'Let us work our way back,' he answered. But this was not so easily effected; the firing in the Place Louis XV had attracted towards the end of the garden opening on it all who had been strolling among the flower-beds, and fresh arrivals every moment made the barrier behind them more and more impassable.
'We must wait our opportunity,' said Nicholas; 'hold tight to me. Do not let go, on any consideration.'
'Where can Madeleine be?' asked the girl.
'Madeleine is there!' suddenly exclaimed the lad, pointing towards the statue of Louis XV, which occupied the centre of the great octagonal place. This open piece of ground had been adorned in the centre with an equestrian statue of the king in bronze in 1763, by the provost of Paris. At the angles of the pedestal were four figures of the cardinal virtues, Temperance, Prudence, Fortitude, and Justice, 'over whose heads,' said the wags, 'the king is trampling.' Among other sarcastic epigrams the group had given rise to was this:—
'O la belle statue, O le beau piédestal!
Les Vertues sont à pied, le Vice est à cheval!'
Standing on this pedestal, with one arm around the leg of the bronze horse, was Madeleine Chabry, her black hair flowing wildly over her shoulders from beneath a peasant's scarlet cap, which had been handed to her when in the scuffle in the Place Vendôme she had lost her head-dress. Her gown was torn; one of the sleeves, that on the right arm, had been ripped off, how and when Madeleine knew not. She held a staff in her hand, headed with a knife and a bunch of green leaves.
Nicholas and Gabrielle could not hear her words, but they saw her gesticulate violently and point to the gates of the Tuileries, and then towards the soldiers. Those near her, however, caught up her cry, and shouted to the crowd to back into the gardens, for the soldiers were coming that way.
'Barricade them out!' was called from one to another; 'shut the gates!' Then the answer came, 'We cannot; they will not stand back.'
'Ho, there! chairs, stalls, anything!'
'Chairs, benches, there,' was repeated; and instantly garden-seats, benches, and tables, were passed over the heads of the crowd towards the front.