to riot,
through the hours of the night, in the parlors, halls, and chambers of
the Tuileries. The president of the Assembly, at that late hour, crowded
his way into the apartment where, for several hours, the king had been
exposed to every conceivable indignity. The mysterious authority of law
opened the way through the throng.

"I have only just learned," said the president, "the situation of your
majesty."

"That is very astonishing," replied the king, indignantly, "for it is a
long time that it has lasted."

The president, mounted upon the shoulders of four grenadiers, addressed
the mob and urged them to retire, and they, weary with the long hours of
outrages, slowly sauntered through the halls and apartments of the
palace, and at eight o'clock silence reigned, with the gloom of night,
throughout the Tuileries. The moment the mob became perceptibly less,
the king received his sister into his arms, and they hastened to the
apartment of the queen. During all the horrors of this awful day, her
heroic soul had never quailed; but, now that the peril was over, she
threw herself upon the bosom of her husband, and wept in all the
bitterness of inconsolable grief. As the family were locked in each
other's arms in silent gratitude for their preservation, the king
accidentally beheld in a mirror the red bonnet, which he had forgotten
to remove from his head. He turned red with mortification, and, casting
upon the floor the badge of his degradation, turned to the queen, with
his eyes filled with tears, and exclaimed, "Ah, madame, why did I take
you from your country, to associate you with the ignominy of such a day
as this!"

After the withdrawal of the mob, several of the deputies of the National
Assembly were in the apartment with the royal family, and, as the queen
recounted the horrors of the last five hours, one of them, though
bitterly hostile to the royal family, could not refrain from tears. "You
weep," said she to him, "at seeing the king and his family so cruelly
treated by a people whom he always wished to make happy."

"True, madame," unfeelingly replied the deputy, "I weep for the
misfortunes of a beautiful and sensitive woman, the mother of a family.
But do not mistake; not one of my tears falls for either king or queen.
I hate kings and queens. It is the only feeling they inspire me with. It
is my religion."

But time stops not. The hours of a dark and gloomy night, succeeding
this terrible day, lingered