X.
LOUIS OF BOURBON, THE BOY KING.
(Louis XIV. of France; afterward known as the Grand Monarque.)
[a.d. 1651.]
"Hush!" Pretty little Olympia Mancini's night-capped head bobbed inquiringly out of the door that opened into the corridor of the Gallery of Illustrious Personages in the old Palais Royal, as a long, low, distant murmur fell upon her ears.
"Hark!" Through the opposite door popped the sleep-tousled head of the awakened Armand, the bright young Count of Guiche, as hoarser and higher rose the angry sound, while, in the Queen's Gallery, stout old Guitat, captain of the regent's guard, stopped in his rounds to listen. Louder and nearer it came until it startled even the queen regent herself. Then the quick, sharp roll of the rataplan sounded through the miserable streets of the old city, as with ever-increasing shouts of "Aux armes! aux armes! They are stealing the king!" all Paris swarmed down the Rue de Honoré, and clamored at the outer gates of the great Palais Royal.
Did you ever hear or see a mob, boys and girls? Probably not; but ask father, or mother, or uncle, or any one you know who has ever had such an experience, if he thinks there is any sound more terrifying than that threatening, far-away murmur that grows each second louder and more distinct, until it swells and surges up and down the city streets—the hoarse, mad shouts of a mob. It was such a sound as this that on that dreary midnight of the tenth of February, 1651, filled the dark and narrow and dismal streets of old Paris, startling all the inmates of the Palais Royal, as under the palace windows rose the angry cry:
"The King! the King! Down with Mazarin!" The two anxious-faced young persons, a girl and a boy of thirteen or thereabout, who were peeping out into the corridor, looked at one another inquiringly.