Lisle and his mother had finished their dÉjeuner in the great dining room of the Paris house. The tall, gilded clock in the entrance hall had just struck twelve. All through the meal the cannons in the Carrousel, the inner court of the Tuileries palace, less than a mile away, had thundered outside. The glass chandelier above the table had shaken until its chains, jangling together, made a sound like music in the dim, vast room. The amber-colored velvet curtains at the windows were drawn closely together and the room was lighted by four candles in gold candlesticks on the table.

Lisle piled his nutshells in a heap on his plate. He had something to tell his mother and he did not know how to go about it. There was a dish of fruit on the table, as well as a carved bowl full of nuts and a carafe of wine and one of water, and even a bowl of flowers, a few red roses which Henri had picked that morning from the vine by the coach house. The comtesse leaned forward and picked one from the white bowl and held it to her face. Then she said what she had been thinking all through the meal:

“Nothing would matter if only you had gone with the others, Lisle. Why did I let you stay!”

“Because you knew that I would not go!” Lisle answered.

She looked at him and he returned her look steadily.

“I’m not a child any longer. I’m fifteen and a half and the head of the house,” he went on. “I’ve stayed to see Paris now. I want to see what happens.”

The comtesse put both hands over her eyes and sat that way for a moment. It was as though she would shut out all the confusion and worry of the past weeks and months, especially of the last two days.

Within twenty-four hours five of the men servants had left without a word. Some of them left because they were frightened, for it was beginning to be thought not so good a thing to be a servant in a great house. It was not the loss of her servants that mattered so much. It was the fact that they were her enemies, and that, with the exception of those who had gone to Pigeon Valley, there was only one remaining whom she could trust—and that was Henri, one of the footmen.

“Pardon, Madame, you asked for fresh news from the Tuileries. It is going hard with the Swiss guards. They made a brave stand but they are losing badly, Madame. They cannot resist the people, above all the Marseillais!”

It was Henri who spoke. They had not heard him cross the great room.

“The Marseillais are fighting well?” It was Lisle who put the question.

“Like tigers, Monsieur Lisle,” the servant answered. He was a little, dark man. His voice shook as he spoke and his face was white above his red and gold livery.

“The royal family—they are safe?” Madame Saint FrÈre twisted her lace-bordered handkerchief between her long, white hands as she asked the question, but her voice did not tremble.

“Henri cannot know what is going on inside the palace or the Carrousel, maman. He can only glean wild rumors from the crowds in the side streets,” Lisle said a little contemptuously.

“Pardon, Monsieur Lisle, but a runner came through and shouted news at the Town Hall. The royal family have taken refuge in the riding school with the National Assembly. They went through the gardens.”

Henri waited, and, as the two did not question him again, he left the room as quietly as he had entered it.

The comtesse reread a note that lay beside her plate. It was from Monsieur Laurent, Lisle’s tutor, and it stated in polite terms that he had left that morning for England, having had a sudden opportunity to get away. His departure seemed unbearable to the comtesse. Now that Laurent had gone, there were no other men that she could count on at all. She had a brother who was an invalid and some cousins who were preparing to fight with the Royalists but they were not in Paris at the moment. The Comte de SoignÉ was away fighting. It seemed as though every kind of protection had left her. Things were happening so suddenly, one after another, and although one could not believe that there could be any real danger for any of her family, she would have given much, as she said, to have had her only son safe at Pigeon Valley.

“Promise me, Lisle, that you will not go out into the garden,” she said.

“I cannot promise that, maman. I’ll not be cooped up in the house. You are fretting about that stupid Laurent. I for one am glad he is gone. I never want to see his smirking face again.” Lisle leaned forward and spoke earnestly. “You must trust yourself to me, maman. I told you the girls should be sent at once to the country, and you see that I was right. Whatever happens at the Tuileries, it is only a question of time until the Austrian army comes and our own royalist armies are ready.” Lisle looked so earnestly at his mother and spoke so confidently that the comtesse smiled in spite of herself and returned his look with one of pride.

“Maman, I don’t trust Henri,” Lisle continued, speaking softly. “He does not really mean us harm, I think, but he is from Provence and the Marseillais are from Provence. They are proving themselves to be brave soldiers. Henri, once he is in the crowd, will be heart and soul with them. You will see!”

As Lisle spoke the tapestry at the far door swayed back and Henri came into the room.

“Madame la Comtesse de SoignÉ is here to see Madame,” he said.

Lisle walked with his mother to the salon door, but did not go inside. As Henri opened the door, Lisle saw his mother’s friend cross the room and come toward her. Rosanne stood near the door and made a curtsy as his mother entered. Lisle waited until Henri had left the hall and then went through the marble vestibule, opened the great, grilled door, which was the front entrance, and went outside. Gonfleur was waiting by the door. Lisle went up to the old man.

“Gonfleur,” he said to him, “you are the only one I can trust. There is not one of our servants who is true to us, now that Neville has gone.”

Gonfleur bowed and answered: “I am only an old man, Monsieur Lisle, but there is nothing I would not do for the family. Madame de SoignÉ knows that well. She is in trouble, is Madame la Comtesse.” He did not say more, so Lisle turned away and went inside to the great drawing-room. His mother and Madame de SoignÉ were sitting on a velvet chaise longue at one end of the room and talking earnestly. Long mirrors reached to the ceiling on each side of the room. The rose carpet was of velvet and sank under Lisle’s feet as he crossed over to his mother. There were gilded tables and chairs and carved cabinets filled with jeweled trinkets. The hangings at the long windows were of rose brocade.

Lisle came up to the chaise longue and bowed ceremoniously to the comtesse and to Rosanne, who stood close to her mother. Madame de SoignÉ was to leave Paris at once, they told him. She had just had word that her husband, who was with the Royalists, had been wounded and she could not stay away from him another hour. Gonfleur would accompany her and Madame Saint FrÈre was to keep Rosanne safe with her. The Comte de SoignÉ was in a hospital near Valmy.

“It would have been well, Madame, had you allowed Rosanne to accompany my sisters and the others to Les Vignes.” Lisle spoke coldly; but when the comtesse answered, with tears in her eyes, that she had not dreamed of all that twenty-four hours would bring forth, he said simply, “I will care for Rosanne as though she were my little sister.” Then he went out of the room.

There was no one in the great hall, and going into an anteroom he took down his black velvet cape and cap and went out through the great entrance door, closing it after him. He ran quickly down the marble steps, and, after standing a moment uncertainly on the corner, turned to the right and walked toward the Champs ÉlysÉes.

It was a strange walk, the first one he had ever taken alone in the city. He had always been accompanied by his tutor or a servant. Boys of noble birth did not go out unattended. It was the strangest day that he had ever known. A wild exhileration seized him and he began to run. He had felt this way before when he had ridden to the hounds, when he had run at top speed across the fields at Les Vignes, but to-day it was as though he had never really known emotion. The thunder of the cannonading at the Tuileries pounded through the great avenue. As he came nearer a black sea of people loomed before him. The deafening roar of the guns, the screams of the wounded, the wild shouting from thousands of throats mingled, making a hurricane of sound. He stopped suddenly, a little bewildered, and seeing there would be no chance of going farther on the avenue he turned off and round down a side street, slackening his steps as he came to the rue Royale.

Here the noise was greater, but although the street was filled with people, some leaning out of the windows of shops, others shouting from the roof tops, he was able to make his way for some rods. No one noticed him. He was only a drop in a mighty ocean, only one among millions that tenth day of August, 1792!

There was a noisy crowd of excited onlookers on top of a coach just beside him and the owner of the coach, a prosperous spinner, who had drunk deeply of Rhenish wine, was the noisiest of them all. He caught sight of Lisle, who was wedged in between a group of taller people, and cried out to him:

“Come up and see the show, my fine fellow!”

It was the first time that any one in all the wild city had spoken to him. He jumped up on to the coach and stood there with the spinner and his family. The next instant he forgot everything but the sight before his eyes.

There was a group of people close to the cart. One could hear their rough voices and harsh cries above the seething roar of the battle in the great square beyond. Their scarlet caps gleamed in the relentless August sunshine. They held on to the sides of the cart, screaming, “Vive la nation!” and throwing their arms about each other in a sort of frenzy. It was such as they who were to make a part of the mob that was soon to govern Paris.

Far at the end of the Place du Carrousel grenadiers, pikemen, and gendarmes lay dead and dying. Floating mists of smoke drifted with the sudden, freakish changing of the wind, and through it all the battle cry of “Death or Liberty” floated back to the watching thousands in the Champs ÉlysÉes gardens and in the surrounding streets.

“The Marseillais have the Cour Royale!” was the word passed from lip to lip, and then the cry of “Vive la Nation” swelled like the storm tide of a sea.

“The Swiss have given way! The Swiss can no longer stand!”

This last cry roused Lisle as he stood on the spinner’s cart, and the meaning of it caught his heart. The gallant Swiss guard who had fought, like the brave fellows that they were, to guard the palace and the royal family—the Swiss were vanquished!

“The men of the Faubourg de Gloire have the Cour des Princes! Hurrah for the Faubourg de Gloire!” Again a mighty roar shook the very roofs of the houses.

Another court of the palace had fallen!

The sun caught the bronze of the cannons in the square and they flashed like scarlet fire through the iron-grey smoke clouds.

“The men of the Faubourg Saint-Marceau have taken over the Cour des Suisses!”

The last court of the Tuileries was in the hands of the people.

Lisle stood still in the sunshine watching the end of all that had made up his life. He was too young and inexperienced to realize very much beyond the things that he had always known, quiet cherishing of old traditions handed down, riches, beauty, unthinking narrowness. His king and queen were in hiding in the back confines of the Tuileries. The great palace itself was given over to the people who had taken it with bayonet and gun. The roar of the cannons and of the thousands of voices meant a good-by to the old ways. Lisle stood there like a statue, his hands clenched at his sides, tears stinging his eyelids, his gold hair ablaze in the sun. Then, suddenly, almost without knowing it, he raised his voice and cried with all his might:

“God save King Louis!”

He had hardly cried the last word before he was seized from the cart and half dragged, half carried at a swift pace down a side street off the rue Royale, opposite which the cart had been standing. His captor turned a corner swiftly, and then another, and puffing and gasping for breath, he finally pushed Lisle under a gabled doorway where they could not be seen from the street. Lisle’s blue eyes flashed fire into quiet brown ones. His captor was a short, fat man in a snuff-colored cloak and wide hat. He had a round, kindly face and, in spite of the situation, he was smiling.

“Take your hand off me. You are not to touch me!”

Lisle was so angry that he spoke with difficulty and his companion was so blown that he could only puff and pant. He looked furtively around the arched doorway of the deserted shop.

“I was quick and no one shall say tha’ Humphrey Trail canna run when the devil is close,” he said, as though to himself. Still holding Lisle firmly by the arm, he turned and smiled at him again, in no way disturbed by the boy’s haughty face and flashing eyes.

“Not so fast, my young gentleman, not so fast.” As he spoke Humphrey Trail pushed Lisle back a little farther into the shadow. His hold was gentle but firm. “Tha hast a rare bright face. I’d not thought tha’d sell tha life so easy there on the cart. Hast tha no sense that tha calls 'Long live the king’ with them beside tha that would cut tha throat?”

Lisle tugged at Humphrey’s arm with both hands. He was still so angry that he could scarcely speak. After a moment he called out again, “God save King Louis,” and smiled mockingly at Humphrey Trail.

His captor seemed in no way put out by the cry, for the side street was deserted and there was no one to see or hear them.

“Tha would do well to stop tha foolishness and listen to sense. Tha cannot help tha king by tha shouting. Hark to me, lad, and ponder well what I say. This is the greatest day that France has ever known. Mark me, lad, this is a day of brave deeds and clean fighting. Days will come so black that the country will never lose its shame o’ them; but to-day the Marseillais have fought for the love o’ nation, and they have fought well.” Humphrey still held Lisle as he spoke but loosened his grasp when Lisle said:

“There is no need to hold me, for I shall not run away from you. There is no harm in you, except that you are meddlesome. You say the Marseillais fought bravely. Well, the Swiss guards fought better! Even our servant, Henri, who is from Provence, spoke of their bravery!” There was a choke in Lisle’s voice, though he tried to swallow it. It did not escape Humphrey Trail.

“Not so fast again, young lad. I but meddled, as tha calls it, to save tha life!” he said, and, meeting Lisle’s flashing eyes with his kindly ones, he smiled.

Lisle held out his hand. “I believe you, Humphrey Trail, and I thank you. Know that I am grateful.”

Humphrey shook Lisle’s hand warmly.

“Th’art no fool that tha remembered my name from my sayin’ it that once. Tha speaks English as well and maybe better than I who was born on a Yorkshire moor,” he said.

Lisle looked at him curiously. “You come from England—from Yorkshire! Why are you here?”

“I’d many a bit o’ gold coin saved from my shearin’ and sheep sellin’. I wanted to see things about the world, to go to foreign parts where there wasn’t just milkin’ and farmin’. I wanted to see a bit o’ life, and I am seein’ it and likely to see more.” Humphrey laughed as he spoke and Lisle laughed, too. All anger toward his rescuer had gone, although he still resented being thought stupid for having shouted for the king, and being carried off by this funny, fat farmer in such an unceremonious way.

Humphrey Trail caught hold of his arm and said:

“Haste tha home, young lad. Keep within tha doors for a spell o’ days till things settle a bit. If it please tha, I’ll see tha to tha door!”

“Thank you, Humphrey Trail, I have no fear of being on the streets. I can go my way quite well alone. I cannot promise you to stay within doors but, though I shall always shout for my king, I will not forget your advice entirely.” Lisle held out his hand and the farmer shook it again warmly, saying:

“Good-by to thee, lad.”

He watched Lisle as he walked on down the narrow street and he muttered to himself, “Th’ lad, th’ proud, odd lad!”

Toward the end of the narrow lanelike street Lisle paused, hesitated, turned back a step or two, paused again, and then went straight on without looking back. Humphrey noticed the action. The boy had something he wanted to say to him.

“Th’ lad would ask a favor o’ me but his pride put it by him. He wants a friend and there maybe is no one else.” As this thought came to him, Humphrey Trail threw the cape of his coat about his shoulder and walked rapidly in the direction Lisle had taken. He never lost sight of him. Lisle walked straight ahead and did not once look back. He had lost his velvet cap in the affair of the cart and he walked on hatless, unafraid, his hair, a sweep of blazing gold, tied at the back of his neck with a flaring black bow. Humphrey’s heart almost failed him as he watched Lisle. It was well indeed for the boy that this tenth of August was not a day for any one person. It was a day of great issues and the time had not yet come for individuals! It was a day of wild excitement, of gallantry and courage! Humphrey Trail had spoken rightly when he had said that it would be the bravest and the best day of all. Those who guarded the Royal family in the Tuileries had fought like the chivalrous knights that they were. There were never more valorous soldiers than the red-coated Swiss guards who held their places for the king until they could no longer stand. On the other side, there were never cleaner, braver men than those gay, unfearing men of the Marseillais battalion, who had marched for weeks, through every kind of weather, to fight for liberty in Paris, and who died singing their beloved Marseillaise with their last breath,

“L’amour sacrÉe de la patrie!”

Lisle reached his home in safety and, turning in at the iron gates, ran up the marble steps and pulled a silk rope at the side of the grilled iron door. He heard the bell clang through the great house. The door was opened at once by Henri, who gazed at him with a white face and gasped out:

“Monsieur Lisle, Madame, your mother, is beside herself in fear for you!”

When Humphrey saw the great doors close after Lisle he turned and walked rapidly away. He knew where the lad lived and he would not forget the house.

Lisle was met at the door of the first salon by his mother, who caught him by both shoulders, raising a pale, frightened face to his.

“You have been out alone in all this rabble, you who are only a child.” She caught her breath with a sob as she spoke.

“I have been out, but I am not a child, maman, and I have made a friend all by myself, without any help from the family.” Lisle smiled at his mother. “I have made a friend in Paris to-day, and his name is such an odd one, maman. It is Humphrey Trail!”