"Excuse me, sir," said the queen; "I did not do it intentionally."
These were the last words pronounced by the daughter of the Cæsars, the queen of France, the widow of Louis XVI.
As the clock of the Tuileries struck a quarter after twelve, the queen was launched into eternity.
A terrible cry—a cry comprising at once joy, terror, sorrow, triumph, expiation—rose like a storm, drowning a feeble burst of lamentation which at the same moment issued from beneath the scaffold.
The gendarmes heard it notwithstanding, feeble as it was, and advanced some steps in front. The crowd, now less compact, expanded like a river whose dike has been enlarged, threw down the fence, dispersed the guards, and rushed like the returning tide to beat the foot of the scaffold, which was already shaking.
All wished for a nearer view of the remains of that royalty which they believed, root and branch, forever exterminated in France.
But the gendarmes had another object in view,—they sought the shadow which had repassed their lines, and glided beneath the scaffold.
Two of them returned leading between them by the collar a pale young man, whose hand held a blood-stained handkerchief, which he pressed to his heart; he was followed by a little spaniel howling piteously.
"Death to the aristocrat! death to the noble!" cried some men of the people; "he has dipped his handkerchief in the Austrian's blood,—to death with him!"