قراءة كتاب When a Cobbler Ruled the King
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
about him. He feared nothing for his own life, but he refused to risk those of his loved ones.
"It is done!" he said gravely. "I make the last sacrifice! Do with me what you will!" And so fell the ancient monarchy of France!
"Come!" commanded an officer. "You must leave the palace!"
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?"
Before Bonaparte could reply, there was an exchange of volleying shots between the outside mob, and the inner defenders. With a roar of exasperation, the rabble flung itself at the doors and windows using the hatchets, and when these gave way, the throng poured into the palace. For a moment Jean and Bonaparte were hurried along in the rush, and then at some sudden obstruction were forcibly separated, and Jean found himself alone amid a scene of indescribable confusion and danger.
The mob, first inhumanly butchered the Swiss Guard who had remained to defend the palace, then turned its attention to pillaging and destroying, with ruthless indiscrimination, the carefully hoarded treasures of this kingly mansion, and when this grew wearisome, attempted to set fire to different parts of the building. In such a reign of confusion, members of the mob frequently failed to discriminate among their victims, and often turned their weapons upon their own numbers.
Now Jean saw no reason for uselessly exposing himself to murder, and he looked about for the safest and most convenient place to hide. It occurred to him that the closet where he had placed Moufflet on that memorable twentieth of June, would afford the best shelter. Making his way through the crush with the greatest difficulty, he at last reached the room, and managed to slip unobserved into this retreat, closing the door and locking it on the inside. The space was small, and no sooner had he crouched down in the farthest corner, than he felt something warm and soft under his hand. For a moment it startled him, and then, with a stifled cry, he clasped the fluffy mass to his heart.