ignominy she could have encountered had she been involved in
the deepest guilt.

CHAPTER V.

THE MOB AT VERSAILLES.

1789

A gathering storm.--Condition of the French people.--Forces assembled
at Versailles.--The populace rise upon the troops.--Terror and
confusion.--Attack on the Bastile.--The Bastile taken.--Awful
tumult.--Energy of the queen.--Resolution of the king.--The king
visits Paris.--Strange cavalcade.--Painful suspense of the
queen.--Return of the king.--The banquet at Versailles.--Enthusiastic
loyalty.--News of the banquet.--Famine in Paris.--The mob marches to
Versailles.--Heroic reply of the queen.--Violence of the mob.--The
queen retires to rest.--Peril of the queen.--Her narrow escape.--The
mob in the palace.--Heroic conduct of the queen.--The queen appears
on the balcony.--Her composure.--The queen applauded.--The royal
family taken to Paris.--An army of vagabonds.--The royal family
grossly insulted.--The royal family in the Tuileries.--The queen's
self-sacrificing spirit.--Rioting and violence.--The dauphin's
question.--The king's explanation to his son.--Flight of the
nobility.--Inflammatory placards.--The Duke of Orleans.--The Duke
of Orlean's plans frustrated.--Rumors of an invasion.--The leaders of
the populace.--The queen urged to attend the theater.--Dignified reply
of the queen.--Her unpopularity increases.--The queen's vigorous
action.--Ultimate cause of the popular fury.--Transgressors visited
in their children.

The year 1789 opened upon France lowering with darkness and portentous
storms. The events to which we have alluded in the preceding chapters,
and various others of a similar nature, conspired to foment troubles
between the French monarch and his subjects, which were steadily and
irresistibly increasing. The great mass of the people, ignorant,
degraded, and maddened by centuries of oppression, were rising, with
delirious energy, to batter down a corrupt church and a despotic throne,
and to overwhelm the guilty and the innocent alike in indiscriminate
ruin. The storm had been gathering for ages, but those who had been
mainly instrumental in raising it were now slumbering in their graves.
Mobs began to sweep the streets of Paris, phrensied with rum and rage,
and all law was set at defiance. The king, mild in temperament, and with
no force of character, was extremely averse to any measures of violence.
The queen, far more energetic, with the spirit of her heroic m