people, while they greeted
him with cheers, which were renewed from time to time, even after he had
been withdrawn, till the shouting seemed as if it would have no end.

One deputation, consisting of members of the fairer sex, received even
higher honors. Fifty ladies of the fish-market vindicated the
long-acknowledged claims of their body by forming a separate procession.
Each dame was dressed in a gown of rich black silk, their established
court-dress, and nearly every one had diamond ornaments. To them, the
celebrated antechamber, from the oval window at the end known as the
Bull's Eye, was opened;[6] and three of their body were admitted even into
the queen's room, and to the side of the bed. The popular poet La Harpe,
whom the partiality of Voltaire had designated as the heir of his genius,
had composed an address, which the spokeswoman of the party had written
out on the back of her fan, and now read with a sweet voice, which had
procured her the honor of being so selected,[7] and with very appropriate
delivery. The queen made a brief but most gracious answer, and then, on
their retirement, the whole company, with a train of fish-women of the
lower class, was entertained at a grand banquet, which they enlivened with
songs composed for the occasion. One of them so hit the fancy of the king
and queen that they quoted it more than once in their letters to their
correspondents, and Marie Antoinette even sung it occasionally to her
harp:

"Ne craignez pas,
Cher papa,
D' voir augmenter vot' famille,
Le Bon Dieu z'y pourvoira:
Fait's en tant qu' Versailles en fourmille
Y eut-il cent Bourbons chez nous,
Y a du pain, du laurier pour tous."

The body-guard celebrated the auspicious event by giving a grand ball in
the concert-room of the palace to the queen on her recovery; it was
attended by the whole court, and Marie Antoinette opened it herself,
dancing a minuet with one of the troop, whom his comrades had selected for
the honor, and whom the king promoted, as a memorial of the occasion and
as a testimony of his approval of the loyalty of that gallant regiment.

Amidst all the troubles of later years, the fidelity of those noble troops
never wavered. They had even in one hour of terrible danger the honor, in
the same palace, of saving the life of their queen. But it is a melancholy
proof of the fleeting character and instability of popular favor which is
supplied by the recollection that these very ar