On the morning after the arrival of the king and queen at the Tuileries, an occurrence took place highly characteristic of the times. A crowd of profligate women, the same who bestrode the cannon the day before, insulting the queen with the most abusive language, collected under the queen's windows, upon the terrace of the palace. Maria, hearing their outcries, came to the window. A furious termagant addressed her, telling her that she must dismiss all such courtiers as ruin kings, and that she must love the inhabitants of her good city. The queen replied,
"I have loved them at Versailles, and will also love them at Paris."
"Yes! yes!" answered another. "But you wanted to besiege the city and have it bombarded. And you wanted to fly to the frontiers and join the emigrants."
The queen mildly replied, "You have been told so, my friends, and have believed it, and that is the cause of the unhappiness of the people and of the best of kings."
Another addressed her in German, to which the queen answered, "I do not understand you. I have become so entirely French as even to have forgotten my mother tongue."
Bravos of the women.
At this they all clapped their hands, and shouted, "Bravo! bravo!" They then asked for the ribbons and flowers out of her hat. Her majesty unfastened them herself, and then tossed them out of the window to the women. They were received with great eagerness, and divided among the party; and for half an hour they kept up the incessant shout, "Maria Antoinette forever! Our good queen forever!"
Plan for the queen's escape.
In the course of a few weeks some of the devoted friends of the queen had matured a plan by which her escape could be, without difficulty, effected. The queen, whose penetrating mind fully comprehended the peril of her situation, replied, while expressing the deepest gratitude to her friends for their kindness, "I will never leave either the king or my children. If I thought that I alone were obnoxious to public hatred, I would instantly offer my life as a sacrifice. But it is the throne which is aimed at. In abandoning the king, no other advantage can be obtained than merely saving my life; and I will never be guilty of such an act of cowardice."