Scheffer was a Captain in the National Guard, and when the stormy times of Eighteen Hundred Forty-eight came, he put away his brushes, locked his studio, and joined his regiment.
Louis Philippe had begun as a "citizen"—one of the people—and following the usual course had developed into a monarch with a monarch's indifference to the good of the individual.
The people clamored for a republic, and agitation soon developed into revolution. On the morning of the Twenty-fourth of February, Eighteen Hundred Forty-eight, Scheffer met the son of Lafayette, who was also an officer in the National Guard.
"How curious," said Lafayette, "that we should be protecting a King for whom we have so little respect!"
"Still, we will do our duty," answered Scheffer.
They made their way to the Tuileries, and posted themselves on the terrace beneath the windows of the King's private apartments. As they sat on the steps in the wan light of breaking day. Scheffer heard some one softly calling his name. He listened and the call was repeated.
"Who wants me?" answered Scheffer.
"'Tis I, the Queen!" came the answer.
Scheffer looked up and at the lattice of the window saw the white face of the woman he had known so well and intimately for a full score of years.
The terror of the occasion did away with all courtly etiquette.