There were very few people before the prison; the one or two there took no notice. A man delivering bread looked over his shoulder, then away again, indifferently.
Some passers-by on the quay stopped to watch.… Madame du Barry wondered what was the matter with these people, with the river, with the houses beyond, with the sky–all seemed unreal, distorted. This was not the world that she knew … she was among grotesque strangers. Following the others meekly, she ascended the cart; there were about twelve people in it, and they had to stand. When the horse started the jerk almost threw her on her knees; the man next her helped her up.
“Where are we going?” she asked. “Where are we going?”
“To Heaven, I hope,” was the flippant answer.
A man the other side of her spoke. “One cannot be sure of one’s company even in the tumbrils,” he remarked, glancing at her. “But poor Duquesne had to go with Philippe Égalité, which was worse,” he added.
Madame du Barry looked wildly round for the young aristocrat who had befriended her; he was standing towards the front of the cart, looking with a melancholy air at the river. She could not attract his attention. The lady with the knitting had not come.
They soon left the quay for the more crowded thoroughfares. People began to line the roads, to fill the windows. There was an unusual crowd to-day to watch the passing of the King’s favourite.
The wretched object of this attention began to be aware of it, began to understand that the abuse and execrations that were flung after them were chiefly directed against her, began to grasp the meaning of the finger-pointing, the shouting.
She was going to her death, and these people were hounding her to it with delight and ferocity.
A convulsion shook her and a light foam frothed on her lips while her eyes turned in her head; she gave a shriek so sharp and ghastly that the men beside her covered their ears; she would have fallen had not the wooden rails of the cart held her up.