Turning the subject over and over with infinite care, the abbé admitted with an impatient sigh that for the time being he was powerless, and that the ball must be allowed to roll. Meanwhile it would be advisable not to lose touch of the governess, lest some day, when wanted, she should turn rusty and accuse him of neglect. He accordingly sat down and wrote a long and entertaining letter full of sly quip and graphic description, ending with the assurance that the marquis did not forget, and that the humble scribe was her slave. This precaution taken, he settled himself down to drift with hands before him: nor had he long to wait to perceive the direction of the current. It was the twentieth of June. The day was balmy, and the windows open. The queen sat in a low _causeuse_ in her tiny library relating to the Marquise de Gange the ominous occurrences of the morning. Paris was a penful of sheep now distracted by too many shepherds--a weathercock its most fitting symbol. What was happening every day would be laughable but for the lurid cloud above with its blood-red lining, and the low rumbling of thunder, each hour more distinct. The Assembly whose mission was to guide the nation was no better than a den of noxious animals, each bent on biting his neighbour. The president had committed the grievous error of opening the flood-gates to the waters. The sacred precincts over which he ruled were thrown open to a mob of thirty thousand scoundrels who, their imaginations inflamed by novelty and drunken with success, licked their foul lips and prepared for further outrage. Women danced like M[oe]nads, waving a pike in one hand and an olive-branch in the other--symbols of peace and war. From a chorus of brawny throats rolled the familiar strains of _Ça Ira_. The unkempt porters of the markets, the cadaverous workers from the cellars of St. Antoine; a weak-limbed squad, a sturdy crew of ruffians, equally bent on mischief, waved rude bits of jagged iron bound to the ends of bludgeons. There was no end to the muster. Women possessed of the devil Hysteria--men maddened and excited by the women. More men--more women--women--men. What did they want? What was the object of the saturnalia in the sacred precincts of the Assembly? Ragged breeches were held up with a yell of "_Vive les sans culottes!_" Some one flourished a pike aloft on which was transfixed the bleeding heart of a calf. Through the drip the scrawled description could be deciphered--"This is the heart of an aristocrat!" "If the accepted authorities were to be bearded thus, what next?" suggested Marie Antoinette. "We are marching straight downwards to our doom. We know it, and being blameless, look to the end with thankfulness. But when we are sacrificed--what then--afterwards. Après?"