"Bravo, Marat, bravo!" roared Santerre, with his savage rabble. "Bravo, Marat, bravo!" cried his friends in the boxes; "she shall be flogged!"
Marat bowed on all sides, and turned his eyes, gleaming with scorn and hatred, toward the royal box, and menaced it with his clinched fists.
"But not alone shall the singer be flogged," cried he, with a voice louder and sharper than before—"no, not alone shall the singer be flogged, but greater punishment have they deserved who urge on to such deeds. If the Austrian woman comes here again to turn the heads of sympathizing souls with her martyr looks, if she undertakes again to move us with her tears and her face, we will serve her as she deserves, we will go whip in hand into her box!" [Footnote: Goneourt's "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 365.]
The queen rose from her chair like an exasperated lioness, and advanced to the front of the box. Standing erect, with flaming looks of anger, with cheeks like purple, she confronted them there—the true heir of the Caesars, the courageous daughter of Maria Theresa— and had already opened her lips to speak and overwhelm the traitor with her wrath, when another voice was heard giving answer to Marat.
It cried: "Be silent, Marat, be silent. Whoever dares to insult a woman, be she queen or beggar, dishonors himself, his mother, his wife, and his daughter. I call on you all, I call on the whole public, to take the part of a defenceless woman, whom Marat ventures to mortally insult.
You all have mothers and wives; you may, perhaps, some day have daughters. Defend the honor of woman! Do not permit it to be degraded in your presence. Marat has insulted a woman; we owe her satisfaction for it. Join with me in the cry, 'Long live the queen! Long live Marie Antoinette!'"
And the public, carried away with the enthusiasm of this young, handsome man, who had risen in his box, and whose slender, proud figure towered above all—the public broke into one united stirring cry: "Long live the queen! Long live Marie Antoinette!"
Marat, trembling with rage, his countenance suffused with a livid paleness, sank back in his chair.
"I knew very well that Barnave was a traitor," he whispered. "I shall remember this moment, and Barnave shall one day atone for it with his head."
"Barnave, it is Barnave," whispered the queen to herself. "He has rescued me from great danger, for I was on the point of being carried away by my wrath, and answering the monster there as he deserves."