"What means that light in the window?" inquired the dauphin, in his clear, touching voice.
"Pardon me, your highness, it is merely a ceremony," replied Monsieur de
Campan, confused.
"What ceremony?" asked the dauphin, with surprise.
"Your highness commands me?"
"I request you—if the dauphiness permits," said Louis, turning to his wife, who, almost exhausted, leaned for support against him, and bowed her head.
"Your majesty has given orders, that as soon as the event, which is about to take place, has occurred, the whole court shall leave Versailles for Choisy. Now it would not be possible to issue verbal orders in such a moment as the one which we await; so that the master of the horse and myself had agreed upon a signal by which the matter could be arranged without speech. The garden du corps, pages, equerries, coaches, coachmen, and outriders, are all assembled in the court-yard, their eyes fixed upon this light. As soon as it is extinguished, it will be understood that the moment has arrived when the court is to leave Versailles."
"The disappearance of the light, then, will communicate the tidings of the king's death?"
Monsieur de Campan bowed. Louis drew his wife hurriedly forward, and passed into another room, where, with his hands folded behind him, he walked to and fro.
"God is just," murmured he to himself, "and there is retribution in heaven."
Marie Antoinette, whose large violet eyes had followed her husband's motions, raised them to his face with a look of inquiry. She rose from the divan on which she was sitting, and putting her small, white hand upon the dauphin's shoulder, said: