The king sat leaning back in the
corner, with his eyes closed, in order not to see the horrid forms
which from time to time approached the window of the carriage, to
stare in with curious looks, or with mocking laughter and
equivoques, to heap misery on the unfortunate family.
The queen, however, sat erect, with proud, dignified bearing,
courageously looking the horrors of the day in the face, and not a
quiver of the eyelids, nor a sigh, betraying the pain that tortured
her soul.
"No, better die than grant to this triumphing rabble the pleasure of
seeing what I suffer! Better sink with exhaustion than complain."
Not a murmur, not a sigh, came from her lips; and yet, when the
dauphin, after four hours of this sad journey, turned with a
supplicatory expression to his mother, and said to her with his
sweet voice, "Mamma queen, I am hungry," the proud expression
withdrew from the features of the queen, and two great tears slowly
ran down over her cheeks.
At last, after a ride of eight hours, the frightful train reached
Paris. Not a window in all the streets through which the royal
procession went was empty. In amazement and terror the people of the
middle class gazed at this hitherto unseen spectacle--the King and
the Queen of France brought in triumph to the capital by the lowest
people in the city! A dumb fear took possession of those who
hitherto had tried to ignore the revolution, and supposed that every
thing would subside again into the old, wonted forms.
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