“One day the people rose like a great tidal wave, and swept over my prison. A woman plunged down into the bowels of the earth, and fell upon my neck, crying out that the people had won back my liberty. I did not understand her—I did not know her; her eagerness wearied me. She talked of things I had never heard of. She said that she was my wife. My wife, with those bright, eager eyes; those curling lips; that free speech, often sharp with denunciation. If she was my wife, too much light had changed her more completely than darkness had worked on me. While her arms were around me, I thought of the fair, meek creature I had left in that cottage among the vineyards, and mourned for her as we mourn for the dead. Then they brought a young creature to me, so like my first wife that I stretched out my arms with a cry of joy; but they told me it was my daughter. Wife and daughter had both gone. The old king had dug a chasm of years between them and me. I could not cross it—I could not cross it!” The stranger took a handkerchief from his bosom, and wiped away some great drops that had gathered on his forehead. “No more to-night,” he said; “I cannot bear it.” “Then I will go, since you will not let me rest here; but the road to Paris is long, and suffering has made me an old man.” The stranger reflected a moment. “Not here,” he said, “the air is moist and the earth damp.” “Ah! but I learned to love this dampness in my dungeon,” said the old man, plaintively. “Still it is no safe resting-place. I must not turn you upon the highway in the night; besides, the guard might treat you ill. Come with me; there is a place where you can be safe, and more comfortable.” The old man picked up his staff and followed the strange person, who had taken this singular interest in him, with docile obedience. The two mounted upward from the secluded path, and walked toward another portion of the park, where a tiny summer-house was embowered. The stranger opened the door and let a flood of moonlight into the pretty place. “Here are easy-chairs and cushions, you can make out a resting-place from them,” he said, kindly, addressing the old man. “No; I will sleep on the marble floor—a bed suffocates me.” “Have no fear, then; no one will molest you.” “Fear! What has a prisoner of the Bastille to fear—death? How many of us prayed for that every hour of our miserable lives,” answered the old man with a gentle smile. “You are kind, and I thank you. Gratitude, I sometimes think, is the only feeling imprisonment has left me. I am grateful to you, sir.” “Grateful to me! Do you know that I am THE KING?” CHAPTER LXVI. ON TO VERSAILLES.