第93章 MAMMA QUEEN.(8)

"Good-day, sir!" he said, with a loud voice--"good-day!"

And he took hold with his little hand of the great hand of the man and shook it a little, as in friendly salutation. "Little knirps," roared the man, "what do you mean, and how dare you lay your little paw on the claws of the lion?"

"Sir," said the boy, smiling, "I thought you were stretching out your hand to reach me with it, and so I give you mine, and say, 'Good-day, sir!'"

"And if I wanted, I could crush your hand in my fist as if it were in a vise," cried the man, holding the little hand firmly.

"You shall not do it," cried hundreds and hundreds of voices in the crowd. "No, Simon, you shall not hurt the child."

"Who of you could hinder me if I wanted to?" asked the man, with a laugh. "See here, I hold the hand of the future King of France in my fist, and I can break it if I want to, and make it so that it can never lift the sceptre of France. The little monkey thought he would take hold of my hand and make me draw it back, and now my hand has got his and holds it fast. And mark this, boy, the time is past when kings seized us and trod us down; now we seize them and hold them fast, and do not let them go unless we will."

"Sir!" cried the queen, motioning back with a commanding gesture the two lackeys who were hurrying up to release the dauphin from the hand of the man, "sir, I beg you to withdraw your hand, and not to hinder us in our walk."

"Ah! you are there, too, madame, the baker's wife, are you?" cried the man, with a horrid laugh. "We meet once more, and the eyes of our most beautiful queen fall again upon the dirty, pitiable face of such a poor, wretched creature as, in your heavenly eyes, the cobbler Simon is!"

"Are you Simon the cobbler?" asked Marie Antoinette.

"It is true, I bethink me now, I have spoken with you once before.

It was when I carried the prince here, for the first time, to Notre Dame, that God would bless him, and that the people might see him.

You stood then by my carriage, sir!"

"Yes, it is true," answered Simon, visibly flattered. "You have, at least, a good memory, queen. But you ought to have paid attention to what I said to you. I am no 'sir,' I am a simple cobbler, and earn my poor bit of bread in the sweat of my brow, while you strut about in your glory and happiness, and cheat God out of daylight. Then I held the hand of your daughter in my fist, and she cried out for fear, merely because a poor fellow like me touched her."

"But, Mr. Simon, you see very plainly that I do not cry out," said the dauphin, with a smile. "I know that you do not want to do me any harm, and I ask you to be so good as to take away your arm, that my mamma can go on in her walk."

"But, suppose that I do not do as you want me to?" asked the cobbler, defiantly. "I suppose it would come that your mamma would dictate to me, and perhaps call some soldiers, and order them to shoot the dreadful people?"

"You know, Master Simon, that I give no such command, and never gave any such," said the queen, quickly.

"The king and I love our people, and never would give orders to our soldiers to fire upon them."

"Because you would not be sure, madame, that the soldiers would obey your commands, if you should," laughed Simon. "Since we got rid of the Swiss guards, there are no soldiers left who would let themselves be torn in pieces for their king and queen; and you know well that if the soldiers should fire the first shot at us, the people would tear the soldiers in pieces afterward. Yes, yes, the fine days at Versailles are past; here, in Paris, you must accustom yourself to ask, instead of command, and the arm of a single man of the people is enough to stop the Queen and the Dauphin of France."

"You are mistaken, sir," said the queen, whose proud heart could no longer be restrained, and allow her to take this humble stand; "the Queen of France and her son will no longer be detained by you in their walk."

And with a quick movement she caught the dauphin, struck back at the same moment the fist of the cobbler, snatched the boy away like lightning, and passed by before Simon had time to put his arm back.

The people, delighted with this energetic and courageous action of the queen--the people, who would have howled with rage, if the queen had ordered her lackeys to push the cobbler back, now roared with admiration and with pleasure, to see the proud-hearted woman have the boldness to repel the assailant, and to free herself from him.

They applauded, they laughed, they shouted from thousands upon thousands of throats, "Long live the queen! Long live the dauphin!" and the cry passed along like wildfire through the whole mass of spectators behind the fence, and all eyes followed the tall and proud figure of the queen as she walked away.

Only the eyes of Simon pursued her with a malicious glare, and his clinched fists threatened her behind her back.

"She shall pay for this!" he muttered, with a withering curse. "She has struck back my hand to-day, but the day will come when she will feel it upon her neck, and when I will squeeze the hand of the little rascal so that he shall cry out with pain! I believe now, what Marat has so often told me, that the time of vengeance is come, and that we must bring the crown down and tread it under our feet, that the people may rule! I will have my share in it. I will help bring it down, and tread it under foot. I hate the handsome Austrian woman, who perks up her nose, and thinks herself better than my wife; and if the golden time has come of which Marat speaks, when the people are the master, and the king is the servant, Marie Antoinette shall be my waiting-maid, and her son shall be my choreboy, and his buckle shall make acquaintance with my shoe-straps!"