loved me.”  The girl was melted by her patience and gentleness.  She burst into tears of shame, and begged pardon for her previous conduct.  “I did not know you,” she said; “I see now that you are good.[2]” Another asked her, “How old is your girl?” “She is old enough,” replied the queen, “to feel acutely such scenes as these.”  But, while these brief conversations were going on, the crowd kept pressing forward.  One officer had drawn a table in front of the queen as she advanced, so as to screen her from actual contact with any of the rioters, but more than one of them stretched across it as if to reach her.  One fellow demanded that she should put a red cap, which he threw to her, on the head of the dauphin, and, as she saw the king wearing one, she consented; but it was too large and fell down the child’s face, almost stifling him with its thickness.  Santerre himself reached across and removed it, and, leaning with his hands on the table, which shook beneath his vehemence, addressed her with what he meant for courtesy.  “Princess,” said he, “do not fear.  The French people do not wish to slay you.  I promise this in their name.”  Marie Antoinette had long ago declared that her heart had become French; it was too much so for her to allow such a man’s claim to be the spokesman of the nation.  “It is not by such as you,” she replied, with lofty scorn; “it is not by such as you that I judge of the French people, but by brave men like these;” and she pointed to the gentlemen who were standing round her as her champions, and to the faithful grenadiers.  The well-timed and well-deserved compliment roused them to still greater enthusiasm, but already the danger was passing away.

The Assembly had seen with indifference the departure of the mob to attack the Tuileries, and had proceeded with its ordinary business as if nothing were likely to happen which could call for its interference.  But when the uproar within the palace became audible in the hall, the Count de Dumas, one of the very few men of noble birth who had been returned to this second Assembly, with a few other deputies of the better class, hastened to see what was taking place, and, quickly returning, reported the king’s imminent danger to their colleagues.  Dumas gave such offense by the boldness of his language that some of the Jacobins threatened him with violence, but he refused to be silenced; and his firmness prevailed, as firmness nearly always did prevail in an Assembly where, though there were many fierce and vehement blusterers, there were very few men of real courage.  In compliance with his vehement demand for instant action, a deputation of members was sent to take measures for the king’s safety; and then, at last, Petion, who had carefully kept aloof while there seemed to be a chance of the king being murdered, now that he could no longer hope for such a consummation, repaired to the palace and presented himself before him.  To him he had the effrontery to declare that he had only just become