ated fortress; a travelling
printing-press throwing off copies of the revolutionary manifesto,
which the crowd at first mistook for a little guillotine; a great deal
of noise and shouting,--and there you have the popular cortege. By way
of compensation, the troops of the line and the grenadiers of the
National Guard displayed extremely royalist sentiments. The 104th
regiment of infantry having halted under the balcony, its band played
the air: _Ou peut-on etre mieux qu'au sein de sa famille?_ (Where is
one better off than in the bosom of his family?)

The moment when Louis XVI. left the Military School to walk to the
Altar of the Country with the National Assembly was not without
solemnity. A certain anxiety was felt by all as to what might happen.
Would Louis XVI. be struck by a ball or by a poniard? What might not
be feared from so many demoniacs, howling like cannibals? The King,
the deputies, the soldiers, the crowd, all pressed against each other
in a solid mass that left no vacant spaces; all was in continual
undulation. Louis XVI. could only advance slowly and with difficulty.
The intervention of the troops was necessary to enable him to reach the
Altar of the Country, where he was to swear allegiance for the second
time to the Constitution whose fragments were to overwhelm his throne.
"It needed the character of Louis XVI.," Madame de {253} Stael has
said, "it needed that martyr character which he never belied, to
support such a situation as he did. His gait, his countenance, had
something peculiar to himself; on other occasions one might have wished
he had more grandeur; but at this moment it was enough for him to
remain what he was in order to appear sublime. From a distance I
watched his powdered head in the midst of all those black ones; his
coat, still embroidered as it had been in former days, stood out
against the costumes of the common people who pressed around him. When
he ascended the steps of the altar, one seemed to behold the sacred
victim offering himself in voluntary sacrifice."

The Queen had remained on the balcony of the Military School. From
there she watched through a lorgnette the dangerous progress of the
King. A prey to inexpressible emotion, she remained motionless during
an entire hour, hardly able to breathe on account of excessive anguish.
She used the lorgnette steadily, but at one moment she cried out: "He
has come down two steps!" This cry made all those about her shud