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Breathlessly, the little company gathered there listened to the sound of an axe, doors were being battered down, the door of the royal apartment was opened, and an officer of the National Guard knelt before the King, beseeching him to show himself to the frenzied mob. The expression on all faces, the sounds from without were too much for the Dauphin’s self-control. He burst into sobs and begged the queen to take him to his room, and while Marie Antoinette was comforting him as best she could, the king went out and stood in the middle of the hall, surrounded by the rabble, speaking in quiet words, of his love for his people. The crowd was delighted at this, but in the meantime, the still greater crowd outside the palace surged through the hall and into the room where the queen and her children were. The National Guards quickly rolled a table up between the queen and the mob, and stood at either side, ready to defend them. Only a table now separated the queen from her enemies, but she was calm and courageous and stood proudly erect with a child on either side of her, wide-eyed at the sights they saw. Suddenly, the queen trembled with a deathly fear. Before her stood the man whose brawny arm had reached through the paling to grasp the Dauphin. Simon, the cobbler, stood there, hatred and desire for revenge on his face, and Marie Antoinette knew with a quick instinct that this man would bring no good to her child. Then the cries of the Jacobins rent the air and they surged into the room with the fury of wild beasts sure of their prey.

The queen lifted the Dauphin up and set him on a table and whispered to him that he must not grieve or fear or cry, but be a man now, and the child smiled and kissed her hand. Just then a drunken woman flung a red cap–the cap worn by the Jacobins–on the table, and commanded the queen, on pain of death, to put it on.

Calmly, the queen turned to a general standing beside her and told him to place it on her head.

The general, pale with rage at the insult, obeyed in silence and the woman howled with pleasure. But in a moment, the general took the cap off the queen’s hair and laid it on the table.

Ever since the King had vetoed the bills, the people had called the King, Monsieur Veto; Marie Antoinette, Madame Veto, and the Dauphin, Little Veto, and now from all sides burst forth the cry, “The red cap for the Dauphin! The tri-colour for little Veto!”

“If you love the nation,” cried the woman to the Queen, “put the red cap on your son.”

The Queen motioned to one of the ladies to put the red cap on the child, and he, not understanding whether it was a joke or not, stood there in easy grace, as handsome a little prince as ever a nation had.

One of the revolutionary leaders, who had looked complacently at the scene, now stood near the queen, and as her eyes met his in calm defiance, he felt a thrill of pity for her and for the little Dauphin, and when he saw the perspiration rolling down the boy’s forehead from under the thick woollen cap, he called out roughly:

“Take that cap off the child–don’t you see how he sweats?”

The queen’s gratified glance thanked him, as she took the cap herself from the Dauphin’s head. While this was occurring, the Mayor of Paris had entered the outer hall and was quieting the mob, bidding them disband and leave the palace at once, which they did.

The King sank into a chair, exhausted and agonised, and cried out:

“Where is the queen? Where are the children?” and in a moment the royal victims were together.

The Dauphin’s spirits were never long cast down and now he was bubbling over with joy.