It was at St. Cloud that Marie Antoinette held her famous interview with Mirabeau. As she felt the spell of his genius, so he rendered homage to her majesty. The interview lasted an hour, and Mirabeau closed it with the words: “Madame, when the empress, your mother, admitted one of her subjects to the honor of her presence, she did not take leave of him without allowing him to kiss her hand.” Marie Antoinette held out her hand. “Madame,” exclaimed Mirabeau, “the monarchy is saved!” But opportunity was not given him to keep or break his pledge. Under the sweet April sunshine of 1791, Mirabeau breathed his last. His death paralyzed the hopes of the king, and he now resolved to spare no endeavors to secure his escape; and so in the darkness of midnight, on the 20th of June, 1791, the king, the queen, Madame Elizabeth, the two royal children, and Madame Tourzel, their governess, escaped silently from the palace of Tuileries, and entering their carriages, which stood ready, drove rapidly away. Alas for fond hopes! Through the king’s want of caution, the royal family were recognized at Varennes, arrested, and brought back to Paris. Ah, the humiliations of that long and weary, crowd-encompassed, dust-enveloped journey back to Paris! Threats, imprecations, and torrents of abuse were hurled upon the royal family from all sides. More than this they could not do, for a forest of glittering bayonets surrounded the royal carriage. It was by the glaring light of the torches that the sorrowful _cortège_ entered Paris, and under a canopy of glistening steel the royal family ascended once more the marble staircase of the Tuileries Palace. A year has rolled away. The 20th of June, 1792, has passed,—that day of horrors on which the mob, with shouts of “_Vive la nation!_” broke into and rushed through the palace of the Tuileries; that day on which the queen was exposed for hours to insults, abuses, and derisive jests; that day on which the king was made to place upon his royal brow the red cap of the Jacobins, while the mob, exulting in their victory, cried loudly: “_Vive le roi!_” Poor Louis! As he entered the apartment of the queen, after the rabble had been cleared from the palace, he saw, in the reflection of a mirror, the _bonnet rouge_ upon his head, and flinging it upon the ground, he turned to the queen, exclaiming, with a burst of tears: “Ah! madame, it was not to see me thus insulted that I brought you from Vienna.” How different were the days when the boy and girl met on that bright spring morning at Compiègne, and hunted, danced, quarrelled, and kissed again, in the old, luxurious times at Versailles and Marly, Fontainebleau and Choisy-le-Roi!