But the appearance of the whole royal family did not produce the effect which Louis had, perhaps, anticipated. The crowd did not now break out into snouts of joy.
They cried and roared and howled: "The queen alone! No children! We want no one but the queen! Away with the children!"
It was all in vain that Louis advanced to the edge of the platform; in vain that he raised his arms as if commanding silence. The sound of his voice was lost in the roar of the mob, who, with their clinched fists, their pikes and other weapons, their horrid cry, so frightened the dauphin that he could not restrain his tears.
The royal family drew back and entered the apartment again, where they were received by the pale, trembling, speechless, weeping courtiers and servants.
But the mob below were not pacified. They appeared as though they were determined to give laws to the king and queen, and demand obedience from them.
"The queen! we will see the queen!" was the cry again and again.
"The queen shall show herself!"
"Well, be it so!" cried Marie Antoinette, with cool decision, and, pressing through the courtiers, who wanted to restrain her, and even impatiently thrusting back the king, who implored her not to go, she stepped out upon the balcony. Alone, without any one to accompany her, and having only the protection which the lion-tamer has when he enters the cage of the fierce monsters—the look of the eye and the commanding mien!
And the lion appeared to be subdued; his fearful roar suddenly ceased, and in astonishment all these thousands gazed up at the queen, the daughter of the Caesars, standing above in proud composure, her arms folded upon her breast, and looking down with steady eye into the yawning and raging abyss.
The people, overcome by this royal composure, broke into loud shouts of applause, and, during the continuance of these thousand-voiced bravos, the queen, with a proud smile upon her lips, stepped back from the balcony into the chamber.
The dauphin flew to her with open arms and climbed up her knee. "Mamma queen, my dear mamma queen," cried he, "stay with me, don't go out again to these dreadful men, I am afraid of them—oh, I am afraid!"