Ange Pitou (Volume 1)

"Sire," said the queen, "I request it."

  "I have full faith in your Majesty's good sense," said Gilbert, bowing to the queen. "The subject is the happiness and glory of his Majesty the king."

  "You are right to put faith in me," said the queen. "Begin, sir."

  "All this is very well," continued the king, who was growing obstinate, according to his custom; "but, in short, the question is a delicate one; and I know well that, as to myself, you will greatly embarrass me by being present."

  The queen could not withhold a gesture of impatience. She rose, then seated herself again, and darted a penetrating and cold look at the doctor, as if to divine his thoughts.

  Louis XVI., seeing that there was no longer any means of escaping the ordinary and extraordinary inquisitorial question, seated himself in his arm-chair, opposite Gilbert, and heaved a deep sigh.

  "What is the point in question?" asked the queen, as soon as this singular species of council had been thus constituted and installed.

  Gilbert looked at the king once more, as if to ask him for his authority to speak openly.

  "Speak! Good Heavens, go on, sir, since the queen desires it."

  "Well, then, Madame," said the doctor, "I will inform your Majesty in a few words of the object of my early visit to Versailles. I came to advise his Majesty to proceed to Paris."

  Had a spark fallen among the eight thousand pounds of gunpowder at the Hôtel de Ville, it could not have produced the explosion which those words caused in the queen's heart.

  "The king proceed to Paris! The king!—ah!" and she uttered a cry of horror that made Louis XVI. tremble.

  "There!" exclaimed the king, looking at Gilbert; "what did I tell you, Doctor?"

  "The king!" continued the queen; "the king in the midst of a revolted city!—the king amidst pitchforks and scythes!—the king among the men who massacred the Swiss, and who assassinated Monsieur de Launay and Monsieur de Flesselles!—the king crossing the square of the Hôtel de Ville, and treading in the blood of his defenders! You must be deprived of your senses, sir, to speak thus. Oh, I repeat it; you are mad!"

  Gilbert lowered his eyes like a man who is restrained by feelings of respect; but he did not answer a single word.

  The king, who felt agitated to the bottom of his soul, turned about in his seat like a man undergoing torture on the gridiron of the Inquisition.

  "Is it possible," continued the queen, "that such an idea should have found a place in an intelligent mind,-in a French heart? What, sir? Do you not, then, know that you are speaking to the successor of St. Louis,—to the great-grandson of Louis XIV.?"

  The king was beating the carpet with his feet.

  "I do not suppose, however," continued the queen, "that you desire to deprive the king of the assistance of his guards and his army, or that you are seeking to draw him out of his palace, which is a fortress, to expose him alone and defenceless to the blows of his infuriated enemies; you do not wish to see the king assassinated, I suppose, Mionsieur Gilbert?"

  "If I thought that your Majesty for a single moment entertained an idea that I am capable of such treachery, I should not be merely a madman, but should look upon myself as a wretch. But Heaven be thanked, Madame! you do not believe it any more than I do. No; I came to give my king this counsel, because I think the counsel good, and even superior to any other."

  The queen clinched her hand upon her breast with so much violence as to make the cambric crack beneath its pressure.

  The king shrugged up his shoulders with a slight movement of impatience.

  "But for Heaven's sake!" cried he, "listen to him, Madame; there will be time enough to say, no when you have heard him."

  "The king is right, Madame," said Gilbert, "for you do not know what I have to tell your Majesties. You think yourself surrounded by an army which is, firm, devoted to your cause, and ready to die for you; it is an error. Of the French regiments, one half are conspiring with the regenerators to carry out their revolutionary ideas."

  "Sir," exclaimed the queen, "beware! You are insulting the army!"

  "On the contrary, Madame," said Gilbert, "I am its greatest eulogist. We may respect our queen and be devoted to the king, and still love our country and devote ourselves to liberty."

  The queen cast a flaming look, like a flash of lightning, at Gilbert. "Sir," said she to him, "this language—"

  "Yes, this language offends you, Madame. I can readily understand that; for, according to all probability, your Majesty hears it now for the first time."

  "We must, nevertheless, accustom ourselves to it," muttered Louis XVI., with the submissive good sense that, constituted his chief strength.

  "Never!" exclaimed Marie Antoinette, "never!"

  "Let us see; listen! listen! I think what the doctor says is full of reason."

  The queen sat down, trembling with rage.

  Gilbert continued:—

  "I was going to say, Madame, that I have seen Paris, ay, and that you have not even seen Versailles. Do you know what Paris wishes to do at this moment?"

  "No," said the king, anxiously.

  "Perhaps it does not wish to take the Bastille a second time," said the queen, contemptuously.

  "Assuredly not, Madame," continued Gilbert; "but Paris knows that there is another: fortress between the people and their sovereign. Paris proposes to assemble the deputies of' the forty-eight districts of which it is composed, and send them to Versailles."

  "Let them come! let them come!" exclaimed the queen, in a tone of ferocious joy. "Oh, they will be well received here!"

  "Wait, Madame," replied Gilbert, "and beware; these deputies will not come alone."

  "And with whom will they come?"

  "They will come supported by twenty thousand National Guards."

  "National Guards!" said the queen," what are they?"

  "Ah! Madame, do not speak lightly of that body; it will some day become a power; it will bind and loosen."

  "Twenty thousand men!" exclaimed the king.

  "Well, sir," replied the queen, in her turn, "you have here ten thousand men that are worth a hundred thousand rebels; call them, call them, I tell you; the twenty thousand wretches will here find their punishment, and the example needed by all this revolutionary slime which I would sweep away, ay, in a week, were I but listened to for an hour."

  Gilbert shook his head sorrowfully.

  "Oh, Madame," said he, "how you deceive yourself, or rather how you have been deceived! Alas! alas! Have you reflected on it?—a civil war, provoked by a queen. One only has done this, and she carried with her to the tomb a terrible epithet: she was called the foreigner.'"

  "Provoked by me, sir How do you understand that? Was it I who fired upon the Bastille without provocation?"

  "Ah! Madame," cried the king, "instead of advocating violent measures, listen to reason."

  "To weakness!"

  "Come, now, Antoinette, listen to the doctor," said the king, austerely. "The arrival of twenty thousand men is not a trifling matter, particularly if we should have to fire grape-shot upon them."

  Then, turning towards Gilbert:—

  "Go on, sir," said he; "go on."

  "All these hatreds, which become more inveterate from estrangement—all these boastings, which become courage when opportunity is afforded for their realization—all the confusion of a battle, of which the issue is uncertain—oh! spare the king, spare yourself, Madame, the grief of witnessing them," said the doctor; "you can perhaps by gentleness disperse the crowd which is advancing. The crowd wishes to come to the king,—let us forestall it; let the king go to the crowd; let him, though now surrounded by his army, give proof to-morrow of audacity and political genius. Those twenty thousand men of whom we are speaking might, perhaps, conquer the king and his army. Let the king go alone and conquer these twenty thousand men, Madame; they are the people."

  The king could not refrain from giving a gesture of assent, which Marie Antoinette at once observed.

  "Wretched man!" crie
d she to Gilbert; "but you do not then perceive what the king's presence in Paris would betoken under the conditions you require?"

  "Speak, Madame."

  "It would be saying, 'I approve;' it would be saying, 'You did right to kill my Swiss;' it would be saying, 'You have acted rightly in murdering my officers, in setting fire to and making my capital stream with blood; you have done rightly in dethroning me. I thank you, gentlemen, I thank you!"

  And a disdainful smile rose to the lips of Marie Antoinette.

  "No, Madame, your Majesty is mistaken."

  "Sir!"

  "It would be saying, 'There has been some justice in the grief of the people. I am come to pardon. It is I who am the chief of the nation, and the king. It is I who am at the head of the French Revolution, as in former days Henry III. placed himself at the head of the League. Your generals are my officers, your National Guards my soldiers, your magistrates are my men of business. Instead of urging me onward, follow me if you are able to do so. The greatness of my stride will prove to you once more that I am the king of France, the successor of Charlemagne.'"

  "He is right," said the king, in a sorrowful tone.

  "Oh!" exclaimed the queen, "for mercy's sake listen not to this man!—this man is your enemy."

  "Madame," said Gilbert, "his Majesty himself is about to tell you what he thinks of the words I have spoken."

  "I think, sir, that you are the first who up to this moment has dared to speak the truth to me."

  "The truth!" cried the queen. "Gracious Heaven! what is it you are saying."

  "Yes, Madame," rejoined Gilbert, "and impress yourself fully with this fact, that truth is the only torch which can point out and save royalty from the dark abyss into which it is now being hurried."

  And while uttering, these words, Gilbert bowed humbly, as low as even to the knees of Marie Antoinette.

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  Chapter IV

  Decision

  FOR the first time the queen appeared deeply moved. Was it from the reasoning, or from the humility, of the doctor?

  Moreover, the king had risen from his seat with a determined air; he was thinking of the execution of Gilbert's project.

  However, from the habit which he had acquired of doing nothing without consulting the queen:—

  "Madame," said he to her, "do you approve it?"

  "It appears it must be so," replied the queen.

  "I do not ask you for any abnegation," said the king.

  "What is it, then, you ask?"

  "I ask you for the expression of a conviction which will strengthen mine."

  "You ask of me a conviction?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh, if it be only that, I am convinced, sir."

  "Of what?"

  "That the moment has arrived which will render monarchy the most deplorable and the most degrading position which exists in the whole world."

  "Oh," said the king, "you exaggerate; deplorable, I will admit, but degrading, that is impossible."

  "Sir, the kings, your forefathers, have bequeathed to you a very mournful inheritance," said the queen, sorrowfully.

  "Yes," said Louis XVI., "an inheritance which I have the grief to make you share, Madame."

  "Be pleased to allow me, Sire," said Gilbert, who truly compassionate the great misfortunes of his fallen sovereigns; "I do not believe that there is any reason for your Majesty to view the future in such terrific colors as you have depicted it. A despotic monarchy has ceased to exist; a constitutional empire commences."

  "Ah, sir," said the king, "and am I a man capable of founding such an empire in France?"

  "And why not, Sire?" cried the queen, somewhat comforted by the last words of Gilbert.

  "Madame," replied the king, "I am a man of good sense and a learned man. I see clearly, instead of endeavoring to see confusedly, into things, and I know precisely all that is not necessary for me to know, to administer the government of this country. From the day on which I shall be precipitated from the height of the inviolability of an absolute prince—from the day on which it shall be allowed to be discovered that I am a mere plain man—I lose all the factitious strength which alone was necessary to govern France, since, to speak truly, Louis XIII., Louis XIV., and Louis XV. sustained themselves completely, thanks to this factitious strength. What do the French now require? A master. I feel that I am only capable of being a father. What do the revolutionists require? A sword. I do not feel that I have strength enough to strike."

  "You do not feel that you have strength to strike!" exclaimed the queen,—"to strike people who are destroying the property of your children, and who would carry off, even from your own brow, one after the other, every gem that adorns the crown of France!"

  "What answer can I make to this?" calmly said Louis XVI.; "would you have me reply NO? By doing so I should raise up in your mind one of those storms which are the discomfort of my life. You know how to hate. Oh, so much the better for you! You know how to be unjust, and I do not reproach you with it. It is a great quality in those who have to govern."

  "Do you, perchance, consider me unjust towards the Revolution? Now tell me that."

  "In good faith, yes."

  "You say yes, Sire,—you say yes?"

  "If you were the wife of a plain citizen, my dear Antoinette, you would not speak as you do."

  "I am not one."

  "And that is the reason for my excusing you; but that does not mean that I approve your course. No, Madame, no, you must be resigned; we succeeded to the throne of France at a period of storm and tempest. We ought to have strength enough to push on before us that car armed with scythes, and which is called Revolution; but our strength is insufficient."

  "So much the worse," said Marie Antoinette, "for it is over our children that it will be driven."

  "Alas! that I know; but at all events we shall not urge it forward."

  "We will make it retrograde, Sire!"

  "Oh," cried Gilbert, with a prophetic accent, "beware, Madame; in retrograding, it will crush you."

  "Sir," said the queen, impatiently, "I observe that you can carry the frankness of your counsels very far."

  "I will be silent, Madame."

  "Oh, good Heaven! let him speak on," said the king; "what he has now announced to you, if he has not read it in twenty newspapers during the last eight days, it is because he has not chosen to read them. You should, at least, be thankful to him that he does not convey the truths he utters in a bitter spirit."

  Marie Antoinette remained silent for a moment; then, with a deep-drawn sigh:—

  "I will sum up," she said, "or rather, I will repeat my arguments. By going to Paris voluntarily, it will be sanctioning all that has been done there."

  "Yes," replied the king, "I know that full well."

  "Yes, it would be humiliating,—disowning your army which is preparing to defend you."

  "It is to spare the effusion of French blood," said the doctor.

  "It is to declare that henceforward tumultuous risings and violence may give such a direction to the will of the king as may best suit the views of insurgents and traitors."

  "Madame, I believe," said Gilbert, "that you had just now the goodness to acknowledge that I had had the good fortune to convince you."

  "Yes, I just now did acknowledge it; one corner of the veil had been raised up before me. But now, sir,—oh, now that I am again becoming blind, as you have termed it, and I prefer looking into my own mind, to see reflected there those splendors to which education, tradition, and history have accustomed me, I prefer considering myself still a queen, than to feel myself a bad mother to this people, who insult and hate me."

  "Antoinette! Antoinette!" cried Louis XVI., terrified at the sudden paleness which pervaded the queen's face, and which was nothing more than the precursor of a terrible storm of anger.

  "Oh, no, no, Sire, I will speak," replied the queen.

  "Beware, Madame!" said he.

  And with a glance the king direc
ted the attention of Marie Antoinette to the presence of the doctor.

  "Oh, this gentleman knows all that I was about to say; he knows even everything I think," said the queen, with a bitter smile at the recollection of the scene which had just before occurred between her and the doctor; "and therefore why should I restrain myself? This gentleman, moreover, has been taken by us for our confidant, and I know not why I should have any fear of speaking. I know that you are carried, dragged away, like the unhappy prince in my dear old German ballads. Whither are you going? Of that I know nothing; but you are going whence you will never return."

  "Why, no, Madame; I am going simply and plainly to Paris," replied Louis XVI.

  Marie Antoinette raised her shoulders.

  "Do you believe me to be insane?" said she, in a voice of deep irritation. "You are going to Paris? 'Tis well. Who tells you that Paris is not an abyss which I see not, but which I can divine? Who can say whether, in the tumultuous crowd by which you will necessarily be surrounded, you will not be killed? Who knows from whence a chance shot may proceed? Who knows, amid a hundred thousand upraised and threatening hands, which it is that has directed the murderous knife?"

  "Oh, on that head you need not have the slightest apprehension. They love me!" exclaimed the king.

  "Oh, say not that, Sire, or you will make me pity you. They love you, and they kill, they assassinate, they massacre those who represent you on the earth; you, a king,—you, the image of God! Well, the governor of the Bastille was your representative; he was the image of the king. Be well assured of this, and I shall not be accused of exaggeration when I say it. If they have killed De Launay, that brave and faithful servant, they would have killed you, Sire, had you been in his place, and much more easily than they killed him; for they know you, and know that instead of defending yourself, you would have bared your breast to them."

  "Conclude," said the king.

  "But I thought that I had concluded, Sire."

  "They will kill me?"

  "Yes, Sire."

  "Well?"

  "And my children!" exclaimed the queen.

  Gilbert thought it time that he should interfere.

  "Madame," said he, "the king will be so much respected at Paris, and his presence will cause such transports, that if I have a fear, it is not for the king, but for those fanatics who will throw themselves to be crushed beneath his horse's feet, like the Indian Fakirs beneath the car of their idol."