The Rising Storm

While standing near one group Roger caught the phrase: 'It would be folly to give out the women's clothes until a really first-class oppor­tunity presents itself.'

Greatly intrigued by this, he strained his ears to hear more; but, just at that second, he caught sight of a familiar figure hurrying past an open doorway on the far side of the big room. It was de Roubec.

Thrusting his way through the crowd Roger hastened in pursuit of his enemy. When he reached the door he found the corridor down which de Roubec had been passing to be empty; but there was a staircase at its far end. Running to the stairs Roger pelted down them, but de Roubec was nowhere to be seen. Turning, he dashed up them again, three at a time, and on up to the second floor. There was still no sign of the rogue whose ears and nose he had promised to cut off when next they met. Furious, and frantic now, he threw open door after door along the corridor, disturbing a score of people employed in either work or pleasure; and, without waiting to apologize, dashed on to invade other apartments. But his efforts were in vain. At length he was compelled to conclude that de Roubec must, after all, have gone down the stairs, and quickly enough to disappear among the crowd in the garden.

For the two days that followed, Roger haunted the Palais Royal. He did not care to risk enquiring for his enemy, in case his enquiry was reported and a description of himself given to de Roubec, which might put the villain on his guard. But he hoped that if he hung about long enough he would catch sight of him again and, with luck, be able to follow him unobserved to a quiet spot where vengeance could be exacted with small risk of interference.

His patience went unrewarded. For hours on end he scanned the faces in the Duke's salon, patrolled the corridors, and occasionally made a hurried round of the garden. Not once did he see, even in the distance, a figure remotely resembling de Roubec's. Neither did he overhear any further mention of the giving out of women's clothes, which had so puzzled him. This fruitless hunt occupied most of his time during the opening days of October, and it was not until the evening of the 2nd that he heard anything about the banquet at Versailles.

The facts were as follows. The Flanders Regiment had recently arrived to do a tour of duty in the royal town and, following an ancient custom, the Garde du Corps gave a dinner of welcome to the officers, to which they also invited the officers of the local National Guard. On the evening of October ist the dinner was held on the stage of the palace theatre. The orchestra was occupied by a military band, and the pit and boxes by numerous officials and servants of the palace.

Towards the end of the banquet the band played the air O Richard O mon Roi, and this was received with such thunderous applause that a deputation was sent to ask the Royal Family to honour the gathering with its presence.

The King had not yet returned from his day's hunting, and the Queen, fearing that a royal appearance at a military gathering of such a nature might be misconstrued, at first refused. But the King came in at that moment, and on somebody remarking that the sight would amuse the Dauphin, it was agreed that they should go.

Their appearance in the royal box was greeted with the wildest enthusiasm. O Richard O mon Roi was played again, the officers nearly raised the roof with their shouts of ' Vive le Roi!' and ' Vive la Reine!', then they begged the Queen to bring the Dauphin down so that they might see him at close quarters. Accompanied by the King still in his hunting-clothes, and her little daughter, Madame Royale, aged ten and a half, she did so.

The Dauphin, who, until his elder brother's recent death, had borne the title Due de Normandie, was a fine healthy child of four. He was set down on the table and walked fearlessly along it, the sight raising still further the pitch of excited loyalty. Oaths of undying devo­tion were freely sworn to him, the King, Queen and whole Royal Family. Amidst renewed acclamations of faith and love, such as they had not heard for many months, they at length withdrew.

The officers of the National Guard were so affected by the scene that they reversed the tricolor cockades they were wearing, so that the royal white of their linings should show instead; and the private soldiers assembled outside, catching the enthusiasm, gathered under the King and Queen's windows to sing loyal songs late into the night.

But the affair was very differently reported in Paris. It was said that the banquet had been deliberately planned to suborn the loyalty of the troops at Versailles from the Nation; that the Queen was plotting to use them to arrest the National Assembly, after which she meant to withdraw with the King to some strong place in the country from which the Army could be directed against Paris; and that the tricolor cockade had been trampled underfoot with the vilest insults.

On the 3rd and 4th of the month indignation meetings were held in many parts of the capital, and a renewed outbreak of bread riots added to the general unrest. The two issues—that Paris would not be safe from attack until the King came to live there, and that the city would be properly fed if only he were in it—coalesced in the minds of the agitated multitude. On the morning of the 5th a large crowd of fish­wives set out from the market to march to Versailles with the object of demanding bread. A little later a mob of roughs broke into the armoury at the Hotel de Villet and, having seized the weapons there, followed them, with an unproclaimed but more sinister purpose.

Lafayette was sent for, and called out the National Guard. Instead of giving orders at once for the closing of the roads to Versailles, he spent most of the day in the Place de Greve debating with the officers and men what action, if any, should be taken. It was not until late in the evening that he finally decided to intervene and set off with his troops for the royal town.

In the meantime thousands more Parisians had taken the road to Versailles, Roger amongst them. As he was mounted he outdistanced most of the marchers, but on his arrival he learned that the poissardes, as the fishwives were called, had already invaded the Assembly and were demanding bread from the deputies.

The weather was wet, cold and windy, so as Roger rode on with his head well down, towards the royal stables, he failed to notice another horseman who passed through its arched gateway a hundred yards ahead of him. It was only on having dismounted that they came face to face and recognized one another. The man who had arrived just before him was Auguste-Marie, Comte de la Marck, the son of the Empress Maria Theresa's great general, the Prince d'Arenberg. I/RS

'I thought you gone into exile, Mr. Brook,' exclaimed the hand­some young Austrian.

'And I, that you had done so,' Roger smiled. 'I went to England for a while, but returned to Paris last week.'

'I went no further than the capital, and have been living in the hotel of Monsieur de Mercy-Argenteau.'

Roger raised an eyebrow at the name of the Austrian Ambassador. 'Since His Excellency has long been accounted Her Majesty's closest adviser, I should have thought that far from wise.'

'The Embassy is Austrian territory,' shrugged de la Marck, 'so it is probably as safe a place as any other in that now accursed city.'

As they were speaking they had hurried inside, and the Comte added: 'I take ft you, too, have come to warn Their Majesties of the dangerous mob advancing on Versailles?'

'They must be ill-served if they do not know of it already,' replied Roger. 'But since it looks as if there may be serious trouble, I felt an urge to place myself at their disposal.'

De la Marck knew the ramifications of the vast palace, and its routine, much better than Roger, so he led the way to several places where it was likely the Queen might be at that hour of the afternoon; but she was in none of them, and after a wasted twenty minutes they learnt that, accompanied only by a single footman, she had gone for a walk in her garden at Trianon. With the King they were equally unlucky; he was out hunting. In the Council Chamber they found half a dozen gentlemen, apparently conversing idly, amongst whom there was only one Minister, the Comte de St. Priest.

But among them also, to Roger's surprise and delight, was de Vaudreuil; so, leaving de la Marck to talk to the Minister, he ran over and shook hands English fashion with his old friend.

De Vaudreuil said that after taking his family to Brussels, he had decided that as a Lieutenant-General of Marine it was his duty to return. He had done so three weeks earlier; the Queen had received him most graciously, and told him of Roger's generous but abortive attempt to clear up this misunderstanding on the night that she had sent so many of her best friends abroad.

De la Marck joined them at that moment. It appeared that the poissardes had left the Assembly and were now gathered outside the the palace demanding to see the King. The Comte de St. Priest