"Oh, better times are coming, better times are coming!" cried Simon the cobbler, who was close by, with his coarse laugh. "The cardinal took a girl from the streets for the Queen of France; but wait a little and we shall see the time when she will have to sweep the streets with a broom, that the noble people may walk across with dry feet!"
In the loud laugh with which the crowd greeted this remark of the cobbler, was mingled one single cry of anger, which, however, was overborne by the rough merriment of the mass. It came from the lips of a man in simple citizen's costume, who had plunged into the mob and worked his way forward with strong arms, in order to reach a place as near as possible to the entrance-door of the prison, and to be among the first to learn the impending sentence.
No one, as just said, had heard this cry; no one had troubled himself about this young man, with the bold defiant face, who, with shrugged shoulders, was listening to the malicious speeches which were uttered all around him, and who replied to them all with flaming looks of anger, pressing his lips closely together, in order to hold back the words which could hardly be suppressed.
He succeeded at last in reaching the very door of the prison, and stood directing his eyes thither with gloomy looks of curiosity.
His whole soul lay in this look; he heard nothing of the mocking speeches which echoed around him; he saw nothing of what took place about him. He saw only this fatal door; he only heard the noises which proceeded from within the prison.
At last, after long waiting, and when the sun had set, the door opened a little, and a man came out. The people who, at his appearance, had broken into a loud cry of delight, were silent when it was seen that it was not the officer who would announce the verdict with his stentorian voice, but that it was only one of the ordinary servants of the court, who had been keeping watch at the outer gate.
This man ascended with an indifferent air the steps of the staircase, and to the loud questions which were hurled at him by the crowd, whether the cardinal were declared innocent, he answered quietly, "I do not know. But I think the officer will soon make his appearance. My time is up, and I am going home, for I am half dead with hunger and thirst."
"Let the poor hungry man go through," cried the young man, pressing up to him. "Only see how exhausted he is. Come, old fellow, give me your hand; support yourself on me."
And he took the man by the arm, and with his powerful elbows forced a way through the crowd. The people let them pass, and directed their attention again to the door of the prison.
"The verdict is pronounced?" asked the young man, softly.
"Yes, Mr. Toulan," he whispered, "the councillor gave me just now, as I was handing him a glass of water, the paper on which he had written it."
"Give it to me, John, but so that nobody can see; otherwise they will suspect what the paper contains, and they will all grab at it and tear it in bits."
The servant slid, with a quick motion, a little folded paper into the hand of the young man, who thanked him for it with a nod and a smile, and then quickly dropped his arm, and forced his way in another direction through the crowd. Soon, thanks to his youth and his skill, he had worked through the dense mass; then with a flying step he sped through the street next to the square, then more swiftly still through the side streets and alleys, till he reached the gate that led out to the street of Versailles. Outside of this there was a young man in a blue blouse, who, in an idle and listless manner, was leading a bridled horse up and down the road.
"Halloo, Richard, come here!" cried the young man.
"Ah! Mr. Toulan," shouted the lad in the blouse, running up with the horse. "You have come at last, Mr. Toulan. I have been already waiting eight hours for you."
"I will give you a franc for every hour," said Mr. Toulan, swinging himself into the saddle. "Now go home, Richard, and greet my sweetheart, if you see her."
He gave his horse a smart stroke, pressed the spurs into his flanks, and the powerful creature sped like an arrow from a bow along the road to Versailles.
In Versailles, too, and in the royal palace, this day had been awaited with anxious expectations. The king, after ending his daily duties with his ministers, had gone to his workshop in order to work with his locksmith, Girard, upon a new lock, whose skilful construction was an invention of the king.
The queen, too, had not left her room the whole day, and even her friend, the Duchess Julia de Polignac, had not been able to cheer up the queen by her pleasant talk.
At last, when she saw that all her efforts were vain, and that nothing could dissipate the sadness of the queen, the duchess had made the proposition to go to Trianon, and there to call together the circle of her intimate friends.
But the queen sorrowfully shook her head, and gazed at the duchess with a troubled look.
"You speak of the circle of my friends," she said. "Ah! the circle of those whom I considered my friends is so rent and broken, that scarcely any torn fragments of it remain, and I fear to bring them together again, for I know that what once is broken cannot be mended again."
"And so does your majesty not believe in your friends any more?" asked the duchess, reproachfully. "Do you doubt us? Do you doubt me?"
"I do not doubt you all, and, before all things else, not you," said Marie Antoinette, with a lingering, tender look. "I only doubt the possibility of a queen's having faithful friends. I always forgot, when I was with my friends, that I was the queen, but they never forgot it."