"So be it," returned the queen proudly, and drawing herself up to her imperial height, she opened the door with steady hand and went forth with her two children. Unrecognized, she penetrated as far as the council chamber where a group of Grenadiers hastily surrounded and pushed her into the embrasure of a window which they barricaded with a table. For the present, to attempt to reach the king was hopeless. The palace was flooded with a ragged rout, who, in intervals of yelling pocketed such portable property as was handy. They were covered with dirt and blood, and, for the most part, wore the red cap recently introduced by Collot d'Herbois as the orthodox symbol of the free. Meanwhile a messenger had rushed to the Assembly to announce the danger of the palace, and a number of deputies hastened thither with all speed, to slay the wreckers and prevent a tragedy. The mob, drunk with too potent a dose of liberty, had committed a deplorable outrage, and were on the threshold of a great crime without definite purpose. Exhorted to sobriety, upbraided for excesses which stained the holy cause in the face of Europe, the rabblement sulkily withdrew, gnashing their teeth and snarling with gestures of menace, as they filed past the queen; and she watched them go in gloomy silence, with a heart that welled with horror and eyes that swam in tears. For the moment peril was averted, the palace safe; but who might tell when the unreasoning flood, lashed by the agitators into foam, would, in caprice, flow back and drown its inmates? General indignation prevailed among all grades of the better classes. Though to the new way of thinking kings and queens might be objects of dislike, yet, so long as they existed, it was not fair that at any moment their privacy should be invaded by the unwashed, their furniture broken, their children terrified. The Assembly was ashamed. The partisans of the court were unwise enough to bluster. Rumours were abroad that, in consequence of the outrage, the royal servants were to be armed; that the Swiss Guard would be ordered to fire upon the first sans-culotte who ventured within shot. So far was this from the truth that his majesty had determined to dismiss from about his person those untrustworthy friends, who, without possessing the power to save, had so often compromised him. The queen, too, was firmly resolved that she would not have upon her head the blood of those who were not directly in her service. Gently, but without wavering, she bade adieu, amongst others, to the Marquise de Gange, who begged hard for permission to remain. "No," said Marie Antoinette, gloomily, "you have duties of your own from which I must no longer keep you. Heaven bless you, my dear friend. To such calumnies as may reach your ears you will give no credence, but will pray for an unhappy woman who has not deserved her fate. Give me your thoughts and prayers, for we shall meet no more on earth."