'Gabrielle!' cried madame; but the girl darted out of the room.
'Nicholas,' said the invalid; 'I want Gabrielle, will you kindly fetch her for me?'
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A last arrow remained in the quiver of the Court party.
The course pursued by the National Assembly after the reunion of the orders, proved to the aristocracy that a revolution could alone reinstate them in their ancient prerogatives and save them from disappearing as a class in the rising tide. They meditated a revolution accordingly, to be thus executed: the king and queen were to escape from Versailles and take refuge in the fortress of Metz, then powerfully garrisoned, and the head quarters of the army; when there, they could dissolve the Assembly, reduce Paris, and re-establish the ancient régime.
With their usual recklessness and folly, the members of this party allowed their plot to become public; they boasted and threatened, and enrolled members in the conspiracy, exasperating and alarming the popular party to such an extent that it became apparent to every one that a few days must decide whether the revolution was to be begun by the nobles or by the people.
The king and his family must not remain at Versailles, that was the conclusion of each party. Was he to be taken to Metz or to Paris? In the first case, the country would be plunged in civil war; the other alternative made the extinction of the aristocracy, as a class, certain.
In the meantime, the French guard had been dismissed from their attendance on the royal family, and the palace was placed under the protection of the Swiss and the body-guard alone.