"We are prisoners here"
THOUSANDS flocked to the gardens of the Tuileries and imperiously demanded to see Their Majesties. All day long Louis and Marie Antoinette showed themselves on the balcony and were greeted jubilantly by the victorious multitude. Even the queen, trembling with fatigue, received ovations. The palace too was crowded, wide open like a fair, and hectic with a carnival spirit. Louis hardly opened his mouth, and Marie Antoinette wept.
Paris was king and caused Louis' title to be changed from ". . . by the grace of God king of France and of Navarre" to ". . . by the grace of God and the constitutional law of the state, king of the French."
In the next few days Louis' sanguine temperament began to assert itself, and he came to believe that as soon as the effervescence had subsided, things would become normal again, so that he and his family would be free to move about and do what they pleased. Marie Antoinette, however, was convinced that she and her husband were prisoners of the Paris mob and that the Tuileries was nothing but a glorified jail. This conviction never left the queen, and for the next three years she based her whole political course upon it. Louis refused to share his wife's pessimism.
We have left the cradle of our childhood [Louis' young sister Elizabeth wrote from Paris]. What do I say-left! They abducted
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