Dantès, Edmond (Fictitious character) -- Fiction; France -- History -- February Revolution, 1848
Within the Palace of the Tuileries is a subterranean passage,
constructed for the infant King of Rome and his nurses, which, plunging
beneath the pavements, and passing along the whole length of the
gardens, under the terrace beside the river bank, suddenly emerges at
the gate of the Place du Carrousel, in front of the obelisk. Into this
passage, in wild panic, descended the King and Queen of France, with all
their children and grandchildren, immediately upon the signing of the
abdication, and just as the doors were about to be forced. Emerging from
the passage, the King, leaning on the arm of his faithful wife, Marie
Amelie, and followed by the Royal party, crossed the Place de la
Concorde as far as the asphalt pavement. The Royal party now consisted
of the King and Queen, the Duchess of Nemours and her children, the
Princess Clementine and her husband, the Duke Augustus of Saxe-Coburg,
and the Duke of Montpensier with his young and lovely Spanish bride, now
enceinte and far advanced. Ignorant of the language, only sixteen years
of age, a stranger to the customs and people of the country, and in her
delicate situation, the position of this young creature was peculiarly
trying. At one moment she clung with terror to her young husband's arm,
which she refused for an instant to resign, and the next laughed at her
own terror, saying that one who in her infancy had twice, in Madrid,
been saved by being carried off in a sack ought not now to fear when she
had feet to carry herself away and was suffered to use them! It is said
that the fair Senora was forgotten in the hurry of the flight and almost
left behind!
As soon as the Royal party were perceived, they were surrounded by a
troop of National Guards as an escort, and a large number of officers of
the Line in various uniforms. The King leaned on the Queen, as if for
support, while she boldly advanced with a firm step and stern look. Both
were in deepest mourning for the recent death of the beloved sister of
the King, the Princess Adelaide.
Upon this melancholy procession the people gazed with mingled curiosity,
amusement, gratification and regret.
"They are going to the Chamber of Deputies to complete the abdication!"
cries one.
"Vive la Reforme!" shouts another.
"Vive la France!" shouts a second.
"Vive le Roi!" in suppressed tones falters a third.
"See the poor young Duchess!" cried a woman, who was availing herself of
her peculiar rotundity as a battering-ram to force her way through the
crowd.
"She had better have remained at home!" sneered a Dynastic bitterly.
"The poor little children!" exclaimed a young woman more remarkable for
prettiness than neatness, and more remarkable still for the scantiness
of her attire, nearly all of which had been torn from her rounded
shoulders in the throng.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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