"I know all," said Mr. Morris, bitterly. "I scarcely dared to hope that their Majesties would stand by us or their promises. 'Tis as I thought, my boy. Sacrifices and devotion, time and money have all been wasted in their behalf. So be it! I think no power can save them now. You have bravely done your share. Let this end it. And it were best that you should leave Paris at once. D'Angrémont has died nobly without revealing our secrets—he was murdered within two hours of his capture—but this is no safe place for you. Go to the Tuileries, if you will, but return to me as soon as possible. You have lost at the palace, but I think there is a reward waiting for you here at the Legation," he says, smiling a little and turning away.
Scarcely had Calvert left the Legation when he heard the alarm from the great bell of St. Germain l'Auxerrois—that fatal bell which had rung in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew two hundred and twenty years before—and almost immediately after there came the sounds of musketry and cannonading from the direction of the palace of the Tuileries. The attack had already begun, and Calvert thought with a thrill of horror of the fate that awaited Beaufort and those other loyal servants of their Majesties within the palace.
The fearful drama of that day is too well known to need repeating. On that day Louis XVI of France passed from history and the revolution was consummated. By the time Calvert had reached the Quai opposite the Louvre the battle was begun, the mob was forcing its way past the scattered National Guard, whose commander lay murdered on the steps of the Hôtel de Ville, past the stanch, true Swiss Guard, who, left without orders, stood, martyrs at their posts, ne sacramenti fidem fallerent, through the Carrousel up to the very palace itself. There, surrounded by seven hundred loyal gentlemen, whom he was to abandon as he had abandoned all his friends and servants, the King awaited his doom in apathetic resignation. It was impossible to reach his Majesty or to do aught for him, and Calvert could only look on from afar. There was no place in that fearful scene for an American. The French at last knew their power, had at last got the bit between their teeth, and no outside interference could stay that fearful pace. The mob surged about Calvert, increased every instant by fresh additions from the lowest quarters of the city, reinforced by deputations from the provinces. The firing from without grew quicker and quicker; from within fainter and less frequent, as those devoted servants of the King were shot down, until finally there was silence within the palace and the scarlet of the Swiss could be seen scattered and fleeing in every direction as the armed and triumphant mob pushed its way forward. Looking into the mad whirlwind of faces, Calvert saw the great, disfigured head, the massive shoulders of Danton, (but just come, on that fearful morning, to the fulness of his infamy and power), followed by Bertrand, battling his way beside his great leader.
"And 'twas for this I saved him!" said Calvert to himself. "Truly the ways and ends of Providence are inscrutable!"
He watched the terrible scene a long while, and then, seeing that he was powerless to aid those in the palace, he made his way back to the Legation with a beating heart. The great disappointment the night had brought, the failure of all those plans in which he had been so profoundly interested and for which he had hazarded so much, even the peril of the King and Queen, faded from before his mind as he thought of Adrienne and asked himself why she had risked her life to come to him. He saw her still galloping by his side, her face pale in the light of the full August moon, her dusky hair blown backward, the strange, inscrutable expression in her eyes.
She was not with the rest of the little company when Calvert once more entered the Legation. He found her in an upper chamber, where she stood alone beside an open window, looking out on the agitation and tumult of the city below. She had doffed her travel-stained boy's clothes and now wore a dress, which Madame de Montmorin had offered her, of some soft black stuff that fell in heavy folds about her slender young figure. As he entered she turned, hearing the sound, and their eyes met. He stood silent, trying to fathom the strange look on that pale face. It was the same beautiful face that he had seen in pictured loveliness that last night at Monticello, the same that he had seen in reality for the first time at Mr. Jefferson's levee at the Legation, and yet how changed! All the haughty pride, the caprice, the vanity, the artificiality were gone, and instead, upon the finely chiselled features and in the blue eyes, rested a serene, if melancholy beauty, a quiet nobility born of suffering. There rushed through Calvert's mind the thought that, after all, that loveliness had at last developed into all that was best and finest.
He stood thus looking at her in silence and thinking of these things, and then he went slowly forward, scarce knowing how to address her or explain his presence, who had so long avoided her.
"I am come," he says, at length, "to thank you for the great service that you have this night rendered me and those other gentlemen engaged with myself in the King's business. I dare not think what might have been the fate of us all had you not come to our assistance. Were they here they would, like myself, thank you with all their hearts."
"'Twas no great service," she says, "and I could scarce have done less for one who has done so much—who has sacrificed so much for me."
"I have sacrificed nothing," says Calvert, in a low, compassionate voice. "'Twas you who sacrificed yourself, and all in vain! Believe me, I suffered for you in that knowledge. I should not have let you—should have found a way, but I was weak and ill and scarcely struggled against the fate that gave you to me. I wish that 'twere as easy to undo the evil as for you to forget me."