on; but they were eager to massacre the
faithful Body-guards, who had been brought back, bound, on the box of the
carriage; and they would undoubtedly have carried out their bloody purpose
had not the queen remembered them, and, as she was dismounting, entreated
Barnave and La Fayette to protect them. Though during the last three days
many things had had their names altered,[4] the Tuileries had been spared.
It was still in name a royal palace, but those who now entered it knew it
for their prison. The sun was setting, the emblem of the extinction of
their royalty, as they ascended the stairs to find such rest as they
might, and to ponder in privacy for this one night over their fatal
disappointment, and their still more fatal future.

Yet, though their return was full of ignominy and wretchedness, though
their home had become a prison, the only exit from which was to be the
scaffold, still, if posthumous renown can compensate for miseries endured
in this life; if it be worth while to purchase, even by the most terrible
and protracted sufferings, an undying, unfading memory of the most
admirable virtues--of fidelity, of truth, of patience, of resignation, of
disinterestedness, of fortitude, of all the qualities which most ennoble
and sanctify the heart--it may be said, now that her agonies have long
been terminated, and that she has been long at rest, that it was well for
Marie Antoinette that she had failed to reach Montmedy, and that she had
thus fallen again, without having to reproach herself in any single
particular, into the hands of her enemies. As a prisoner to the basest of
mankind, as victim to the most ferocious monsters that have ever disgraced
humanity, she has ever commanded, and she will never cease to command, the
sympathy and admiration of every generous mind. But the case would have
been widely different had Louis and she found the refuge which they sought
with the loyal and brave De Bouille. Their arrival in his camp could not
have failed to be a signal for civil war; and civil war, under such
circumstances as those of France at that time, could have had but one
termination--their defeat, dethronement, and expulsion from the country.
In a foreign land they might, indeed, have found security, but they would
have enjoyed but little happiness. Wherever he may be, the life of a
deposed and exiled sovereign must be one of ceaseless mortification. The
greatest of the Italian poets has well said that the recol