"Do as you will, for you are the stronger: but beware! for no voice cries more loudly to heaven than that of these little ones!"
The procession went on again.
It was cruel work passing through the town. If kings could learn any thing, the enthusiasm excited by sight of Drouet, to whom the arrest was due, would have been a dreadful lesson; but both captives saw merely blind fury in the cheers; they saw but rebels in these patriots who were convinced that they were saving their country.
Perhaps it was the King's impression that Paris alone was perverted that urged him into the evil course. He had relied on "his dear provinces." But here were the dear rurals not only escaping him but turning pitilessly against him. The country folk had frightened Choiseul in Sommevelle, imprisoned Dandoins at St. Menehould, fired on Damas at Clermont, and lately killed Isidore Charny under the royal eyes. All classes rose against him.
It would have cut him worse had he seen what the spreading news did; roused all the country to come—not to stare and form an escort—but to kill him. The harvest was so bad that this country was called "Blank Champagne," and here came the King who had brought in the thievish hussar and the pillaging pandour to trample the poor fields under their horses' hoofs; but the carriage was guarded by an angel and two cherubs.
Lady Elizabeth was twenty-seven but her chastity had kept the unfading brilliancy of youth on her brow: the Dauphin, ailing and shivering on his mother's knee; the princess fair as the blondes can be, looking out with her firm while astonished gaze.
These men saw these, the Queen bent over her boy, and the King downhearted: and their anger abated or sought another object on which to turn it.
They yelped at the Lifeguardsmen; insulted them, called those noble and devoted hearts traitors and cowards, while the June sun made a fiery rainbow in the chalky dust flung up by the endless train upon those hotheads, heated by the cheap wine of the taverns.
Half a mile out of the town, an old Knight of St. Louis was seen galloping over the fields; he wore the ribbon of the order at his buttonhole: as it was first thought that he came from sheer curiosity, the crowd made room for him. He went up to the carriage window, hat in hand, saluted the King and the Queen, and hailed them as Majesties. The people had measured true force and real majesty, and were indignant at the title being given away from them to whom it was due; they began to grumble and threaten.