"Poor Gluck," whispered Marie Antoinette, with tears in her eyes,
"because they hate me, they will not even hear your music!"
"Sing it, sing it!" shouted hundreds and hundreds of voices from all
parts of the house.
"No, do not sing it!" roared the others; "we will not hear the air."
And suddenly, above the cries of the contestants, rose a loud,
yelling voice:
"I forbid the singer Clairval ever again singing this air. I forbid
it in the name of the people!"
It was Marat who spoke these words. Standing on the arm-chair of the
Princess de Lamballe, and raising his long arms, and directing them
threateningly toward the stage, he turned his face, aglow with hate
and evil, toward the queen.
Marie Antoinette, who had turned her head in alarm in the direction
whence the voice proceeded, met with her searching looks the eyes of
Marat, which were fixed upon her with an expression equally stern
and contemptuous. She shrank back, and, as if in deadly pain, put
her hand to her heart.
"0 God!" she whispered to herself, "that is no man, that is an
infernal demon, who has risen there to take the place of my dear,
sweet Lamballe. Ah, the good spirit is gone, and the demon takes its
place--the demon which will destroy us all!"
"Long live Marat!" roared Santerre, and his comrades.
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