The queen slowly raised to heaven her eyes, red with weeping. "Oh, the innocence of childhood, the happiness of childhood!" said she, softly, "why do they not go with us through life? why must we tread them under feet like the violets arid roses of my son? A kingdom falls to him as his portion, and yet he takes pleasure in the little dog which only licks his hands! Love is the fairest inheritance, for love remains with us till death!"
CHAPTER XI.
KING LOUIS THE SIXTEENTH.
The 14th of July had broken upon Paris with its fearful events. The revolution had for the first time opened the crater, after subterranean thunder had long been heard, and after the ground of Paris had long been shaken. The glowing lava-streams of intense excitement, popular risings, and murder, had broken out and flooded all Paris, and before them judgment, discretion, and truth even, had taken flight.
The people had stormed the Bastile with arms, killed the governor, and for the first time the dreadful cry "To the lamp-post!" was heard in the streets of Paris; for the first time the iron arms of the lamp-posts had been transformed to gallows, on which those were suspended whom the people had declared guilty.
Meanwhile the lava-streams of revolution had not yet flowed out as far as Versailles.
On the evening of the 14th of July, peace and silence had settled early upon the palace, after a whole day spent in the apartments of the king and queen with the greatest anxiety, and after resolution had followed resolution in the efforts to come to a decision.
Marie Antoinette had early withdrawn to her rooms. The king, too, had retired to rest, and had already fallen into a deep slumber upon his bed. He had only slept a few hours, however, when he heard something moving near his bed, with the evident intention of awakening him. The king recognized his valet, who, with signs of the greatest alarm in his face, announced the Duke de Liancourt, grand maitre de la garde-robe of his majesty, who was in the antechamber, and who pressingly urged an immediate audience with the king. Louis trembled an instant, and tried to think what to do. Then he rose from his bed with a quick and energetic motion, and ordered the valet to dress him at once. After this had been done with the utmost rapidity, the king ordered that the Duke de Liancourt should be summoned to the adjacent apartment, when he would receive him.
As the king went out in the greatest excitement, he saw the duke, whose devotion to the person of the king was well known, standing before him with pale, distorted countenance and trembling limbs.
"What has happened, my friend?" asked the king, in breathless haste.