The King pretended to be serene, but he was not at ease: yet his magnificent costume was admired and nothing cloaks a man’s defects like majesty. The Dauphiness wore a plaintive look through all the affair. Lady Dubarry was brave, with the confidence given by youth and beauty. She seemed a ray of lustre from the King whose left-hand queen she was.
Aiguillon walked among the peers firmly, so that none could have guessed that it was across him the King and Parliament were exchanging blows. He was pointed at by the crowd and the Parliamentarists scowled at him; but that was all.
Besides, the multitude, kept at a distance by the soldiers, betrayed its presence only by a humming, not yet a hooting.
The King’s speech began in honey but ended in a dash of vitriol so sharp that the nobles smiled. But Parliament, with the admirable unanimity of constitutional bodies, kept a tranquil and indifferent aspect which highly displeased the King and the aristocratic spectators on the stands.
The Dauphiness turned pale with wrath, from thus for the first time measuring popular resistance, and calculating the weight of its power.
After the King’s speech was read by the Chancellor, the King, to the amazement of everybody made a sign that he was going to speak.
Attention became stupor.
How many ages were in that second!
“You hear what my chancellor informs you of my will,” he said in a firm voice: “Think only to carry it out, for I shall never change.”
The whole assembly was literally thunderstricken. The Dauphiness thanked the speaker with a glance of her fine eyes. Lady Dubarry, electrified, could not refrain from rising, and she would have clapped her hands but for the fear that the mob would stone her to death on going out, or to receive next day satirical songs each worse than the other.