“Suppose one were to insult him?”
“He shall be hanged!”
The crowd kept pace with the carriage.
Mathieu Damas, commanding the escort, did not wish to enter Paris by the Faubourg St. Martin. He was nearer the Faubourg St. Antoine, of terrible memory, on account of the attack and seizure of the Bastille.
He asked himself if he had a human barrier strong enough to protect the royal family from the crowd who had virtually sentenced them to death. He went round Paris by the external Boulevards, and entered it by the Champ Elysées and the Place Louis XV.
On the Place Louis XV stood, at that period, the statue of the monarch whose name the place bore.
They had bandaged the eyes of the statue with a handkerchief.
This allusion, though ignored by the King, still disquieted him.
“Why this bandage on the eyes of my predecessor?” inquired the King.