Colonel Chesnaye, to whom Mandat had left his powers, awoke the monarch to have him address the National Guards, and by his presence and some timely words revive their enthusiasm.
The king rose, but half awake, dull and staggering. He was wearing a powdered wig, and he had flattened all the side he had lain upon. The hair-dresser could not be found, so he had to go out with the wig out of trim.
Notified that the king was going to show himself to the defenders, the queen ran out from the council hall where she was.
In contrast with the poor sovereign, whose dim sight sought no one's glance, whose mouth-muscles were flabby and palpitating with involuntary twitches, while his violet coat suggested he was wearing mourning for majesty, the queen was burning with fever, although pale. Her eyes were red, though dry.
She kept close to this phantom of monarchy, who came out in the day instead of midnight, with owlish, blinking eyes. She hoped to inspire him with her overflow of life, strength, and courage.
All went well enough while this exhibition was in the rooms, though the National Guards, mixed in with the noblemen, seeing their ruler close to this poor, flaccid, heavy man, who had so badly failed on a similar occasion at Varennes, wondered if this really was the monarch whose poetical legend the women and the priests were already beginning to weave.
This was not the one they had expected to see.
The aged Duke of Mailly—with one of those good intentions destined to be another paving-stone for down below—drew his rapier, and sinking down at the foot of the king, vowed in a quavering voice to die, he and the old nobility which he represented, for the grandson of Henry IV. Here were two blunders: the National Guards had no great sympathy for the old nobility, and they were not here to defend the descendant of Henry IV., but the constitutional king.
So, in reply to a few shouts of "Hail to the king!" cheers for the nation burst forth on all sides.
Something to make up for this coolness was sought. The king was urged to go down into the royal yard. Alas! the poor potentate had no will of his own. Disturbed at his meals, and cheated, with only one hour's sleep instead of seven, he was but an automaton, receiving impetus from outside its material nature.