of the
princess wandered over the hall as if to implore aid, and were, for a
moment, dazzled. Her slight and fragile form inclined before the
sound of the applause with which she was greeted. A slight blush, the
mark of the revival of hope in her bosom, tinged her cheeks. The
smile of gratitude was already on her lips. She felt that she was
surrounded by friends. In her right hand she held the young king, in
her left the Duke of Chartres--children to whom their own catastrophe
was a spectacle. A white collar was turned down the neck of each, on
his dark dress--living portraits of Vandyck, as if they had stepped
out of the canvas, of the children of Charles I."

The duchess had but just entered when the doors were burst open by
the pressure of the crowd, and the mob rushed in. They were coarse,
brutal men, armed with every conceivable weapon, and immediately they
inundated the hall. Clamorously they demanded the rejection of the
throne, which had, thus far, ever trampled upon their rights, and for
the establishment of a republic, from which alone they hoped for
redress. A scene of indescribable confusion ensued, cries rising upon
all sides. The duchess endeavored to speak. Her tremulous feminine
voice was heard exclaiming, "I have come with all I hold dear in the
world," but the remainder of her words were drowned in the universal
clamor.

The sympathies of Lamartine, notwithstanding his republican speech,
were deeply moved by the presence of the princess. Taking advantage
of a slight lull in the storm, when his voice could be heard, he
said, "Mr. President, I demand that the sitting should be suspended,
from the double motive, on the one hand, of respect for the national
representation; on the other, for the august princess whom we see
before us."

But Marshal Oudinot, the Duke de Nemours, and other friends who
surrounded the duchess, deemed it essential to the success of her
cause that she should not withdraw from the Chamber. The human heart
is often swayed by influences stronger than argument. A young and
beautiful woman, heroically facing the most terrible dangers in
advocacy of the claims of her child to the throne, appealed more
persuasively to many chivalric hearts than the most cogent logic.
Every one in the room trembled for the life of the princess and her
children. They were surrounded by a mob of scowling, ferocious men,
who held possession of the hall. The blow of a club, the thrust of a
dagger, might