Charles and his brother knew too well what was passing in Paris to acquiesce in this belief; but they were glad of the good effects it seemed to produce in quieting the minds, and therefore fixing the outward circumstances of their neighbours. People went about their regular business once more, prices grew steady in the markets, and the mysterious, dishonest sort of bargaining which had gone on immediately after the destruction of the chateaux, was seen no more. No golden timepieces now passed from hand to hand, in exchange for the coarsest articles of clothing or furniture; and if polished tables, or morsels of curious old china were seen here and there in the hovels of half-starved peasants, they were not put up for sale, and did not answer the purpose of further perplexing the values of things. Seeing that Marguerite began to feel pretty much at her ease once more, going to rest without presentiments of being roused by fire, and venturing, with only the children, to transact her necessary purchases among the peasantry, Charles began to try whether he could make anything of his business at Paris; and set out, in order that he might be on the spot to take advantage of the first symptoms of tranquillity to meet the demand which would then certainly arise. He went to Paris before winter was quite over; and found more promise of a settlement of public affairs than at any time since the commencement of the revolution. Yet he would not hear of his family joining him, till it should be known whether or not king, parliament, and people would cordially agree in the new constitution which was then in preparation. When there was not only a promise of this, but all arts and artificers were actually put in requisition to render the spectacle of taking the oath as magnificent as the occasion required, there was no further pretence for Charles’s prudence to interfere with the hopefulness which now seemed rational enough. He sent a summons to Marguerite to return and witness the festival from which her loyalty and his patriotism might derive equal gratification. But Marguerite was detained in the country by her father’s illness,—his last; and the children were deprived of the power of saying afterwards that they had witnessed in Paris the transactions of that day which was regarded at the time as the most remarkable in the annals of France. That day, the 14th of July, 1790, was appointed to be a high festival throughout the kingdom: Charles passed it in the Champ de Mars; Marguerite by the dying bed of her father; the children, under the guardianship of their uncle Antoine, among the rejoicing peasantry; and Steele, who had returned to Bordeaux when Charles settled himself again in Paris, took the opportunity of visiting La Haute Favorite for the first time after so many vicissitudes.