The Swiss Guards have been
ordered to the Champs Elysees, with four pieces of artillery. No
more is yet known, but the worst is dreaded. The breach between
the aristocracy and the people is widening fatally almost hour by
hour."
Here he stopped and laid down the newspaper. Trudaine took it
from him, and shook his head forebodingly as he looked over the
paragraph which had just been read.
"Bah!" cried Madame Danville. "The People, indeed! Let those four
pieces of artillery be properly loaded, let the Swiss Guards do
their duty, and we shall hear no more of the People!"
"I advise you not to be sure of that," said her son, carelessly;
"there are rather too many people in Paris for the Swiss Guards
to shoot conveniently. Don't hold your head too aristocratically
high, mother, till we are quite certain which way the wind really
does blow. Who knows if I may not have to bow just as low one of
these days to King Mob as ever you courtesied in your youth to
King Louis the Fifteenth?"
He laughed complacently as he ended, and opened his snuff-box.
His mother rose from her chair, her face crimson with
indignation.
"I won't hear you talk so--it shocks, it horrifies me!" she
exclaimed, with vehement gesticulation. "No, no! I decline to
hear another word. I decline to sit by patiently while my son,
whom I love, jests at the most sacred principles, and sneers at
the memory of an anointed king.
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