"Vive la Réforme!" shouts another.
"Vive la France!" shouts a second.
"Vive le Roi!" in suppressed tones falters a third.
"See the poor young Duchess!" cried a woman, who was availing herself of her peculiar rotundity as a battering-ram to force her way through the crowd.
"She had better have remained at home!" sneered a Dynastic bitterly.
"The poor little children!" exclaimed a young woman more remarkable for prettiness than neatness, and more remarkable still for the scantiness of her attire, nearly all of which had been torn from her rounded shoulders in the throng.
The spirit which pervaded the mass was, evidently, by no means unfriendly to the Royal family, and it was as evidently misunderstood by them, for, suddenly, as if by fatality, on the very spot where Louis XVI. was beheaded, just beyond the Pont Tournant, on the pavement of the Obelisk of Luxor, the whole party, with no apparent necessity, came to a dead and complete halt. Instantly the multitude was crowded upon them, and this augmented their terror. The King dropped the Queen's arm and hastily raising his hat cried, "Vive la Réforme!" All was in a moment uproar and confusion. The Queen in terror at finding her husband's arm was gone turned hurriedly on every side.
"Fear not, Madame," said a mild voice beside her. "The people will do you no harm."