While these terrific scenes were passing in Paris and in France, the majority of the nobility were rapidly emigrating to find refuge in other lands. Every night the horizon was illumined by the conflagration of their chateaux, burned down by mobs. Many of them were mercilessly tortured to death. Large numbers, however, gathering around them such treasures as could easily be carried away, escaped to Germany on the frontiers of France. Some fifteen hundred of these emigrants were at Coblentz, organizing themselves into a military band, seeking assistance from the Austrian monarchy, and threatening, with an overwhelming force of invasion, to recover their homes and their confiscated estates, and to rescue the royal family. The populace in Paris were continually agitated with the rumors of this gathering army at Coblentz. As Maria was an Austrian, she was accused of being in correspondence with the emigrants, and of striving to rouse the Austrian monarchy to make war upon France, and to deluge Paris with the blood of its citizens. Most inflammatory placards were posted in the streets. Speeches full of rancor and falsehood were made to exasperate the populace. And when the fish-women wished to cast upon the queen some epithet of peculiar bitterness, they called her "The Austrian." It is confidently asserted that the mob was instigated to the march to Versailles by the emissaries of the Duke of Orleans, the father of Louis Philippe. The duke hoped that the royal family, terrified by the approach of the infuriated multitude, would enter their carriages and flee to join the emigrants at Coblentz. The throne would then be vacant, and the people would make the Duke of Orleans, who, to secure this result, had become one of the most violent of the Democrats, their king. It was a deeply-laid plot and a very plausible enterprise. But the king understood the plan, and refused thus to be driven from the throne of his fathers. He, however, entreated the queen to take the children and escape. She resolutely declared that no peril should induce her to forsake her husband, but that she would live or die by his side. During all the horrors of that dreadful night, when the palace at Versailles was sacked, the duke, in disguise, with his adherents, was endeavoring to direct the fury of the storm for the accomplishment of this purpose. But his plans were entirely frustrated. The caprice seized the mob to carry the king to Paris. This the Duke of Orleans of all things dreaded; but matters had now passed entirely beyond his control. Rumors of the approaching invasion were filling the kingdom with alarm. There was a large minority, consisting of the most intelligent and wealthy, who were in favor of the king, and who would eagerly join an army coming for his rescue. Should the king escape and head that army, it would give the invaders a vast accession of moral strength, and the insurgent people feared a dreadful vengeance. Consequently, there were great