The queen had in the mean time regained her self-possession and calmness, she could even summon a smile to her lips with which to greet her children and the faithful friends who thronged around her in order to be near her in these painful hours. She was pleased with the attentions of the wife of the English ambassador, Lady Sutherland, who sent linen and clothes of her own son for the dauphin. The queen also received from Madame Tourzel her watch with many thanks, since she had been robbed of her own and her purse on the way to the Convent des Feuillants.
On receiving news of this theft, the five gentlemen present hastened to lay all the gold and notes that they carried about them on the table before they withdrew. But Marie Antoinette had noticed this.
"Gentlemen," she said, with thanks and deep feeling, "gentlemen, keep your money; you will want it more than we, for you will, I trust, live longer." [Footnote: The queen's own words.--See "Beauehesne," vol. i., p. 806.]
Death had no longer any terrors for the queen, for she had too often looked him in the eye of late to be afraid. She had with joy often seen him take away her faithful servants and friends. Death would have been lighter to bear than the railings and abuse which she had to experience upon her walks from the Logograph's reporters' seat to the rooms in the Convent des Feuillants. On one of these walks she saw in the garden some respectably dressed people standing and looking without hurling insults at her.--Full of gratitude, the queen smiled and bowed to them. On this, one of the men shouted:
"You needn't take the trouble to shake your head so gracefully, for you won't have it much longer!"
"I would the man were right!" said Marie Antoinette softly, going on to the hall of the Assembly to hear the representatives of the nation discuss the question whether the Swiss guards, who had undertaken to defend the royal family with weapons in their hands, should not be condemned to death as traitors to the French nation.
At length, after five days of continued sufferings, the Assembly became weary of insulting and humiliating longer those who had been robbed of their power and dignity; and it was announced to the royal family that they would hereafter reside in the Temple, and be perpetual prisoners of the nation.
On the morning of the 18th of August two great carriages, each drawn by only two horses, stood in the court des Feuillants ready to carry the royal family to the Temple. In the first of these sat the king, the queen, their two children, Madame Elizabeth, Princess Lamballe, Madame Tourzel and her daughter; and besides these, Potion the mayor of Paris, the attorney-general, and a municipal officer. In the second carriage were the servants of the king and two officials. A detachment of the National Guards escorted the carriages, on both sides of which dense masses of men stood, incessantly pouring out their abuse and insults.
In the Place Vendome the procession stopped, and with scornful laughter they showed the king the scattered fragments, upon the pavements, of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV., which had stood there, and which had been thrown from its pedestal by the anger of the people. "So shall it be with all tyrants!" shouted and roared the mob, raising their fists threateningly.
"How bad they are!" said the dauphin, looking with widely-opened eyes at the king, between whose knees he was standing.
"No," answered Louis, gently, "they are not bad, they are only misled."
At seven in the evening they reached the gloomy building which was now to be the home of the King and Queen of France. "Long live the nation!" roared the mob, which filled the inner court as Marie Antoinette and her husband dismounted from the carriage. "Long live the nation!--down with the tyrants!" The queen paid no attention to the cries; she looked down at her black shoe, which was torn, and out of whose tip her white silk stocking peeped. "See," she said, to Princess Lamballe, who was walking by her side, "see my foot, it would hardly be believed that the Queen of France has no shoes."