Release us from these sufferings and pains, that our children may at
least find the happiness which for us is buried forever in the
past."
And yet Marie Antoinette could speak to no one of her hopes and
fears. She must breathe her prayer in her own heart alone, for the
municipal officials were there, and the two servants who had been
forced upon the prisoners, Tison and his wife, the paid servants of
their enemies.
Only the brave look and the clearer brow told the king of the hopes
and wishes of his wife, but he responded to them with a faint shrug
and a sad smile.
All at once, after the royal family had sat down to take their
dinner at the round table--all at once there was a stir in the
building which was before so still. Terrible cries were heard, and
steps advancing up the staircase. The two officials, who were
sitting in the open anteroom, stood and listened at the door. This
was suddenly opened, and a third official entered, pale, trembling
with rage, and raising his clinched fists tremblingly against the
king.
"The enemy is in Verdun," cried he. "We shall all be undone, but you
shall be the first to suffer!"
The king looked quietly at him; but the dauphin, terrified at the
looks of the angry man and his loud voice, burst into a violent fit
of weeping and sobbing, and Marie Antoinette and the little Theresa
strove in vain to quiet the little fellow by gentle words.
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