At this point a horde of howling women pressed up to the table, and threatened the queen with their fists, and hurled wild curses at her.
"Only see how proudly and scornfully this Austrian looks at us!" cried a young woman, who stood in the front rank." She would like to blast us with her eyes, for she hates us."
Marie Antoinette turned kindly to them: "Why should I hate you?" she asked, in gentle tones. "It is you that hate me—you. Have I ever done you any harm?"
"Not to me," answered the young woman, "not to me, but to the nation."
"Poor child!" answered the queen, gently, "they have told you so, and you have believed it. What advantage would it bring to me to harm the nation? You call me the Austrian, but I am the wife of the King of France, the mother of the dauphin. I am French with all my feelings of wife and mother. I shall never see again the land in which I was born, and only in France can I be happy or unhappy. And when you loved me, I was happy there." [Footnote: The queen's own words.—See Beauchesne, vol. i., p. 106.]
She said this with quivering voice and moving tones, the tears filling her eyes; and while she was speaking the noise was hushed, and even these savage creatures were transformed into gentle, sympathetic women.
Tears came to the eyes of the young woman who before had spoken so savagely to the queen. "Forgive me," she said, weeping, "I did not know you; now I see that you are not bad."
"No, she is not bad," cried Santerre, striking with both fists upon the table, "but bad people have misled her," and a second time he struck the table with his resounding blows. Marie Antoinette trembled a little, and hastily lifting the dauphin from the table, she put him by her side.
"Ah! madame," cried Santerre, smiling, "don't be afraid, they will do you no harm; but just think how you have been misled, and how dangerous it is to deceive the people. I tell you that in the name of the people. For the rest, you needn't fear."
"I am not afraid," said Marie Antoinette, calmly; "no one need ever be afraid who is among brave people," and with a graceful gesture she extended her hands to the National Guards who stood by the table.