The queen lifted the dauphin up, set him upon the table, and
whispered softly to him, he must not cry, he must not grieve, and
the child smiled and kissed his mother's hands. Just then a drunken
woman rushed up to the table, threw a red cap down upon it, and
ordered the queen, on pain of death, to put it on.
Marie Antoinette threw both her arms around the dauphin, kissed his
auburn hair, and turned calmly to General de Wittgenhofen, who stood
near her.
"Put the cap upon me," said she, and the women howled with pleasure,
while the general, pale with rage and trembling with grief, obeyed
the queen's command, and put the red cap upon that hair which
trouble had already turned gray in a night.
But, after a minute, General Wittgenhofen took the red cap from the
head of the queen, and laid it on the table.
From all sides resounded thus the commanding cry: "The red cap for
the dauphin! The tri-color for Little Veto!" And the women tore
their three-colored ribbons from their caps and threw them upon the
table.
"If you love the nation," cried the women to the queen, "put the red
cap on your son."
The queen motioned to Madame Tourzel, who put the red cap on the
dauphin, and decked his neck and arms with the ribbons. The child
did not understand whether it was a joke or a way of insulting him,
and looked on with a smile of astonishment.
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