nts. No, no; there was nothing laughable in
these champions of misfortune. They represented the past, with its
ancient fidelity to the altar and the throne. A great poet who had the
spirit of divination, Heinrich Heine, wrote on November 12, 1840, as if
he foresaw February 24, 1848: "The middle classes will possibly make
less resistance than the aristocracy would do in a similar case. Even
in its most pitiable weakness, its enervation by immorality and its
degeneration through flattery, the old nobility was still alive to a
certain point of honor unknown to our middle classes, who have become
prosperous by industry, but who will perish by it also. Another 10th
of August is predicted for these middle classes; but I doubt whether
the industrial Knights of the throne of July will prove themselves as
heroic as the powdered marquises of the old regime who, in silk coats
and flimsy dress swords, opposed the people who invaded the Tuileries."
The greater part of these noblemen, volunteers for the last conflict,
were old men with white hair. There were also children among them.
{279} M. Mortimer-Ternaux, author of the _Histoire de la Terreur_, has
remarked: "Was not this a time to exclaim with Racine:--

"'See what avengers arm themselves for the quarrel?'

"Who could have told Louis XIV., when in the midst of the splendors of
his court he was present at the performance of _Athalie_, that the poet
was predicting, through the mouth of Joad, the fate reserved for his
great-grandson?" The royalist National Guards who were in the
apartments considered the volunteer noblemen as companions in arms.
They shook hands with each other amid cries of "Long live the King!
Long live the National Guard!" But the troops outside did not share
these sentiments. Jealous of the royalists assembled in the palace,
they wanted to have them sent out. A regimental commander having come
to make known this desire to Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette exclaimed:
"Nothing can separate us from these gentlemen; they are our most
faithful friends. They will share the dangers of the National Guard.
They will obey us. Put them at the cannon's mouth, and they will show
you how men die for their King."

Meantime what had become of Petion, whose business it was, as mayor, to
defend the palace? Summoned to the Tuileries, he arrived there at
eleven in the evening. As Louis XVI. said to him: "It seems there is a
great deal of commotion?"--"Yes, sire," h