At last on the stroke of midnight, madame sighed and rose.
"It will be for to-morrow morning," she said, not believing it.
"Of course," Aline agreed. "It would really have been impossible
for him to have returned to-night. And it will be much better to
travel to-morrow. The journey at so late an hour would tire you
so much, dear madame."
Thus they made pretence.
Early in the morning they were awakened by a din of bells - the
tocsins of the sections ringing the alarm. To their startled ears
came later the rolling of drums, and at one time they heard the
sounds of a multitude on the march. Paris was rising. Later still
came the rattle of small-arms in the distance and the deeper boom
of cannon. Battle was joined between the men of the sections and
the men of the Court. The people in arms had attacked the Tuileries.
Wildest rumours flew in all directions, and some of them found their
way through the servants to the Hotel Plougastel, of that terrible
fight for the palace which was to end in the purposeless massacre
of all those whom the invertebrate monarch abandoned there, whilst
placing himself and his family under the protection of the Assembly.
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