It is not longer necessary to keep silent about any
thing, for silence were useless! So tell of your heroism, my son!"
"Is it of heroism that you talk?" said the king, whose nice ear had
caught the words of the queen.
"Yes, of heroism, sire," answered Marie Antoinette. "But it is with
us as with Don Quixote; we believed that we were fighting for our
honor and our throne; now we must confess that we only fought
against windmills. I beg you now, sire, to inform General Lafayette
that it is not necessary to call out his National Guards on my
account, I shall not walk again!"
And the queen kept her word. Never again during the winter did she
go down into the gardens and park of the Tuileries. She never gave
Lafayette occasion to protect her, but she at least gained thereby
what Lafayette wanted to reach by his National Guard--she held the
populace away from the Tuileries. At first they stood in dense
masses day after day along the fence of the park and the royal
garden, but when they saw that Marie Antoinette would no more expose
herself to their curious and evil glances, they grew tired of
waiting for her, and withdrew from the neighborhood of the
Tuileries,--but only to repair to their clubs and listen to the
raving speeches which Marat, Santerre, and other officers, hurled
like poisoned arrows at the queen-only to go into the National
Assembly and hear Mirabeau and Robespierre, Danton, Chenier, Petion,
and all the rest, the assembled representatives of the nation,
launch their thundering philippics against a royalty appointed by
the grace of God, and causing the people to believe that it was a
royalty appointed by the wrath of God.
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