Among these was Charles, whose anxiety had been awakened by the aspect of Paris after the departure of the army for Versailles. It was well known that Lafayette’s generalship on this occasion was enforced; and not all the apparatus of triumph amidst which the troops marched out,—not all the drumming, and military music, and display of flags amidst the rain, and echo of shouting heard above the strong winds, could remove the impression of the hollowness of all this rejoicing,—the desperation of this defiance. When the sights and sounds were gone, a deep gloom settled down upon Paris. The shops were shut, the streets were silent, except where the waggons, laden with meat, bread, and brandy, converged towards the Versailles road, or where groups of two or three observers whispered their anticipations to each other, mindful of none but political storms, and questioning only whether the sun of royalty would not this night have a crimson setting, to rise upon their state no more. Charles had been among these observers, and the tidings he brought home made his wife anxious to depart from this revolutionary city, and take refuge in their country possessions. She would be ready to go at any moment, she declared, and when would there be so favourable a time as when the place was half emptied of its inhabitants, the police otherwise engaged than in watching the proceedings of private individuals, and all fear at an end of any attack upon the wine-stores? Charles was half disposed to listen to the scheme, though his views of what was likely to happen differed as widely from his wife’s as the prevailing tone of mind by which they were influenced. Marguerite feared the worst: her husband hoped all might yet be well, and thought it, at all events, a good thing that something decided must arise out of the present crisis. He determined to follow the march to Versailles, and to return as soon as he could anticipate the event, to bid Marguerite stay and make herself easy, or to carry her, her father and children into Guienne. While she was packing up the few necessaries she meant to take with her, and persuading all the household but herself to go early to rest, Charles was reconnoitring the proceedings of such as were preparing a terrible retribution for those under whose tyranny they had suffered.