On Sunday, August 5,--the last Sunday the royal family were to spend at the Tuileries,--as they were going to the chapel to hear Mass, half the National Guards on duty cried: "Long live the King!" The others said: "No, no; no King, down with the veto!" The same day, at Vespers, the chanters had agreed to swell their tones greatly, and in a {265} menacing way, when reciting this versicle of the _Magnificat: Deposuit potentes de sede_--"He hath put down the mighty from their seat." In their turn the royalists, after the _Dominum salvum fac regem_, cried thrice, turning as they did so toward the Queen: _Et reginam_. There was a continual murmuring all through the divine office. Five days later, the same chapel was to be a pool of blood. And yet Madame Elisabeth, always calm and always angelic, still had illusions. One morning of this terrible month of August, while in her room in the Pavilion of Flora, she thought she heard some one humming her favorite air, _Pauvre Jacques_, beneath her windows. Attracted by this refrain, which in the midst of sorrow renewed the souvenir of happier times, she half opened her window and listened attentively. The words sung were not those of the ballad she loved, yet they were royalist in sentiment and adapted to the same air. The poor people had been substituted for poor Jack--the poor people who were pitied for having a king no longer and for knowing nothing but wretchedness. Such marks of attachment consoled the virtuous Princess, and made her hope against all hope. She wrote, August 8, to her friend Madame de Raigecourt: "They say that the King is going to be turned out of here somewhat forcibly, and made to lodge in the Hôtel-de-Ville. They say that there will be a very strong movement to that effect in Paris. Do you believe it? For my part, I do not. I believe in rumors, but not in their {266} resulting in anything. That is my profession of faith. For the rest, everything is perfectly quiet to-day. Yesterday passed in the same way, and I think this one will be like it." On August 9, the eve of the fatal day, Madame Elisabeth again addressed a reassuring letter to one of her friends, Madame de Bombelles. Curiously enough she dated this letter August 10, no doubt by accident, and when Madame de Bombelles received it, she read these lines, which seem like the irony of fate: "This day of the 10th, which was to have been so exciting, so terrible, is as calm as possible; the Assembly has decreed neither deposition nor suspension." {267} XXVI. THE PROLOGUE TO THE TENTH OF AUGUST.