There was that terrible day when the King was beheaded, and that other when the Queen followed him; Bellecour, d'Amoreau, the Canoness, Vaudreuil, the Guiches, the Polignacs, were in exile. Others were concealed, scattered, outlawed, some perhaps included in the massacres; some perhaps lost among the immense number crowded into the seventy prisons of the City. When would _her_ turn arrive? When Germain's?
A distant sound made her lips part in alarm. It was the too well-known surging murmur of a mob approaching. She hastily rose and closed the window. The Rue Honoré was one of the highways particularly exposed to persecution, for its chief portion was lined with mansions where dwelt many of the "aristocrats." The great _porte cochère_ and street wall of one were in full view of her window, coated with insulting placards and painted in huge letters, "NATIONAL PROPERTY--Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." How far the property had become national may be inferred from the fact that the patriot commissioner who took its chattels into his charge, and whose name was signed with a mark at the bottom of the placard, was--Gougeon.
In this quiet part of the street, however, the smaller houses usually passed unscathed, and the neighbourhood had the advantage of its residents not being so prying as in quarters still poorer. So that by aid of some bribery of patriots of the section, discreetly done by Dominique, their slender stores of money had thus far seemed to suffice to obtain them immunity. We say seemed to suffice, because there was something very remarkable, after all, in the escape of a Montmorency, and particularly one so intimate with the obnoxious Maréchale de Noailles.
The mob of women and red-capped men swarmed up the street, led by a drum, and singing "Ça ira"--
"Ah, on it goes, and on it goes, and on it goes!-- The aristocrats to the lantern! Ah, on it goes, and on it goes, and on it goes!-- The aristocrats, we'll hang them."
In front of the confiscated hotel the _Sans-culottes_ stopped, and, joining hands in a circle, whirled around in the wild Revolutionary dance, "the Carmagnole," singing the words--
"Madame Veto had pledged her word, _Madame Veto had pledged her word_ To put all Paris to the sword, _To put all Paris to the sword_, But we all missed our biers Thanks to our canoneers. Dance, dance the Carmagnole, Hurrah for the sound, _Hurrah for the sound_, Dance, dance the Carmagnole, Hurrah for the sound of the cannon!"