CHAPTER XXIII.
WHY THE QUEEN WAITED.
A little calm succeeded at Versailles the political and mental tempestswhich we have chronicled.
The King breathed again: and consoled himself with his regaledpopularity for what his Bourbon pride had suffered in truckling tothe Paris mob. The Nobility prepared to flee or to resist. The peoplewatched and waited.
Assured that she was the butt of all the slings and arrows of hatred,the Queen made herself as inconspicuous as possible: she knew that forher party she was the centre of all hopes.
Since the King went to Paris she had not seen Dr. Gilbert, but thechance was offered her when they met in the vestibule of the royalapartments.
"Going to the King?" she challenged as he bowed deeply. "As physicianor counsellor?" she continued with a smile betraying some irony.
"As doctor; it is my day on duty," he replied.
She beckoned him to follow her into a little sideroom.
"You see, sir," she began, "that you were wrong the other day when youassured me that the King ran no risk of murder. A woman was killed bya shot aimed at him and striking you, without injury. Who told me so?gentlemen of the escort who saw your button fly."
"I do not believe it was a crime, or, if so, one to be imputed to thepeople," returned Gilbert, hesitatingly.
"Who are we to attribute it to, then?" she demanded, fixing her eyesupon him.
"I have been studying the masses some time," he responded: "when infury the mobs tear and slay like a tiger; but in cold blood, they seekno go-betweens. They want to make the blood fly with their own clawsand fangs."
"As witness, Foulon and his son-in-law Berthier Savigny, accused ofcomplicity in the Great Grain Fraud, and ripped to pieces by the crowd?and Flesselles, slain by a pistol! But the accounts of their atrociousexecutions may be untrue, we crowned heads are so engirt by flatterers."
"Madam, you do not believe any more than I, that Flesselles was killedby the mob. Others of higher degree were more interested in his death.As for the King, those who love their country believe he is useful toit, and these stand between him and the assassin eagerly."
"Alas," said she, "there was a time when a good Frenchman would haveexpressed his sentiments in better terms than those. It was notpossible then to love his country without loving his rulers."
Gilbert blushed and bowed, feeling the thrill at his heart which theQueen could impart in her periods of winning intimacy.
"Madam, I beg to boast that I love the monarchy better than many."
"Are we not at an era when it is not enough to say so, but actionsshould speak?"
"Madam, I was your enemy yesterday, when you had me imprisoned, and nowI am your servant."
"But whence the change? it is not in your nature, doctor, to changeyour feelings, opinion and belief so readily. You are a man with adeep-rooted memory; you know how to lengthen out your vengeance. Tellme the aim of your change?"
"Madam, you reproach me with loving my country too dearly."
"You love it so as to stoop to serve me, the foreigner? no I am aFrenchwoman--I love my country. You smile--but it is my country. I haveadopted it. German by birth, I am French through the heart; but I loveFrance through the King and the respect due the God which consecratedme to it. But I understand you; it is not the same thing. You loveFrance purely and simply for France's sake."
"Madam, I cannot be outspoken without disrespect," replied the doctor.
"Oh," she said, "dreadful is this epoch when men pretending to behonorable isolate two principles that should never be parted, and havealways marched forward together: France and her King. Is there not atragedy in which a queen, abandoned by all, is asked: What remains?and she answers 'I!' Well, like Medea, I am here--and we shall see theoutcome."
She passed out, in vexation, leaving Gilbert in stupor. By her fierybreath she had blown aside a corner of the veil beyond which simmeredthe hell-broth of the Anti-Revolution.
"Let us look to ourselves," thought Gilbert, "the Queen is nursing ascheme."
"Plainly nothing can be done with this man," muttered the sovereign,regaining her rooms. "He is a strong one, but he lacks devotion."
Poor princess, to whom servility is thought to be devotion!
Marie Antoinette felt the weight upon her most when alone.
As woman and queen, she had nothing to lean upon or help her supportthe crushing burden.
Doubt or wavering was on either hand. Uneasy about their fortune,the sycophants fled. Her relatives and friends brooded on exile. Theproudest of all, Andrea, gradually drew aside from her, body and soul.
The noblest and dearest man of all, Charny, was wounded by herfickleness and was a prey to doubt.
She who was instinct and sagacity themselves, was fretted by the crisis.
"This pure, unalloyed heart has not changed, but it is changing," shereasoned.
A dreadful conviction for the woman who loved with passion, andinsupportable for one who loved with pride, as the Queen did Charny.
Being a man, all that George understood was that the Queen was unfairlyjealous of his wife. Nothing pains a heart incapable of false playso much as to be suspected of it. Nothing so points attention on theperson unjustly accused of inspiring an attachment than jealousy. Thesuspected one reflects. It looks from the jealous heart to the onebelieved to be its rival.
Indeed, how suppose that a noble and elevated creature should be vexedover a trifle? What has a lovely woman to be worried about? what, thepowerful lady?
Charny knew that Andrea had been the bosom friend of the Queen, andwondered why their love had cooled and the confidante stood away. Hehad to look to her and the idol lost so much of the eye-adulation asAndrea gained. By her unfairness and anger Marie Antoinette told Charnythat he must feel less a lover for her. He sought for the cause, andnaturally whither the Queen was frowning.
He pitied Andrea, who had married him by royal command, and was butnominally his wife.
Marie Antoinette's burst of affection in receiving her husband on hisreturn from Paris had opened the eyes of the count.
He began to steel himself against her, and she, while ill-treating him,resumed showering favor on Andrea.
The latter submitted, without astonishment but also with no gratitude.Long since, she reckoned herself as belonging to her royal mistress andshe let the Queen do what she liked.
The result was a curious situation, such as women act and comprehendbest.
Andrea felt all her husband underwent, and she pitied him and showedher pity, from her love being of the angelic kind which is not fed onhope.
This compassion led to a gentle approach. She tried to comfort Georgewithout letting him see that she needed the same consolation. This wasdone with that delicacy called womanly because the softer sex bestpractice it.
Marie Antoinette, trying to reign by dividing, saw she was on thewrong road, and was forcing together the souls which she wanted to keepaloof.
Hence, in the silence of night and the lonesomeness, she felt suchwrestlings with Giant Despair as must give the spirit a high idea ofits power since it can struggle with so vast a might.
She would have succumbed had it not been for the diversion of politics.
In her pride she ascribed her decay to the depreciation she had letherself as a woman suffer lately. In her active mind, to think was toact.
She set to work without losing a moment, but unfortunately the work wasfor her perdition.
Seeing that the Parisians had turned into soldiers and appeared tointend war, she resolved to show them what war really is.
For two months the King had been striving to retain some shred ofroyalty: with the peerage and Mirabeau, he had tried to neutralize thedemocratic spirit effacing it in France. In this strife the monarch hadlost all his power and part of his popularity; the Queen had gained thenickname of "Lady Veto." She had been known as The Austrian, then asLady Deficit, on account of the hole in the Treasury attributed to hergenerosity to her favorites; n
ow, Lady Veto; she was to bear lastly thetitle of The Widow Capet.
After the conflict in which the Queen had endeavored to engage herfriends by showing them that they were endangered with her, sheremarked that only sixty thousand passports had been applied for by thehigher classes, fleeing to foreign parts. This had struck the Queen.
She purposed her own escape, so as to leave the true royalists inFrance to wage a civil war. Her plan was not bad, and it must havesucceeded had it not been for the evil genius who was plotting behindthe Queen. Strange destiny! this woman who inspired great devotion,nowhere could attach discretion.
It was known all over town that she intended to take to wing before shehad settled herself: and from that time it was impracticable.
Meanwhile, the Flanders Regiment, famous for its royalist fervor,arrived at Versailles, asked for by the town council, as the guardingof the palace exceeded their powers at command.
It made a solemn entrance into the court-town, and received an ovationfrom the courtiers, other soldiers, and a band of young nobles whohad set up a company of their own with a special uniform, to whichwere joined the Knights of St. Louis, officers on the retired list andadventurers.
Only one black spot marred the sky: Liege had revolted against theAustrian Emperor and this made it difficult for him to succor thedaughter whom he had wedded to his brother on the French throne.
After the Flanders Regiment had been welcomed, the Lifeguards officersvoted to give them a dinner: it was fixed for the First of October. Asthe King had no politics to trouble him, since the new government tookall business on themselves, he passed the days in hunting. The Queenwas applied to for the dinner to take place in the palace. She let theguards officers have the theatre, which was boarded over to make moreroom, and a hall adjoining.
She shut herself up alone, save for her children and Andrea, sad andthoughtful, where the toasts and the clink of glasses should notdisturb her.
At the palace gates a crowd peeped in and sniffed the air, puffingthe fumes of roasts and wines, from the large dinner table. It wasimprudent to let the hungry inhale the vapor of good cheer and themorose hear songs and cheers of hope and joy.
The feast went on without any interruption, however. At the secondcourse the Colonel of the Flanders Regiment proposed the regular toastsof the Royal Family, which were hailed so loudly that the Queen mayhave heard the echoes in her refuge.
An officer stood up. He was a man of wit and courage who foresaw theissue of this banquet and was sincerely attached to the Royal Family;or else he was a plotter who tried to challenge the anti-popularopinion. He proposed the Health of the Nation.
It was hooted down, and the feast took its plain meaning--the torrentresumed its down-hill rush.
To forget the country might pass: but to insult it was too much; itwould take revenge.
From that moment discipline was at an end: the privates hobnobbed withtheir superiors, and it was really a brotherly meeting.
What a pity that the unfortunate King and sorrowful Queen could notwitness such a gathering!
Officious servants ran with exaggerated accounts of the festivities toMarie Antoinette and urged that she should go with the young heir tothe throne by her side, in the monarch's absence.
"Madam, I entreat you to keep away," pleaded Count Charny. "I have comeaway from the scene; they are too excited to make it seemly for yourMajesty."
She was in one of her sulky, whimsical moods and it suited her to teaseCharny by going counter to his advice. She looked at him with disdainand was going to answer him tartly when he respectfully said:
"At least, see what the King says about it."
The King had just returned from hunting.
Marie Antoinette ran to meet him and dragging him with her, in hisriding boots and dusty as he was, she led him away, without a glance atCharny, and crying:
"Come, my lord, to see a sight worthy of a King of France's regard!"
With her left hand, she led her son. The courtiers flowed before andafter the trio: she reached the theatre doors just as the glasses werebeing emptied for the twentieth time to shouts of:
"God save the King! Long live the Queen!"
The applause burst like a mine exploding when the King and Queen andPrince Royal were seen on the floor. The drunken soldiers and heatedofficers waved their hats on their swords and shouted. The band beganto play from the Opera of Richard Coeur-de-lion, Blondel's song of "Oh,Richard, oh, my King!" which so transparently alluded to the King in akind of bondage that all voices took up the song.
The enthusiastic Queen did not see that the soldiers were intoxicated:the surprised King had too much good sense not to see more clearly, buthe was weak and flattered by this reception, so that he let the generalfrenzy overcome him.
Charny, who had drunk nothing but water during the part of the banquetwhich he attended, stood pale at this participation of the Royal Familyin what would now be a historical event by their presence.
But his apprehension was still greater when he saw his brotherValence, the hussar lieutenant, approach the Queen and speak to herwhen encouraged by a smile. It was consent, for she unpinned from hercap the cockade she was wearing and presented it to her imprudentKnight. It was not even a royal rosette, but that of Austria: the blackinsignia of the foreign foe! This was not rashness but treason to thecountry. So mad was the concourse that they to whom Valence Charnypresented the black cockade, tore off their white ones and they whowere wearing the tricolors trampled them under foot.
The exultation became so high that the august guests had pains toreturn to their rooms without trampling on those who prostratedthemselves in their passageway.
All this might have been overlooked as the freak of an orgie, but afterthe Royal Family departed, the guests turned the banquet hall into atown taken by assault. The soldiers whooped and as the bugles blewthe charge--against what enemy? the absent nation! they climbed thebalconies where the ladies held over helping hands.
The first soldier to reach the boxes was a grenadier whom a noblemandecorated with the ribbon he was wearing in his buttonhole: the Orderof Limburg, that is, of no value. But all the sham battle was foughtunder the Austrian colors while the national one was shouted down. Onlya few dull protests were heard, drowned under the trumpet blasts, thehurrahs, and the music of the band. The tumult came menacingly to thecrowd at the doors. Astonished at first, they were soon indignant asit was known that the tricolor had been spurned and the black streamerflaunted in its stead.
An officer of the National Guard had been badly beaten in the scuffleto uphold the honor of the latter, but it was not known that Charny,the Queen's favorite, had taken all the blame of the outrages onhimself.
The Queen had returned to her rooms, dazed by the scene. A swarm offlatterers and adulators assailed her.
"See the true spirit of your troops," they said. "When the fury of themob is bragged of, think how it would melt away in the blast of thiswild ardor of the military for monarchical ideas."
She was still under the illusion that this fire would spread over thekingdom from the palace, at her will, when, next day, receiving theNational Guard to whom she had promised to distribute their new flags,she made this address:
"I am happy to make this presentation. The Nation and the army ought tolove the King, as we love them both. I was delighted with the rejoicingyesterday!"
At these words, emphasized by her glittering glance and sweetest voice,the crowd grumbled while the soldiers applauded noisily.
"She upheld us," said one party while the other muttered: "We arebetrayed!"
"Am I not brave?" she asked of Charny who looked on with sorrow andlistened with terror.
"To the point of folly," he replied with a deeply clouded face.