When a Cobbler Ruled the KingSeaman, Augusta Huiell
General
When a Cobbler Ruled the King
Seaman, Augusta Huiell
Louis XVII, of France, 1785-1795 -- Fiction
It was quarter past six in the morning, when the sad procession wended
its way from the abode of its ancestors forever. Louis XVI went first
with Madame Elizabeth. Marie Antoinette followed, leading her two
children by the hand. The Dauphin looked back constantly, dragging at
his mother's hand.
"What is it, son," she said at last, "that you are looking back for?"
"Oh, Mother, can I not wait and find Moufflet?" he pleaded. "I must not
leave him behind! I know just where he is!"
"No, no!" she exclaimed. "You would be killed if you went back! Be a
brave boy and make up your mind to part with Moufflet!" Tears stood in
the little fellow's eyes, and he struggled hard to keep them from
falling. A few trickled down, however, and he dashed them away, lest
someone should think them caused by fear. "My poor Moufflet!" he
thought, when he saw the mob forcing its entrance into the Tuileries.
Could he have known that in the midst of the bloodthirsty rabble was his
little friend Jean, he would have been both amazed and sorely troubled.
But how did Jean get there! All the evening of August ninth, he had been
uneasy, and found it almost unendurable to stay quietly at home with
Mère Clouet and Yvonne. Excitement was in the air! A great event was
about to occur, and when the tocsin of the Cordeliers sounded the first
stroke, he was off like a rocket to the Rue Cléry.
"Citizen Bonaparte!" he clamoured, hammering on that young man's closed
door. "Come! come! They are about to assault the Tuileries! Here I am as
I promised!" Bonaparte came out dressed, after what seemed an age to
Jean, and the two hurried into the street and were instantly carried
almost off their feet in the swirling human current sweeping toward the
Tuileries. Men, women and children, chiefly of the lowest scum of Paris,
carried pikes, knives, hatchets, bludgeons,--anything that might serve
as a weapon of offence. "Death to the King!" "Down with the Austrian
Wolf!" "To the guillotine with Royalty!" were the predominating cries.
Into the Rue St. Honoré, through the Pont Neuf and the Pont Royal they
poured, ever increasing in numbers and ferocity. Almost without
volition on their part, Bonaparte and Jean were carried along by the
throng that swept through the Rue St. Honoré, and in the first faint
dawn of morning, they, with the crowds, drove through the ill-guarded
palace gates, and stood before the long windows. Pressed close to the
wall of the palace, the two friends witnessed the departure of the royal
family, and Jean even guessed at the meaning of the little Dauphin's
despairing, backward looks.
"Citizen Bonaparte," he whispered, "I see plainly that we can do nothing
now to help the royal ones, since they have placed themselves in the
care of the National Assembly, and will probably be safe. But I _would_
like to save that poor little fellow's pet, if it be possible. What do
you think?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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