"Your majesty, your majesty, wake!"
"What is it, Campan?" asked Marie Antoinette, opening her eyes, and hastily sitting up in bed. "Why do you waken me? What has happened?"
The fearful sounds without, the crashing of the door of the little waiting-room, gave answer. The rough, hard voices of the exasperated women, separated now from the queen by only one thin door, quickly told all that had happened.
Marie Antoinette sprang from her bed. "Dress me quick, quick!"
"Impossible! There is no time. Only hear how the gunstocks beat against the door! They will break it down, and then your majesty is lost! The clothes on without stopping to fasten them! Now fly, your majesty, fly! Through the side-door-through the OEil de Boeuf!"
Madame de Campan went in advance; the two women supported the queen and carried her loose clothes, and then they flew on through the still and deserted corridors to the sleeping-room of the king.
It was empty—no one there!
"O God! Campan, where is the king? I must go to him. My place is by his side! Where is the king?"
"Here I am, Marie, here!" cried the king, who just then entered and saw the eager, anxious face of his wife. "I hurried to save our most costly possessions!"
He laid the dauphin, only half awake, and lying on his breast, in the arms which Marie Antoinette extended to him, and then led her little daughter to her, who had been brought in by Madame Tourzel.