Page:An adventure (1911).pdf/146

 Exhausted by horror and disappointment, what strength remained to the Queen must have spent itself in thoughts for her little son, who with touching obedience was trying to be "bien sage avec ces vilains hommes." If she was personally helpless to save his crown, surely the Kings of Europe would see to it. Again hope revived at the thought of a successful war already beginning. The false moves of the last years perhaps only meant at the worst, that though she and the King had to die at the hands of an enraged but defeated France, the boy would escape. With victorious armies surrounding Paris, there would be those within who would then be roused to get the lad into the protection of friends. Surely God would help him then!

But what if everything should fail? Fatality had overtaken every reasonable hope since this terrible revolution had begun. There were forces of mysterious and terrific magnitude, which seemed to her to be bearing away everything that had been stable hitherto. Her ignorance of what constituted these forces increased their terror for her.