HARVARD 043312 Copyright, 1890, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. UNIVERSITY PRESS: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. THE NIGHT BETWEEN THE NINTH AND TENTH XII. FROM THREE O' CLOCK TILL SIX IN THE MORNING I. WHAT ANGE PITOU AND CATHERINE BILLOT DID II. ON THE EFFECT PRODUCED UPON AUNT ANGELICA LA COMTESSE DE CHARNY. CHAPTER I. REACTION. THE evacuation of the Tuileries was as quiet and pensive as its invasion had been noisy and terrifying. Surprised at the meagre results of their day's work, the rioters began to say to one another: "We got nothing! We shall have to go back again!" Those who thought they foresaw what would happen, judged Louis Sixteenth by his reputation. They remembered how the King appeared at Varennes, clad like a lackey. They prophesied that at the first alarm Louis. would hide in some closet, under a table, or behind a curtain; that somebody would stab him by accident; and then get himself off by saying "How now? A rat?" as Hamlet says in the play, when he slays old Polonius behind the arras, thinking it is his uncle, the tyrant of Denmark. It had turned out quite otherwise with Louis. Never was the King so calm. Nay, more! Never had he been so great. The insult had been tremendous; but it had not surpassed his resignation. His timid firmness, if one may so speak, needed to be excited; and in the heat it was tempered like steel. |