The king, too, had retired to his apartments, and the valets who had assisted his majesty to undress had not left the sleeping-room, when the loud, uniform breathing which issued from the silken curtains of the bed told them that the king had already fallen asleep. The queen, too, had gone to rest, and while laying her wearied and heavy head upon the cushions, she tenderly besought both her maids to lie down too. All was quiet now in the dark palace of Versailles. The king and the queen slept.
But through the dark, deserted halls which that day had witnessed so much pain and anxiety, resounded now the clang of the raging, howling voices which came up from the square, and hurled their curses against the queen.
In the palace of Versailles they were asleep, but without, before the palace, Uproar and Hate kept guard, and with wild thoughts of murder stalked around the palace of the Kings of France.
How soon were these thoughts to become fact! Sleep, Marie
Antoinette, sleep! One last hour of peace and security!
One last hour! Before the morning dawns Hate will awaken thee, and Murder's terrible voice will resound through the halls of the Kings of France!
CHAPTER XIII.
THE NIGHT OF HORROR.
Marie Antoinette slept! The fearful excitement of the past day and of the stormy evening, crowded with its events, had exhausted the powers of the queen, and she had fallen into that deep, dreamless sleep which sympathetic and gracious Nature sometimes sends to those whom Fate pursues with suffering and peril.
Marie Antoinette slept! In the interior of the palace a deep calm reigned, and Lafayette had withdrawn from the court in order to sleep too. But below, upon this court, Revolution kept her vigils, and glared with looks of hatred and vengeance to the dark walls behind which the queen was sleeping.
The crown of France had for centuries sinned so much, and proved false so much, that the love of the people had at last been transformed into hate. The crown had so long sown the wind, that it could not wonder if it had to reap the whirlwind. The crimes and innovations which Louis XIV. and Louis XV. had sown upon the soil of France, had created an abyss between the crown and the people, out of which revolution must arise to avenge those crimes and sins of the past upon the present. The sins of the fathers had to be visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation.