The people, delighted with this energetic and courageous action of
the queen--the people, who would have howled with rage, if the queen
had ordered her lackeys to push the cobbler back, now roared with
admiration and with pleasure, to see the proud-hearted woman have
the boldness to repel the assailant, and to free herself from him.
They applauded, they laughed, they shouted from thousands upon
thousands of throats, "Long live the queen! Long live the dauphin!"
and the cry passed along like wildfire through the whole mass of
spectators behind the fence, and all eyes followed the tall and
proud figure of the queen as she walked away.
Only the eyes of Simon pursued her with a malicious glare, and his
clinched fists threatened her behind her back.
"She shall pay for this!" he muttered, with a withering curse. "She
has struck back my hand to-day, but the day will come when she will
feel it upon her neck, and when I will squeeze the hand of the
little rascal so that he shall cry out with pain! I believe now,
what Marat has so often told me, that the time of vengeance is come,
and that we must bring the crown down and tread it under our feet,
that the people may rule! I will have my share in it. I will help
bring it down, and tread it under foot. I hate the handsome Austrian
woman, who perks up her nose, and thinks herself better than my
wife; and if the golden time has come of which Marat speaks, when
the people are the master, and the king is the servant, Marie
Antoinette shall be my waiting-maid, and her son shall be my
choreboy, and his buckle shall make acquaintance with my shoe-
straps!"
And while Master Simon was muttering this to himself, he was making
a way through the crowd with those great elbows of his, a slipping
along the fence, to be able to follow as long as possible the tall
figure of the queen, who was now leading the dauphin by the hand,
traversing the Arcadian Walk.
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