The Rising Storm

and the wood-fires flickered fitfully on the gilded carving of panel surrounds and door pediments. As Roger threw some more logs on one of the fires it flared up, fighting for a moment the pictures in the nearest panels, but the lights in the great crystal chandeliers had been put out and the painted ceiling was lost in shadow.

For a time he sat by the fire and idly followed the chain of events that had led to his being there. This was not his quarrel, and he wondered now at the impulse that had sent him galloping to Versailles in the middle of the day. In part it had been curiosity to see at first hand the outcome of this new crisis; but it had also been something more than that. He recognized that as a class the nobles and prelates-were now getting no more than they deserved as a result of generations of indolence and avarice, but many of the present generation were liberal- minded men and quite a number of them had shown him friendship. The cause of the people might be just, but the great bulk of them would also become sufferers in the long run unless order could be maintained; so it was fitting that every man,^ whatever his nationality, should lend his hand to resist violence.

Above all there was the Queen. As he thought of her innocence,, kind-heartedness and courage, he was glad to be sitting there; and knew that if the attack matured, and he lived through it, he would always feel proud and honoured at having drawn his sword in her defence.

Each time he found his thoughts drifting he stood up and walked about for a little to keep himself awake. An officer and two gentlemen of the bodyguard came through the apartment on their rounds every hour, otherwise the palace now seemed sunk in exhausted sleep. But it was not so with a large part of the 30,000 troops and 10,000 brigands massed outside. The drums beat all night and, sodden with the rain,, gave out a hollow menacing note.

It was half-past four in the morning when Roger started up from his reverie at the sound of a musket-shot. There followed a dull clamour pierced with yells and more firing, but muffled by the passages and walls. Roger had been asked to remain at his post, unless called on for help, so he eased his sword in its scabbard and with straining ears listened to the tumult that had broken out somewhere on the ground-floor of the palace.

After a few minutes there suddenly came a sharp rapping on the wall near which he stood, and a voice cried: 'Open! Open! Let us through! Let us through!'

Moving quickly to the place from which the sounds were coming, he stared at it. Only then, in the dim light, did he perceive the crack of a small doorway, which had been skilfully concealed. It was barely five feet high and two and a half across; the upper part of it cut through the corner of a panel that contained a picture, and it followed so exactly the moulding of the wall as to be imperceptible to the casual glance. De Vaudreuii had not told him of its existence when posting him in the Oeil de Boeuf, and he had no idea where it led.

The banging and shouts on the far side of the door had now reached a crescendo. Roger thought that it was the mob who were trying to break through, and he hastily looked to either side along the dim passages for help to defend it when it gave way. But both the long corridors leading from the room were deserted. From the distance, shouts, shots, shrieks and the trampling of many feet could be heard.

Suddenly he realized that the voices beyond the panel held an imploring note and were those of women. It was possible that some of the inmates of the palace were endeavouring to escape that way from an attack on a range of apartments that lay beyond the door. Yet he could not be certain, and if he opened it he might be overwhelmed by the mob in a matter of seconds.

Still he stared at the door, desperately uncertain what to do; then he caught a cry above the rest: 'Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Ouvre la porte ou nous sommes mortes!'

Hesitating no longer, he found the small catch lock and, inserting his finger in the shallow slot, pulled it back. The door burst open, and the Queen almost fell into his arms.

She was in her nightdress with only a petticoat pulled loosely over it, and clutched her stockings in her hand. Stumbling past him, and followed by two of her women, she ran across the wide parquet of the Oeil de Baeuf, wrenched open another low, concealed door on the far side of it and disappeared.

Later Roger learned that the door he had opened gave on to her dressing-room, and was used only as a private means of communication between her and the King, the similar door through which she had disappeared giving on to his apartments. And that normally the little door was kept locked only on her side of it, so that night some murderous hand must have locked it on the side of the Oeil de Boeuf to prevent her escaping that way from her assassins.

He learnt too that had it not been for the loyalty of her women she would certainly have been murdered. Madame Auguie1 and Madame Thibaut, with their two femmes de chambre, had ignored her orders to go to bed, and the four of them had sat up with their backs against her bedroom door. At the first sounds of commotion Madame Augui6 had run to the door of the ante-chamber and found one of the bodyguard, Monsieur de St. Marie, his face covered with blood, defending it against a horde of poissardes, who were screaming: 'We have come in our white aprons to get the Queen's bowels, that we may make red cockades out of them!'

Slamming and relocking the door Madame Auguie had rushed back to the bedroom. Madame Thibaut had in those few seconds roused the Queen; and they had succeeded in getting her away before the doors of the ante- room were broken in.

The Queen had hardly entered the King's apartments when a dozen Garde du Corps and other gentlemen came running into the Oeil de Bceuf with drawn swords. Among them was Madame de Tourzel with the Royal children. When they had followed the Queen, their escort drew themselves up in front of the door, ready to defend it with their lives.

Pandemonium had now broken loose in the Queen's apartments. Drawing his sword Roger ran through the dressing-room. He found the bedroom empty, but in the ante-chamber beyond it a fierce struggle was taking place. Some of Lafayette's National Guard had arrived upon the scene and were fighting with the members of the bodyguard, whom they had been told were plotting to surprise and massacre them.

De Vaudreuil was there standing on a table, shouting that they had been told a pack of lies, and begging both sides to put up their weapons. His Liberal sentiments were known, so some notice was taken of him. Then Monsieur de Chevanne ran forward and, baring his breast, offered himself as a victim if the citizen soldiers demanded one. With the swift change of sentiment so typical of the French the attackers immediately acclaimed him a hero, embraced the members of the bodyguard and swore to defend them from their comrades.

But all was not yet over. The mob had fought its way up the great marble staircase and penetrated to the Oeil de Boeuf. By another entrance Lafayette had arrived and reached the King, whose only reproach to him was: 'Monsieur, had I foreseen that you would be obliged to sleep, I should have remained awake.'

Although belatedly, Lafayette now showed both loyalty and con­siderable courage. Out in the courtyard he saved the lives of ten body­guards by offering his life for theirs; then declared that he would no longer command cannibals, and would resign his post unless his men would accept his orders. This turned the tide and his troops began to clear the palace of the sans-culottes.

They were assisted in their task by the bodyguards and courtiers. In a hundred rooms, scores of corridors and on a dozen staircases, altercations and scuffles were going on. The majority of the rabble, now finding the National Guards against them, offered no resistance and slouched off, hurling curses over their shoulders; but, here and there, groups put up a fight and could not be turned out without bloodshed. In one such group, Roger saw a tall fishwife slash at a soldier with a hatchet, wound him in the arm, duck under the guard of another and run from the room. Sword in hand, he went after her.

The clothes of the poissardes amounted almost to a uniform, so it was easy to distinguish them. Most of the women were great muscular creatures, coarse-mouthed and brutal-faced; but Roger had been surprised to see that many of them were much above the average height. The one that he was chasing looked as tall as himself.

Seeing two Swiss guards approaching along the corridor, she darted up a service staircase. Roger dashed after her and caught sight of her again on the next floor. Shouting at her that if she halted and agreed to leave the palace quietly he would not harm her, he pursued her down the passage. At its end she came to a door and, finding it locked, turned at bay.

As Roger came pounding up he saw her face clearly for the first time. It was not that of a woman, but of a man. Next second he realized that his quarry was de Roubec.

Instantly there recurred to his mind the words he had overheard in the Palais Royal a few nights before—about not giving out the women's clothes until a first-class opportunity presented