Not a murmur, not a sigh, came from her lips; and yet, when the dauphin, after four hours of this sad journey, turned with a supplicatory expression to his mother, and said to her with his sweet voice, "Mamma queen, I am hungry," the proud expression withdrew from the features of the queen, and two great tears slowly ran down over her cheeks.
At last, after a ride of eight hours, the frightful train reached Paris. Not a window in all the streets through which the royal procession went was empty. In amazement and terror the people of the middle class gazed at this hitherto unseen spectacle—the King and the Queen of France brought in triumph to the capital by the lowest people in the city! A dumb fear took possession of those who hitherto had tried to ignore the revolution, and supposed that every thing would subside again into the old, wonted forms. Now, no one could entertain this hope longer; now, the most timid must confess that a revolution had indeed come, and that people must accustom themselves to look at it eye to eye.
Slowly the train moved forward—slowly down the quay which extends along by the garden of the Tuileries. The loungers who were in the garden hurried to the fence, which then bordered the park on the side of the quay, in order to watch this frightful procession from this point: to see an unbridled populace dash in pieces the prescriptive royalty of ages.
Scorn and the love of destruction were written on most of the faces of these observers, but many were pale, and many quivered with anger and grief. In the front ranks of the spectators stood two young men, one of them in simple civilian's costume, the other in the uniform of a sub-lieutenant. The face of the young officer was pale, but it lightened up with rare energy; and with his noble, antique profile, and flaming eyes, it enchanted every look, and fixed the attention of every one who observed him.
As the howling, roaring mob passed him, the young officer turned to his companion with an expression of fiery indignation. "0 God," he cried, "how is this possible? Has the king no cannon to destroy this canaille? " [Footnote: His own words.—See Beauchesne, vol. i.,p. 85.]
"My friend," answered the young man, smiling, "remember the words of our great poet Corneille: 'The people give the king his purple and take it back when they please. The beggar, king only by the people's grace, simply gives back his purple to the people.' "
"Ah!" cried the young lieutenant, smiling, "what once has been received should be firmly held. I, at least, if I had once received the purple by the people's grace, would not give it back. But come, let us go on, it angers me to see this canaille, upon which you bestow the fine name of 'the people.'" He hastily grasped the arm of his friend, and turned to a more solitary part of the garden of the Tuileries.
This young sub-lieutenant, who saw with such indignation this revolutionary procession pass him, and whom destiny had appointed one day to bring this revolution to an end—this young lieutenant's name was Napoleon Bonaparte.
The young man who walked at his side, and whom, too, destiny had appointed to work a revolution, although only in the theatrical world, to recreate the drama—this young man's name was Talma.