"For God's sake!" cried M. de Saint Pardoux, "what do you want to
do? This is not the queen!"
"Why do you undeceive them?" asked Madame Elizabeth, "their error
might save the queen!"
And while she put back one of the bayonets directed against her
breast, she said, gently: "Take care, sir, you might wound somebody,
and I am convinced that you would be sorry."
The people were amazed at this, and respectfully made way for her to
come up with the king. He stood in the middle of the hall,
surrounded by a crowd threatening him with wild curses. One of these
desperadoes pressed close up to the king, while the others were
shouting that they must strangle the whole royal family, and,
pulling a bottle and a glass out of his pocket, he filled the
latter, gave it to the king, and ordered him to drink to the welfare
of the nation.
The king quietly took the glass. "The nation must know that I love
it," said he, "for I have made many sacrifices for it. From the
bottom of my heart I drink to its welfare," and, in spite of the
warning cries of his friends, he put the glass to his lips and
emptied it.
The crowd was beside itself with delight, and their cries were
answered from without by the demand of the bloodthirsty rabble--"How
soon are you going to throw out the heads of the king and the
queen?"
Marie Antoinette had meanwhile succeeded in pacifying the dauphin.
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