This gentle reproach affected the heart of the young girl, and her anger was effaced in a flood of tears.  She asked the queen’s pardon, saying, “I did not know you, but I see that you are good.”  At this moment Santerre made his way through the crowd.  Easily moved, and sensitive though coarse, Santerre had roughness, impetuosity, and feelings easily affected.  The faubourgs opened before him and trembled at his voice.  He made an imperious sign for them to leave the apartment, and thrust these men and women by the shoulders towards the door in front of the OEil de Boeuf.  The current advanced by opposite issues of the palace, and the heat was suffocating.  The dauphin’s brow reeked with perspiration beneath the bonnet rouge.  “Take the cap off the child,” shouted Santerre; “don’t you see he is half stifled.”  The queen darted a mother’s glance at Santerre, who came towards her, and placing his hand on the table, he leaned towards Marie Antoinette and said, in an under tone, “You have some very awkward friends, madame; I know those who would serve you better!” The queen looked down, and was silent.  It was from this moment that may be dated the secret understanding which she established with the agitators of the faubourgs.  The leading malcontents received the queen’s entreaties with complacency.  Their pride was flattered in raising the woman whom they had degraded.  Mirabeau, Barnave, Danton had in turns sold or offered to sell the influence of their popularity.  Santerre merely offered his compassion.

XXIII.

The Assembly had again resumed its sitting on the news of the invasion of the Chateau.  A deputation of twenty-four members was sent as a safeguard for the king.  Arriving too late, these deputies wandered in the crowded court-yard, vestibules, and staircases of the palace.  Although they felt repugnance at the idea of the last crime being committed on the person of the king, they were not very grievously afflicted in their hearts at this long-threatened insult to the court.  Their steps were lost in the crowd, their words in the uproar.  Vergniaud himself, from a top step of the grand staircase, vainly appealed to order, legality, and the constitution.  The eloquence, so powerful to incite the masses, is powerless to check them.  From time to time the royalist deputies, highly indignant, returned to the chamber, and, mounting the tribune, with their clothes all in disorder, reproached the Assembly with its indifference.  Amongst these more conspicuously, Vaublanc, Ramond, Becquet, Girardin.  Mathieu Dumas, La Fayette’s friend, exclaimed, as he pointed to the windows of the Chateau, “I am just come from there; the king is in danger!  I have this moment seen him, and can bear witness to the testimony of my colleagues MM.  Isnard and Vergniaud in their unavailing efforts to restrain the people.  Yes, I have seen the hereditary representative of the nation insulted,