He was led away and valeted by Jacques, and when he returned he had
removed from his person the last vestige of the rough handling he
had received. He looked almost his normal self, the disorder in
his attire repaired, calm and dignified and courtly in his bearing,
but very pale and haggard of face, seeming suddenly to have
increased in years, to have reached in appearance the age that was
in fact his own.
As he ate and drank - and this with appetite, for as he told them
he had not tasted food since early morning - he entered into the
details of the dreadful events of the day, and gave them the
particulars of his own escape from the Tuileries when all was seen
to be lost and when the Swiss, having burnt their last cartridge,
were submitting to wholesale massacre at the hands of the
indescribably furious mob.
"Oh, it was all most ill done," he ended critically. "We were timid
when we should have been resolute, and resolute at last when it was
too late. That is the history of our side from the beginning of
this accursed struggle.
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