hat
trace remains of those brilliant days when, more goddess than woman,
the Queen of France and Navarre appeared through a cloud of incense, in
the midst of flowers and light? This good and beautiful sovereign,
whose least smile, or glance, or nod, had been regarded as a precious
recompense, a supreme favor by the noble lords and ladies who bent
respectfully before her, behold how she is treated now! Consider the
costumes and the language of her new courtiers! And yet, Marie
Antoinette is majestic still. Even in this horrible scene, in presence
of these drunken women and ragged suburbans, she does not lose that
gift of pleasing which is her special dower. At a distance they curse
her; but when they come near they are subjugated by her spell. Her
most ferocious enemies are touched in their own despite. A young girl
had just called her "_Autrichienne_." "You call me an Austrian woman,"
replied she, "but I am the wife of the King of France, I am the mother
of the Dauphin; I am a Frenchwoman by my sentiments as wife and mother.
I shall never again see the land where I was born. I can be happy or
unhappy nowhere but in France. I was happy when you loved me."
Confused by this gentle {215} reproach, the young girl softened.
"Pardon me," she said; "it was because I did not know you; I see very
well now that you are not wicked." A woman, passing, stopped before
the Queen and began to sob. "What is the matter with her?" asked
Santerre; "what is she crying about?" And he shook her by the arm,
saying: "Make her pass on, she is drunk." Even Santerre himself felt
Marie Antoinette's influence. "Madame," he said to her, "the people
wish you no harm. Your friends deceive you; you have nothing to fear,
and I am going to prove it by serving as your shield." It was he who
took pity on the Dauphin whom the heat was stifling, and said: "Take
the red cap off the child; he is too hot." He too, it was, that
hastened the march of the procession and pointed out to the people the
different members of the royal family by name, saying: "This is the
Queen, this is her son, this her daughter, this Madame Elisabeth."

At last the crowd is gone. The hall is empty. It is eight o'clock.
The Queen and her children enter the King's chamber. Louis XVI., who
finds them once more after so many perils and emotions, covers them
with kisses. In the midst of this pathetic scene some deputies arrive.
Marie Antoinette shows them the traces of