event. On that occasion, when the soldiers were quaffing champagne, and the band playing loyal airs, the King and the Queen, leading the Dauphin, entered the theatre of the palace. Their appearance was hailed with enthusiasm. The soldiers, clapping their hands, shouted, "God save the King, the Queen, and the Dauphin!" sneered scornfully at liberty, and cried, "Down with the tricoloured cockade!" At the same time white Bourbon cockades were distributed, and some revolutionary emblems were trodden under foot.

Never was manifestation of loyalty more ill-timed. The report of this extravagant scene at Versailles caused a fearful ferment in Paris, and one Sunday the whole city was in commotion. The Parisians were unanimous in their hostility to the court; and even the "Dames de la Halle," or market-women, who had hitherto been loyal to the throne, and proud of the privilege of sending deputations to the King on the birth of a Dauphin, deserted the royal cause, and abused the Queen in language which Billingsgate could not rival.

A disturbance was inevitable, and at length a signal was given for an attack on Versailles. A girl traversed the streets of Paris beating a drum, and shouting, "Bread! bread!" A crowd of women gathered round her, and the cry was, "To Versailles!" A motley assemblage soon filled the streets, but was kept in check for seven hours by M. Lafayette, who had formerly fought in the American War of Independence

by the side of George Washington, and who now figured as commander of the burgess-militia, enrolled under the name of the National Guard. On the 5th of October the mob reached Versailles. Lafayette, however, restored tranquillity, and the mischief was stayed for the day; but at dead of night some stragglers found the gratings of the palace open, and, after arousing their companions, entered. Resistance was vain. The guards on duty, however, struggled heroically, and several fell at their posts, exclaiming, "Save the Queen!" But the Parisians made their way to her apartment, and, finding that she had escaped, wreaked their fury on her bed.

The King, having found Marie Antoinette and her children unharmed, accompanied Lafayette to a balcony, and consented to go to Paris. The mob, however, demanded to see the Queen; and she appeared with the Dauphin and his sister, Madame Royal, a fair-haired girl of twelve. But the mob shouted, "No children!" and she, pushing them back, stood with her eyes raised to heaven, expecting immediate death. Her hour, however, was not yet come; and the multitude, overawed by her splendid courage and majestic bearing, involuntarily expressed their admiration.

After a hurried consultation with Lafayette the King once more appeared. "My friends," said Louis, "I will accompany you to Paris, with my wife and children. To the love of my subjects I will confide all that is most precious." This point having been settled,

the King and his family were placed in a carriage, at the side of which Lafayette rode on a white charger. The mob acted as escort. "We shall no longer want bread," bawled the fish-women, "for we have got the baker, and the baker's wife, and the baker's boy."

From the moment the King placed himself in the carriage to leave Versailles he was simply a prisoner in the hands of the Parisian populace, and no generosity for the fallen representatives of royalty glowed in the breasts of a democracy degraded by centuries of oppression. The progress towards Paris was disgraced by perpetual outrages and insults to the fallen; and it was not till after occupying six hours by the way, that the King, with the mob as escort, reached Paris in the evening, and found himself lodged in the Tuileries, which had long been uninhabited. "Everything is very ugly here, mamma," observed the Dauphin, as they entered the dismal apartments of the château, and remarked its faded tapestry and dilapidated furniture. "My dear," said the Queen, "Louis the Fourteenth lived here, and we must not be more fastidious than he was."

The presence of the King restored some degree of tranquillity to Paris, and the storm was stayed for a while. During this lull, a project of forming the boys of Paris into a company under the name of Régiment du Dauphin was conceived and proposed to the King. The citizens having defrayed the cost, two hundred boys were enrolled, and dressed in the

"Will you be the colonel of our regiment?" asked one of the juvenile

soldiers. Yes," replied the Dauphin.- p. 329.