"Ah," cried he, scornfully, "it hurts a princess only to touch the hand of a working man. It would be a great deal better to keep entirely away from the working people, and never to come among us."
"Drive forward quickly!" cried the queen to the coachman, with loud, commanding voice.
He urged on the horses, and the people who had hemmed in the carriage closely, and listened breathlessly to the conversation of the queen with the cobbler Simon, shrank timidly back before the prancing steeds.
The queen recovered her pleasant, merry smile, and bowed on all sides while the carriage rolled swiftly forward. The people again expressed their thanks with loud acclamations, and praised her beauty and the beauty of her children. But Marie Antoinette was no longer carried beyond herself by these words of praise, and did not rise again from her seat.
While the royal carriage was disappearing in the tumult and throng of the multitude, Simon the cobbler stood watching it with his mocking smile. He felt a hand upon his arm, and heard a voice asking the scornful question:
"Are you in love with this Austrian woman, Master Simon?"
The cobbler quickly turned round to confront the questioner. He saw, standing by his side, a little, remarkably crooked and dwarfed young man, whose unnaturally large head was set upon narrow, depressed shoulders, and whose whole appearance made such an impression upon the cobbler that the latter laughed outright.
"Not beautiful, am I?" asked the stranger, and he tried to join in the laugh of the cobbler, but the result was a mere grimace, which made his unnaturally large mouth, with its thick, colorless lips, extend from one ear to the other, displaying two fearful rows of long, greenish teeth.
"Not beautiful at all, am I? Dreadfully ugly!" exclaimed the stranger, as Simon's laughter mounted higher and higher.
"You are somewhat remarkable, at least," replied the cobbler. "If I did not hear you talk French, and see you standing up straight like one of us, I should think you were the monstrous toad in the fable that I read about a short time ago."