The fearful drama of that day is too well known to need repeating.  On that day Louis XVI of France passed from history and the revolution was consummated.  By the time Calvert had reached the Quai opposite the Louvre the battle was begun, the mob was forcing its way past the scattered National Guard, whose commander lay murdered on the steps of the Hotel de Ville, past the stanch, true Swiss Guard, who, left without orders, stood, martyrs at their posts, ne sacramenti fidem fallerent, through the Carrousel up to the very palace itself.  There, surrounded by seven hundred loyal gentlemen, whom he was to abandon as he had abandoned all his friends and servants, the King awaited his doom in apathetic resignation.  It was impossible to reach his Majesty or to do aught for him, and Calvert could only look on from afar.  There was no place in that fearful scene for an American.  The French at last knew their power, had at last got the bit between their teeth, and no outside interference could stay that fearful pace.  The mob surged about Calvert, increased every instant by fresh additions from the lowest quarters of the city, reinforced by deputations from the provinces.  The firing from without grew quicker and quicker; from within fainter and less frequent, as those devoted servants of the King were shot down, until finally there was silence within the palace and the scarlet of the Swiss could be seen scattered and fleeing in every direction as the armed and triumphant mob pushed its way forward.  Looking into the mad whirlwind of faces, Calvert saw the great, disfigured head, the massive shoulders of Danton, (but just come, on that fearful morning, to the fulness of his infamy and power), followed by Bertrand, battling his way beside his great leader.

“And ’twas for this I saved him!” said Calvert to himself.  “Truly the ways and ends of Providence are inscrutable!”

He watched the terrible scene a long while, and then, seeing that he was powerless to aid those in the palace, he made his way back to the Legation with a beating heart.  The great disappointment the night had brought, the failure of all those plans in which he had been so profoundly interested and for which he had hazarded so much, even the peril of the King and Queen, faded from before his mind as he thought of Adrienne and asked himself why she had risked her life to come to him.  He saw her still galloping by his side, her face pale in the light of the full August moon, her dusky hair blown backward, the strange, inscrutable expression in her eyes.

She was not with the rest of the little company when Calvert once more entered the Legation.  He found her in an upper chamber, where she stood alone beside an open window, looking out on the agitation and tumult of the city below.  She had doffed her travel-stained boy’s clothes and now wore a dress, which Madame de Montmorin had offered her, of some soft black stuff that fell in heavy folds about her slender young figure.