power, and yet you
murmur! Now, with God's help, we may hope for internal peace. France
must have lost her place among the European nations had she been longer
permitted to prey upon her own vitals. One individual alone could have
condemned her to this self-slaughter, and we have delivered her from the
peril by committing that individual to the Bastille."

As the Queen-mother uttered these words her voice was drowned in the
universal burst of fury and violence which assailed her on all sides;
nobles, citizens, and people alike yelled forth their discontent, but
the unquenchable spirit of Marie de Medicis did not fail her even at
this terrible moment. Rising with the emergency, she seemed rather to
ride upon the storm than to quail beneath it; her eyes flashed fire, a
red spot burned upon her cheek, and scorn and indignation might be read
upon every feature of her expressive countenance. When the tumult was at
its height she rose haughtily from her seat, and striking her clenched
hand violently upon the table before her, she exclaimed in a tone of
menace: "How now, Counts and Barons! Is it then a perpetual revolt upon
which you have determined? When pardon and peace are frankly offered to
you, and when both should be as welcome to all good Frenchmen as a calm
after a tempest, you reject it? Do you hold words less acceptable than
blows? Do you prefer the sword to the hand of friendship? Be it even as
you will then. If friendship does not content you we will try the sword,
for clemency exerted beyond a certain limit degenerates into weakness.
You shall have no reason to deem your rulers either feeble or cowardly.
You have here and now defied me, and I accept the defiance. Do you
desire to know how I respond? It is thus. In the name of the King my son
and in my own, in the name of my offended dignity and in the name of
France, I, in my turn, declare the most stringent and unsparing war
against rebellion, be it the work of whom it may. Neither high blood nor
ancient title shall suffice to screen a traitor; war, war to the death,
shall be henceforward my battle-cry against the malcontents who are
striving to decimate the nation; and do not delude yourselves with the
belief that I shall be single-handed in the struggle, for I will call
the people to my aid, and the people will maintain the cause of their
sovereigns. We will try our strength at last, and the strife will be a
memorable one; our sons shall relate it with awe and