I don't think they realised, and we certainly didn't, what the noise
meant, but some of the marshal's household, who knew that only a slight
temporary partition was between us and an irate mob, struggling up the
staircase, were green with anxiety. However, the royalties all got away
without any difficulty, and we tried to hurry immediately after them,
but a dense crowd was then pouring into the room at each end, and for a
moment things looked ugly. The gentlemen, my husband and my
brother-in-law, Eugene Schuyler, Lord Lyons, British ambassador (a big
square-shouldered man), and one or two others, put us, my sister
Schuyler and me, in a recess of one of the big windows, with heavy
furniture in front of us, but that was not very pleasant--with the crowd
moving both ways closing in upon us--and the men were getting nervous,
so one of our secretaries squeezed through the crowd and found two or
three huissiers, came back with them, and we made a procession--two big
huissiers in front, with their silver chains and swords, the mark of
official status, which always impresses a French crowd, then Lord Lyons,
my sister, and I, then W.
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