While we were thus conversing we approached Versailles. We thought the vicinity of the town seemed unusually deserted. We entered the main street: crowds were assembled; a universal murmur was heard; excitement sat on every countenance. Here an old crone was endeavouring to explain something, evidently beyond his comprehension, to a child of three years old, who, with open mouth and fixed eyes, seemed to make up in wonder for the want of intelligence; there a group of old disbanded soldiers occupied the way, and seemed, from their muttered conversations, to vent a sneer and a jest at a priest who, with downward countenance and melancholy air, was hurrying along. One young fellow was calling out, "At least, it is a holy-day, and I shall go to Paris!" and, as a contrast to him, an old withered artisan, leaning on a gold-headed cane, with sharp avarice eloquent in every line of his face, muttered out to a fellow-miser, "No business to-day, no money, John; no money!" One knot of women, of all ages, close by which my horse passed, was entirely occupied with a single topic, and that so vehemently that I heard the leading words of the discussion. "Mourning--becoming--what fashion?--how long?--/O Ciel/!" Thus do follies weave themselves round the bier of death! "What is the news, gentlemen?" said I. "News! what, you have not heard it?--the King is dead!" "Louis dead! Louis the Great, dead!" cried my companion. "Louis the Great?" said a sullen-looking man,--"Louis the persecutor!" "Ah, he's a Huguenot!" cried another with haggard cheeks and hollow eyes, scowling at the last speaker. "Never mind what he says: the King was right when he refused protection to the heretics; but was he right when he levied such taxes on the Catholics?" "Hush!" said a third--"hush: it may be unsafe to speak; there are spies about; for my part, I think it was all the fault of the /noblesse/." "And the Favourites!" cried a soldier, fiercely. "And the Harlots!" cried a hag of eighty. "And the Priests!" muttered the Huguenot. "And the Tax-gatherers!" added the lean Catholic. We rode slowly on. My comrade was evidently and powerfully affected. "So, he is dead!" said he. "Dead!--well, well, peace be with him! He conquered in Holland; he humbled Genoa; he dictated to Spain; he commanded Conde and Turenne; he--Bah! What is all this!--" then, turning abruptly to me, my companion cried, "I did not speak against the King, did I, Sir?" "Not much." "I am glad of that,--yes, very glad!" And the old man glared fiercely round on a troop of boys who were audibly abusing the dead lion.