The queen motioned to Madame Tourzel, who put the red cap on the dauphin, and decked his neck and arms with the ribbons. The child did not understand whether it was a joke or a way of insulting him, and looked on with a smile of astonishment.
Santerre leaned over the table and looked complacently at the singular group. The proud and yet gentle face of the queen was so near him, that when he saw the sweat-drops rolling down from beneath the woollen cap over the dauphin's forehead, even he felt a touch of pity, and, straightening himself up, perhaps to escape the eye of the queen, he called out, roughly: "Take that cap off from that child; don't you see how he sweats?"
The queen thanked him with a mute glance, and took the cap herself from the head of the poor child.
At this point a horde of howling women pressed up to the table, and threatened the queen with their fists, and hurled wild curses at her.
"Only see how proudly and scornfully this Austrian looks at us!" cried a young woman, who stood in the front rank." She would like to blast us with her eyes, for she hates us."
Marie Antoinette turned kindly to them: "Why should I hate you?" she asked, in gentle tones. "It is you that hate me--you. Have I ever done you any harm?"
"Not to me," answered the young woman, "not to me, but to the nation."
"Poor child!" answered the queen, gently, "they have told you so, and you have believed it. What advantage would it bring to me to harm the nation? You call me the Austrian, but I am the wife of the King of France, the mother of the dauphin. I am French with all my feelings of wife and mother. I shall never see again the land in which I was born, and only in France can I be happy or unhappy. And when you loved me, I was happy there." [Footnote: The queen's own words.--See Beauchesne, vol. i., p. 106.]
She said this with quivering voice and moving tones, the tears filling her eyes; and while she was speaking the noise was hushed, and even these savage creatures were transformed into gentle, sympathetic women.
Tears came to the eyes of the young woman who before had spoken so savagely to the queen. "Forgive me," she said, weeping, "I did not know you; now I see that you are not bad."
"No, she is not bad," cried Santerre, striking with both fists upon the table, "but bad people have misled her," and a second time he struck the table with his resounding blows. Marie Antoinette trembled a little, and hastily lifting the dauphin from the table, she put him by her side.
"Ah! madame," cried Santerre, smiling, "don't be afraid, they will do you no harm; but just think how you have been misled, and how dangerous it is to deceive the people. I tell you that in the name of the people. For the rest, you needn't fear."
"I am not afraid," said Marie Antoinette, calmly; "no one need ever be afraid who is among brave people," and with a graceful gesture she extended her hands to the National Guards who stood by the table.
A general shout of applause followed the words of the queen; the National Guards covered her hands with kisses, and even the women were touched.
"How courageous the Austrian is!" cried one. "How handsome the prince is!" cried another, and all pressed up to get a nearer view of the dauphin, and a smile or a look from him.
The great eyes of Santerre remained fixed upon the queen, and resting both arms upon the table he leaned over to her until his mouth was close by her ear.
"Madame," he whispered, "you have very unskilful friends; I know people who would serve you better, who--"
But as if ashamed of this touch of sympathy, he stopped, sprang back from the table, and with a thundering voice, commanded all present to march out and leave the palace.
They obeyed his command, filed out in military order past the table, behind which stood the queen with her children and her faithful friends.
A rare procession, a rare army, consisting of men armed with pikes, hatchets, and spades, of women brandishing knives and scissors in their hands, and all directing their countenances, before hyena-like and scornful, but now subdued and sympathetic, to the queen, who with calm eye and gentle look responded to the salutations of the retreating crowd with a friendly nod.
In the mean while the long-delayed help had reached the king: the National Guards had overcome the raging multitude, and gained possession of the great reception-room where Louis was. The mayor of Paris, Petion, had come at last, and, hailed loudly by the crowd which occupied the whole space in the rear of the National Guards, he approached the king.
"Sire," said he, "I have just learned what is going on here."
"I am surprised at that," answered the king, with a reproachful look, "the mayor of Paris ought to have learned before this about this tumult, which has now been lasting three hours."
"But is now at an end, sire, since I have come," cried Petion, proudly. "You have now nothing more to fear, sire."
"To fear?" replied Louis with a proud shrug. "A man who has a good conscience does not fear. Feel," he said, taking the hand of the grenadier who stood at his side, "lay your hand upon my heart, and tell this man whether it beats faster." [Footnote: The king's words.
The grenadier's name whose hand the king took, was Lalanne. Later, in the second year of "the one and indivisible republic," he was condemned to die by the guillotine, because, as stated in the sentence, he showed himself on the 30th of June, 1798, as a common servant of tyranny, and boasted to other citizens that Capet took his hand, laid it upon his heart, and said: "Feel, my friend, whether it beats quicker."--See Hue, "Dernieres Annees de Louis Seize," p. 180.]
Petion now turned to the people and commanded them to withdraw.
"Fellow-citizens," said he, "you began this day wisely and worthily; you have proved that you are free. End the day as you began it.