Marie Antoinette, who was in reality the strength and life of the family, was overwhelmed. She had heard the cries, the shots, and she saw M. de Goguelot return all covered with blood. The King, standing upright, prayed M. Sauce, the grocer, to assist them; as if he had the power, even had he wished to do so. The Queen, seated on a stool between two packages of candles, likewise implored his assistance. But with brutal and petty selfishness, he replied, “I should like to be able to serve you, certainly; but if you think of the King, I think of M. Sauce.” The Queen turned aside, shedding tears of rage. She had never been so humbled before. The day began to dawn. The crowd filled the street, the Place de la Rue Neuve, and the Place Latry. All the citizens cried from their windows, “To Paris—to Paris—to Paris with the King!” Alas! to show himself—he was to appear no longer, as on the 6th of October, on the balcony of the marble court, but at the windows of a grocer’s house. The King had fallen into a state of torpor. The cries redoubled. Five or six people had seen, or rather had caught a glimpse, of the King; the others wished to inspect him thoroughly. At that period, when it took a diligence six or seven days to go to Paris, to have seen the King was a thing to talk about. Each one had formed an imaginary portrait of him for him or herself. Therefore the astonishment was intense when Louis the Sixteenth showed himself with swollen eyes, and proved to that multitude a thing which they did not before believe—namely, that a king may be fat, pale, bloated—with dull eyes, hanging lips, a bad peruke, and a gray suit of clothes. The crowd believed that they were being deceived, and growled accordingly. Afterwards, when they knew that it was the King, “Oh, heavens!” said they. “Poor man!” Pity having once seized them, their hearts opened, and they began to shed tears. “Long live the King!” cried the crowd. If Louis XVI had profited by that moment—if he had prayed that concourse of people to help him and his children,—perhaps they would have passed him and the royal family over the barricaded bridge, and delivered them into the hands of the hussars. He took no advantage of that pity and sorrow. An example was given of the commiseration which the royal family inspired. Sauce had an aged mother—a woman of some eighty years of age. She was born in the reign of Louis XIV, and was a Royalist. She entered the chamber; and seeing the King and Queen bowed down with sorrow, and the children sleeping on the bed, which had never been destined for such a mournful honor, she fell on her knees beside it, repeated a prayer, and, turning towards the Queen, “Madame,” said she, “will you allow me to kiss the hands of the two innocents?” The Queen bowed her head, in token of assent. The good woman kissed their hands, and left the room, sobbing, as if her heart would break. The Queen was the only one who did not sleep.