in uncounted
thousands, armed with every conceivable weapon, yelling, blaspheming,
and crowding against the carriages so that they surged to and fro like
ships in a storm. This motley multitude kept up an incessant discharge
of fire-arms loaded with bullets, and the balls often struck the
ornaments of the carriages, and the king and queen were often almost
suffocated with the smoke of powder. The two body-guard, who had been
massacred while so faithfully defending the queen at the door of her
chamber, were beheaded, and, their gory heads affixed to pikes, were
carried by the windows of the carriage, and pressed upon the view of
the wretched captives with every species of insult and derision. La
Fayette was powerless. He was borne along resistlessly by this
whirlwind of human passions. None were so malignant, so ferocious, so
merciless, as the degraded women who mingled with the throng. They
bestrode the cannon singing the most indecent and insulting songs. "We
shall now have bread," they exclaimed; "for we have with us the baker,
and the baker's wife, and the baker's boy." During seven long hours
of agony were the royal family exposed to these insults, before the
unwieldy mass had urged its slow way to Paris. The darkness of night
was settling down around the city as the royal captives were led into
the Hotel de Ville. No one seemed then to know what to do, or why the
king and queen had been brought from Versailles. The mayor of the city
received them there with the external mockery of respect and homage.
He had them then conducted to the Tuileries, the gorgeous city palace
of the kings of France, now the prison of the royal family. Soldiers
were stationed at all the avenues to the palace, ostensibly to
preserve the royal family from danger, but, in reality, to guard them
from escape.

A moment before the queen entered her carriage for this march of
humiliation, she hastily retired to her private apartment, and, bursting
into tears, surrendered herself to the most uncontrollable emotion. Then
immediately, as if relieved and strengthened by this flood of tears, she
summoned all her energies, and appeared as she had ever appeared, the
invincible sovereign. Indeed, through all these dreadful scenes she
never seemed to have a thought for herself. It was for her husband and
her children alone that she wept and suffered. Through all the long
hours of the night succeeding this day of horror, Paris was one boiling
caldron of