CHAPTER C. THE QUEEN GIVES UP HER RING. Marie Antoinette bore this tumultuous scene with the spirit of a martyr; nay, her own waning hopes had been exhilarated even by this rude homage, and she was willing to deceive herself into a belief that the people of France might yet be won to do her justice. So she smiled on the gay throng that danced and shouted before her, took the child in her lap, and told him to kiss his little hand to the people who loved him so, and laughed outright at some of the quaint compliments paid to her beauty. While she was thus occupied, a group of young girls came into the broken procession, carrying garlands in their hands, and loose flowers in their aprons. They were led by a fair and gentle young creature whom the queen regarded with a glance of pleasant recognition. This girl stepped out from her companions, approached the throne, and laid her flowers at the feet of the queen, to whom her great blue eyes were lifted with a look of touching affection. Marie Antoinette gathered up the flowers and held them in her lap with seeming carelessness, but her fingers had searched out the letter they concealed, and while apparently admiring the blossoms, she read, “Have I performed my promise? Is the monarchy saved? MIRABEAU.” For answer the queen gathered up some of the flowers, and fastened them in the lace that shaded her bosom. A flash of light came into the young girl’s face. She arose, and her sweet lips joined in the song of her sister flower-girls, who broke into a regular dance, flinging up their long garlands as they waited for her. “Long live the king! Long live the queen!” With this shout ringing sweetly from their fresh lips, the flower-girls whirled away, waving their garlands, and tossing back loose blossoms to the steps of the throne. There was no etiquette in these proceedings; all was wild, and brilliant confusion. The anarchy which followed was already foreshadowed in the shouts, dances, and songs, that turned what should have been an august assembly, into a revel. After the flower-girls came the federates, full of enthusiasm, and after them the legislative assembly, in which Mirabeau walked with a step more haughty than any king of France ever assumed. His bold eyes fell upon the flushed face of the queen with a look of proud triumph, and the wonderful smile that made his strong face more than beautiful, swept it as he saw the flowers on her bosom. These flowers had a language of thanks that he read at a glance, and felt more keenly than words, for there was a touch of romance in them that fired his imagination.