"Sire, by all that is dear to you and me," continued the queen, "by the welfare and safety of France, by your own and by the safety of this dear child, your successor, I conjure you to promise me that, if we ever must witness such a scene of horror again, and if you have the means to escape it, you will not let the opportunity pass,"
[Footnote: The very words of the queen.--See Beauchesne, "Louis XVI., sa Vie," etc., p 145.]
The king, deeply moved by the noble and glowing face of the queen, by the tones of her voice, and by her whole expression, turned away.
He wanted to speak, but could not; tears choked his utterance; and, as if he were ashamed of his weakness, he pushed the queen and the dauphin back from him, hastened through the room, and disappeared through the door on the opposite side.
Marie Antoinette looked with a long, sad face after him, and then returned to the balcony-room. A shudder passed through her soul, and a dark, dreadful presentiment made her heart for an instant stop beating. She remembered that this chamber in which she had that day suffered such immeasurable pain--that this chamber, which now echoed the cries of a mob that had this day for the first time prescribed laws to a queen, had been the dying-chamber of Louis XIV. [Footnote:
Historical.--See Goncourt, "Marie Antoinette," p. 195.] A dreadful presentiment told her that this day the room had become the dying-chamber of royalty.
Like a pale, bloody corpse, the Future passed before her eyes, and, with that lightning speed which accompanies moments of the greatest excitement, all the old dark warnings came back to her which she had previously encountered. She thought of the picture of the slaughter of the babes at Bethlehem, which decorated the walls of the room in which the dauphin passed his first night on French soil; then of that dreadful prophecy which Count do Cagliostro had made to her on her journey to Paris, and of the scaffold which he showed her. She thought of the hurricane which had made the earth shake and turn up trees by their roots, on the first night which the dauphin had passed in Versailles. She thought too of the dreadful misfortune which on the next day happened to hundreds of men at the fireworks in Paris, and cost them their lives. She recalled the moment at the coronation when the king caught up the crown which the papal nuncio was just on the point of placing on his head, and said at the same time, "It pricks me." [Footnote: Historical.]And now it seemed to her to be a new, dreadful reason for alarm, that the scene of horror, which she had just passed through, should take place in the dying-chamber of that king to whom France owed her glory and her greatness.
"We are lost, lost!" she whispered to herself. "Nothing can save us.
There is the scaffold!"
"With a silent gesture, and a gentle inclination of her head, the queen took her leave of all present, and returned to her own apartments, which were now guarded by Lafayette's soldiers, and which now conveyed no hint of the scene of horror which had transpired there a few hours before.
Some hours later two cannon were discharged upon the great square before the palace. They announced to the city of Versailles that the king, the queen, and their children, had just left the proud palace--were then leaving the solitary residence at Versailles--never to return!
From the lofty tower of the church of St. Louis, in which recently the opening of the States-General had been celebrated, the bell was just then striking the first hour after mid-day, when the carriage drove out of the great gate through which the royal family must pass on its way to Paris. A row of other carriages formed the escort of the royal equipage. They were intended for the members of the States-General. For as soon as the journey of the king to Paris was announced, the National Assembly decreed that it regarded itself as inseparably connected with the person of the king, and that it would follow him to Paris. A deputation had instantly repaired to the palace, to communicate this decree to the king, and had been received by Louis with cordial expressions of thanks.
Marie Antoinette, however, had received the tidings of these resolves of the National Assembly with, a suspicious smile, and an angry flash darted into her eyes.
"And so, the gentlemen of the Third Estate have gained their point!" cried she, in wrath. "They alone have produced this revolt, in order that the National Assembly may have a pretext for going to Paris.
Now, they have reached their goal! Yet do not tell me that the revolution is ended here. On the contrary, the hydra will now put forth all its heads, and will tear us in pieces. But, very well! I would rather be torn to pieces by them than bend before them!"
