Through the opened doors of the balcony the shouts of the people could be heard all the time, "Long live the Duke d'Orleans!"
The queen, still in her swoon, was carried into her apartments and laid upon her bed; only Madame de Campan remained in front of it to watch the queen, who, it was supposed, had fallen asleep.
A deep silence prevailed in the room, and the stillness awoke Marie Antoinette from her half insensibility. She opened her eyes, and seeing Campan kneeling before her bed, she threw her arms around the faithful friend, and with gasping breath bowed her head upon her shoulder.
"Oh, Campan," she cried, with loud, choking voice, "ruin is upon me! I am undone! All my happiness is over, and soon my life will be over too! I have to-day tasted of the bitterness of death! We shall never be happy more, for destruction hangs over us, and our death-sentence is pronounced!"
CHAPTER X.
THE INHERITANCE OF THE DAUPHIN.
For four weeks the National Assembly met daily at Versailles; that is to say, for four weeks the political excitement grew greater day by day, the struggle of the parties more pronounced and fierce, only with this qualification, that the party which attacked the queen was stronger than that which defended her. Or rather, to express the exact truth, there was no party for Marie Antoinette; there were only here and there devoted friends, who dared to encounter the odium which their position called down upon them—dared face the calumnies which were set in circulation by the other parties: that of the people, the democrats; that of Orleans; that of the princes and princesses of the royal family. All these united their forces in order to attack the "Austrian," to obscure the last gleams of the love and respect which were paid to her in happier days.
When Mirabeau made the proposition in the National Assembly that the person of the king should be declared inviolable, there arose from all these four hundred representatives of the French nation only one man who dared to declare with a loud voice and with defiant face, "The persons of the king and queen shall be declared inviolable!"
This was Toulan, the "soldier of the queen." But the Assembly replied to this demand only with loud murmurs, and scornful laughter; not a voice was raised in support of this last cry in favor of the queen, and the Assembly decreed only this: "The person of the king is inviolable."
"That means," said the queen to the police minister Brienne, who brought the queen every morning tidings of what had occurred at Paris and Versailles, "that means that my death-warrant was signed yesterday."