon his shoulder, in order to protect him from the thronging of the crowd. "Nobody will hurt you."
"Not me, but my dear papa," sobbed the child, while the tears rolled over his pale cheeks.
The poor child trembled and was afraid, and how could he help it?
Even the king was terrified for a moment, and felt as if the tears were coming into his eyes. The queen too wept, dried her tears, and then wept again. The sad march consumed more than an hour, in order to traverse the bit of way to the Manege, where the National Assembly met. Before the doors of this building the cries were doubled; the attorney-general harangued the mob, and sought to quiet it, and pushed the royal family into the narrow corridor, in which, hemmed in by abusive crowds, they made their way forward slowly. At last the hall doors opened, and as Marie Antoinette passed in behind the king, Toulan gave the little dauphin to her, who flung both his arms around the neck of his mother.
A death-like silence reigned in the hall. The deputies looked with dark faces at the new-comers. No one rose to salute the king, no word of welcome was spoken.
The king took his place by the side of the president, the queen and her ladies took the chairs of the ministers. Then came an angry cry from the tribune: "The dauphin must sit with the king, he belongs to the nation. The Austrian has no claim to the confidence of the people."
An officer came down to take the child away, but Louis Charles clung to his mother, fear was expressed on his features, tears stood in his eyes, and won a word of sympathy, so that the officer did not venture to remove the prince forcibly.
A deep silence sat in again, till the king raised his voice. "I have come hither," he said, "to prevent a great crime, and because I believe that I am safest surrounded by the representatives of the nation."
"Sire," replied President Vergniaud, "you can reckon upon the devotion of the National Assembly. It knows its duties; its members have sworn to live and to die in defence of the rights of the people and of the constitutional authorities."
Voices were heard at this point from all sides of the hall, declaring that the constitution forbids the Assembly holding its deliberations in the presence of the king and the queen.
They then took the royal family into the little low box scarcely ten feet long, in which the reporters of the "Logograph" used to write their accounts of the doings of the Assembly. Into this narrow space were a king, a queen, with her sister and her children, their ministers and faithful servants, crowded, to listen to the discussions concerning the deposition of the king.
From without there came into the hall the wild cry of the populace that the Swiss guards had been killed, and shouts accompanied the heads as they were carried about on the points of pikes. The crack of muskets was heard, and the roar of cannon. The last faithful regiments were contending against the army of the revolutionists, while within the hall the election by the French people of a General Convention was discussed.
This scene lasted the whole day; the whole day the queen sat in the glowing heat, her son asleep in her lap, motionless, and like a marble statue. She appeared to be alive only when once in a while a sigh or a faint moan escaped her. A glass of water mixed with currant-juice was the only nourishment she took through the day.
At about five in the afternoon, while the Assembly was still deliberating about the disposal of the king, Louis turned composedly around to the valet who was standing back of him.
"I am hungry," he said; "bring me something to eat!" Hue hastened to bring, from a restaurant near by, a piece of roast chicken, some fruit and stewed plums; a small table was procured, and carried into the reporters' box of the "Logograph."
The countenance of the king lightened up a little, as he sat down at the table and ate his dinner with a good appetite. He did not hear the suppressed sobs that issued from a dark corner of the box. To this corner the unhappy woman had withdrawn, who yesterday was Queen of France, and whose pale cheeks reddened with shame at this hour to see the king eating with his old relish!
The tears started afresh from her eyes, and, in order to dry them, she asked for a handkerchief, for her own was already wet with her tears, and with the sweat which she had wiped from the forehead of her sleeping boy. But no one of her friends could reach her a handkerchief that was not red with the blood of those who had been wounded in the defence of the queen!