We must now return to Paris to record the scenes which transpired there after the flight of the king. At seven o'clock in the morning of the 21st of June the servants at the Tuileries, on entering the apartments of the king and queen, found the beds undisturbed and the rooms deserted. The alarm was speedily spread through the palace, and flew from the chateau like wild-fire through the streets and into the faubourgs. "The king has escaped!" was upon all lips. The crowd, in countless thousands, rushed to the Tuileries. They pressed in at the doors and up the stairs, and explored all the mysterious interior of the palace. The most vile and degraded of the population of the city are always foremost on such occasions. The awe which they at first felt soon gave place to derision. A portrait of the king was taken from his bed-chamber and hung up at the gate of the chateau. A fruit-woman emptied her basket of cherries upon the queen's bed, and sat down upon the bed to sell her venture, saying "It is the Nation's turn to-day to take their ease." Some one placed a cap from the queen's wardrobe upon the head of a young girl. She threw it contemptuously on the floor and trampled upon it, saying "It will sully my forehead." For several hours the whole city was in a state of intense consternation. The departure of the king was associated in all minds with the approach of foreign armies, the bombardment of Paris, the sweep of dragoons through the streets, the assassination of the patriots, and the extinction of liberty. The alarm-bells rang, drums beat to arms, minute-guns were fired, and the National Guard rallied at all their rendezvous. But in the midst of these alarms there appeared an apparition which excited intense alarm in the bosoms of all the friends of enlightened liberty and order. It consisted of vast gatherings of haggard, wretched-looking men, the most worthless and abandoned of the population of a great city, under their own fierce leaders, armed with pikes and all wearing a red cap, the _bonnet rouge_. Santerre, a brewer, an uneducated man, of vast energies, and of great power to lead the passions of the populace, led a band of two thousand of these red-caps through the streets. The indignation of the people was now roused to the highest pitch against the king, and against all who were supposed to have connived at his flight. La Fayette was loudly accused of treason in having allowed the king to escape. His coolness and presence of mind alone saved him from the fury of the mob.