It was past four when the King, who had left Versailles at ten in the
morning, entered the Hotel de Ville. At length, at six in the evening, M.
de Lastours, the King's first page, arrived; he was not half an hour in
coming from the Barriere de la Conference to Versailles. Everybody knows
that the moment of calm in Paris was that in which the unfortunate
sovereign received the tricoloured cockade from M. Bailly, and placed it
in his hat. A shout of "Vive le Roi!" arose on all sides; it had not been
once uttered before. The King breathed again, and with tears in his eyes
exclaimed that his heart stood in need of such greetings from the people.
One of his equerries (M. de Cubieres) told him the people loved him, and
that he could never have doubted it. The King replied in accents of
profound sensibility:

"Cubieres, the French loved Henri IV., and what king ever better deserved
to be beloved?"

[Louis XVI. cherished the memory of Henri IV.: at that moment he thought
of his deplorable end; but he long before regarded him as a model.
Soulavie says on the subject: "A tablet with the inscription 'Resurrexit'
placed upon the pedestal of Henri IV.'s statue on the accession of Louis
XVI. flattered him exceedingly. 'What a fine compliment,' said he, 'if it
were true! Tacitus himself never wrote anything so concise or so happy.'
Louis XVI. wished to take the reign of that Prince for a model. In the
following year the party that raised a commotion among the people on
account of the dearness of corn removed the tablet inscribed Resurrexit
from the statue of Henri IV., and placed it under that of Louis XV., whose
memory was then detested, as he was believed to have traded on the
scarcity of food. Louis XVI., who was informed of it, withdrew into his
private apartments, where he was found in a fever shedding tears; and