It was only at two o'clock in the night that the living martyrdom of this session ended, and the royal family were conducted to the cells of the former Convent des Feuillants, which was above the rooms of the Assembly, and which had hastily been put in readiness for the night quarters of the royal family. Hither armed men, using their gun-barrels as candlesticks for the tapers which they carried, marched, conducting a king and a queen to their improvised sleeping-rooms. A dense crowd of people, bearing weapons, surrounded them, and often closed the way, so that it needed the energetic command of the officer in charge to make a free passage for them. The populace drew back, but bellowed and sang into the ears of the queen as she passed by:
"Madame Veto avait promis D'fegorger tout Paris."
These horrible faces, these threatening, abusive voices, frightened the dauphin, who clung tremblingly to his mother. Marie Antoinette stooped down to him and whispered a few words in his ear. At once the countenance of the boy brightened, and he sprang quickly and joyfully up the staircase; but at the top he stood still, and waited for his sister, who was so heavy with sleep that she had to be led slowly up. "Listen, Theresa," said the prince, joyously, "mamma has promised me that I shall sleep in her room with her, because I was so good before the bad people. " [Footnote: Goncourt.--"Histoirede Marie Antoinette," p. 234.] And he jumped about delightedly into the rooms which had been opened, and in which a supper had been even prepared. But suddenly, his countenance darkened, and his eyes wandered around with an anxious look.
"Where is Moufflet?" he asked. "He came with me, and he was with me when we left the box. Moufflet, Moufflet, where are you, Moufflet?" and asking this question loudly, the dauphin hurried through the four rooms everywhere seeking after the little dog, the inheritance from his brother, the former Dauphin of France.
But Moufflet did not come, and all search was in vain; no Moufflet was to be found. He had probably been lost in the crowd, or been trodden under foot.
When at last silence and peace came, and the royal family were resting on their hard beds, sighs and suppressed sobs were heard from where the dauphin lay. It was the little fellow weeping for his lost dog. The heir of the kings of France had to-day lost his last possession--his little, faithful dog.
Marie Antoinette stooped down and kissed his wet eyes.
"Do not cry, my boy; Moufflet will come back again tomorrow."
"To-morrow! certainly, mamma?"
"Certainly."
The boy dried his tears, and went to sleep with a smile upon his lips.
But Marie Antoinette did not sleep; sitting erect in her bed, she listened to the cries and fiendish shoutings which came up from the terrace of the Feuillants, as the people heaped their abuses upon her, and demanded her head.
On the next day new sufferings! The royal family had to go again into the little box which they had occupied the day before; they had to listen to the deliberation of the National Assembly about the future residence of the royal family, which had made itself unworthy to inhabit the Tuileries, while even the Luxemburg palace was no suitable residence for Monsieur and Madame Veto.