"On to Versailles!"
All was quiet in Versailles that day. No one suspected the horrors
which it was to bring forth. The king had gone with some of his
gentlemen to Meudon to hunt: the queen had gone to Trianon alone--
all alone!
No one of her friends was now at her side, she had lost them all. No
one was there to share the misery of the queen of all who had shared
her happiness. The Duchess de Polignac, the princesses of the royal
house, the cheery brother of the king, Count d'Artois, the Count de
Coigny, Lords Besenval and Lauzun, where are they all now, the
friends, the suppliants of former days? Far, far away in distant
lands, flown from the misfortune that, with its dark wings sinking,
was hovering lower and lower over Versailles, and darkening with its
uncanny shadows this Trianon which had once been so cheerful and
bright. All now is desolate and still! The mill rattles no more, the
open window is swung to and fro by the wind, and the miller no more
looks out with his good-natured, laughing face; the miller of
Trianon is no longer the king, and the burdens and cares of his
realm have bowed his head. The school-house, too, is desolate, and
the learned master no longer writes his satires and jokes upon the
great black-board in the school-room. He now writes libels and
pamphlets, but they are now directed against the queen, against the
former mistress of Trianon.
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