"A Revolution."
As soon as the Cathedral bell began to toll, and the minute guns to fire, announcing to the Kingdom that it was without a king, the people gathered in crowds. The murmur now and then rose into a shout, and the shout into a roar. When Prince Dolor, quietly floating in the upper air, caught the sound of their different and opposite cries, it seemed to him as if the whole city had gone mad together.
"Long live the King!" "The King is dead—down with the King!" "Down with the crown and the King too!" "Hurrah for the Republic!" "Hurrah for no government at all."
Such were the shouts which came up to him and then began, oh! what a scene! The country was in a revolution. Soldiers were shooting down people by hundreds in the streets, scaffolds were being erected, heads dropping off, houses burned, and women and children murdered.
Prince Dolor saw it all. Things happened so fast after one another that he nearly lost his senses.
"Oh, let me go home," he cried at last, stopping his ears and shutting his eyes, "only let me go home!" for even his lonely tower and its dreariness and silence, was absolute paradise after this.
Prince Dolor fell into a kind of swoon and when he awoke he found himself in his own room.