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Marie Antoinette Romances, Vol 4: Taking the Bastile

<h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> WHY THE QUEEN WAITED. A little calm succeeded at Versailles the political and mental tempests which we have chronicled. The King breathed again: and consoled himself with his regaled popularity for what his Bourbon pride had suffered in truckling to the Paris mob. The Nobility prepared to flee or to resist. The people watched 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 for her party she was the centre of all hopes. Since the King went to Paris she had not seen Dr. Gilbert, but the chance was offered her when they met in the vestibule of the royal apartments. "Going to the King?" she challenged as he bowed deeply. "As physician or 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 you assured me that the King ran no risk of murder. A woman was killed by a shot aimed at him and striking you, without injury. Who told me so? gentlemen of the escort who saw your button fly." [Pg 173] "I do not believe it was a crime, or, if so, one to be imputed to the people," returned Gilbert, hesitatingly. "Who are we to attribute it to, then?" she demanded, fixing her eyes upon him. "I have been studying the masses some time," he responded: "when in fury the mobs tear and slay like a tiger; but in cold blood, they seek no go-betweens. They want to make the blood fly with their own claws and fangs." "As witness, Foulon and his son-in-law Berthier Savigny, accused of complicity in the Great Grain Fraud, and ripped to pieces by the crowd? and Flesselles, slain by a pistol! But the accounts of their atrocious executions may be untrue, we crowned heads are so engirt by flatterers." "Madam, you do not believe any more than I, that Flesselles was killed by 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 to it, and these stand between him and the assassin eagerly." "Alas," said she, "there was a time when a good Frenchman would have expressed his sentiments in better terms than those. It was not possible then to love his country without loving his rulers." Gilbert blushed and bowed, feeling the thrill at his heart which the Queen 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 actions should speak?" "Madam, I was your enemy yesterday, when you had me imprisoned, and now I am your servant." "But whence the change? it is not in your nature, doctor, to change your feelings, opinion and belief so readily. You are a man with a deep-rooted memory; you know how to lengthen out your vengeance. Tell me the aim of your change?" "Madam, you reproach me with loving my country too dearly." [Pg 174] "You love it so as to stoop to serve me, the foreigner? no I am a Frenchwoman—I love my country. You smile—but it is my country. I have adopted it. German by birth, I am French through the heart; but I love France through the King and the respect due the God which consecrated me to it. But I understand you; it is not the same thing. You love France 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 be honorable isolate two principles that should never be parted, and have always marched forward together: France and her King. Is there not a tragedy 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 the outcome." She passed out, in vexation, leaving Gilbert in stupor. By her fiery breath she had blown aside a corner of the veil beyond which simmered the hell-broth of the Anti-Revolution. "Let us look to ourselves," thought Gilbert, "the Queen is nursing a scheme." "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 support the crushing burden. Doubt or wavering was on either hand. Uneasy about their fortune, the sycophants fled. Her relatives and friends brooded on exile. The proudest of all, Andrea, gradually drew aside from her, body and soul. The noblest and dearest man of all, Charny, was wounded by her fickleness 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," she reasoned. [Pg 175] A dreadful conviction for the woman who loved with passion, and insupportable for one who loved with pride, as the Queen did Charny. Being a man, all that George understood was that the Queen was unfairly jealous of his wife. Nothing pains a heart incapable of false play so much as to be suspected of it. Nothing so points attention on the person unjustly accused of inspiring an attachment than jealousy. The suspected one reflects. It looks from the jealous heart to the one believed to be its rival. Indeed, how suppose that a noble and elevated creature should be vexed over a trifle? What has a lovely woman to be worried about? what, the powerful lady? Charny knew that Andrea had been the bosom friend of the Queen, and wondered why their love had cooled and the confidante stood away. He had to look to her and the idol lost so much of the eye-adulation as Andrea gained. By her unfairness and anger Marie Antoinette told Charny that he must feel less a lover for her. He sought for the cause, and naturally whither the Queen was frowning. He pitied Andrea, who had married him by royal command, and was but nominally his wife. Marie Antoinette's burst of affection in receiving her husband on his return 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 and she let the Queen do what she liked. The result was a curious situation, such as women act and comprehend best. Andrea felt all her husband underwent, and she pitied him and showed her pity, from her love being of the angelic kind which is not fed on hope. This compassion led to a gentle approach. She tried to comfort George without letting him see that she needed the same consolation. This was done with that delicacy called womanly because the softer sex best practice it. [Pg 176] Marie Antoinette, trying to reign by dividing, saw she was on the wrong road, and was forcing together the souls which she wanted to keep aloof. Hence, in the silence of night and the lonesomeness, she felt such wrestlings with Giant Despair as must give the spirit a high idea of its 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 let herself as a woman suffer lately. In her active mind, to think was to act. She set to work without losing a moment, but unfortunately the work was for her perdition. Seeing that the Parisians had turned into soldiers and appeared to intend war, she resolved to show them what war really is. For two months the King had been striving to retain some shred of royalty: with the peerage and Mirabeau, he had tried to neutralize the democratic spirit effacing it in France. In this strife the monarch had lost all his power and part of his popularity; the Queen had gained the nickname of "Lady Veto." She had been known as The Austrian, then as Lady Deficit, on account of the hole in the Treasury attributed to her generosity to her favorites; now, Lady Veto; she was to bear lastly the title of The Widow Capet. After the conflict in which the Queen had endeavored to engage her friends by showing them that they were endangered with her, she remarked that only sixty thousand passports had been applied for by the higher classes, fleeing to foreign parts. This had struck the Queen. She purposed her own escape, so as to leave the true royalists in France to wage a civil war. Her plan was not bad, and it must have succeeded had it not been for the evil genius who was plotting behind the 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 she had settled herself: and from that time it was impracticable. [Pg 177] Meanwhile, the Flanders Regiment, famous for its royalist fervor, arrived at Versailles, asked for by the town council, as the guarding of the palace exceeded their powers at command. It made a solemn entrance into the court-town, and received an ovation from the courtiers, other soldiers, and a band of young nobles who had set up a company of their own with a special uniform, to which were joined the Knights of St. Louis, officers on the retired list and adventurers. Only one black spot marred the sky: Liege had revolted against the Austrian Emperor and this made it difficult for him to succor the daughter whom he had wedded to his brother on the French throne. After the Flanders Regiment had been welcomed, the Lifeguards officers voted to give them a dinner: it was fixed for the First of October. As the King had no politics to trouble him, since the new government took all business on themselves, he passed the days in hunting. The Queen was applied to for the dinner to take place in the palace. She let the guards officers have the theatre, which was boarded over to make more room, and a hall adjoining. She shut herself up alone, save for her children and Andrea, sad and thoughtful, where the toasts and the clink of glasses should not disturb her. At the palace gates a crowd peeped in and sniffed the air, puffing the fumes of roasts and wines, from the large dinner table. It was imprudent to let the hungry inhale the vapor of good cheer and the morose hear songs and cheers of hope and joy. The feast went on without any interruption, however. At the second course the Colonel of the Flanders Regiment proposed the regular toasts of the Royal Family, which were hailed so loudly that the Queen may have heard the echoes in her refuge. An officer stood up. He was a man of wit and courage who foresaw the issue of this banquet and was sincerely attached to the Royal Family; or else he was a plotter who tried to challenge the anti-popular opinion. He proposed the Health of the Nation. [Pg 178] It was hooted down, and the feast took its plain meaning—the torrent resumed its down-hill rush. To forget the country might pass: but to insult it was too much; it would take revenge. From that moment discipline was at an end: the privates hobnobbed with their superiors, and it was really a brotherly meeting. What a pity that the unfortunate King and sorrowful Queen could not witness such a gathering! Officious servants ran with exaggerated accounts of the festivities to Marie Antoinette and urged that she should go with the young heir to the throne by her side, in the monarch's absence. "Madam, I entreat you to keep away," pleaded Count Charny. "I have come away from the scene; they are too excited to make it seemly for your Majesty." She was in one of her sulky, whimsical moods and it suited her to tease Charny by going counter to his advice. She looked at him with disdain and 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 his riding boots and dusty as he was, she led him away, without a glance at Charny, 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 and after the trio: she reached the theatre doors just as the glasses were being emptied for the twentieth time to shouts of: &emsp;&emsp;"God save the King! Long live the Queen!" The applause burst like a mine exploding when the King and Queen and Prince Royal were seen on the floor. The drunken soldiers and heated officers waved their hats on their swords and shouted. The band began to 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 a kind of bondage that all voices took up the song. [Pg 179] The enthusiastic Queen did not see that the soldiers were intoxicated: the surprised King had too much good sense not to see more clearly, but he was weak and flattered by this reception, so that he let the general frenzy overcome him. Charny, who had drunk nothing but water during the part of the banquet which he attended, stood pale at this participation of the Royal Family in what would now be a historical event by their presence. But his apprehension was still greater when he saw his brother Valence, the hussar lieutenant, approach the Queen and speak to her when encouraged by a smile. It was consent, for she unpinned from her cap the cockade she was wearing and presented it to her imprudent Knight. It was not even a royal rosette, but that of Austria: the black insignia of the foreign foe! This was not rashness but treason to the country. So mad was the concourse that they to whom Valence Charny presented the black cockade, tore off their white ones and they who were wearing the tricolors trampled them under foot. The exultation became so high that the august guests had pains to return to their rooms without trampling on those who prostrated themselves in their passageway. All this might have been overlooked as the freak of an orgie, but after the Royal Family departed, the guests turned the banquet hall into a town taken by assault. The soldiers whooped and as the bugles blew the charge—against what enemy? the absent nation! they climbed the balconies where the ladies held over helping hands. The first soldier to reach the boxes was a grenadier whom a nobleman decorated with the ribbon he was wearing in his buttonhole: the Order of Limburg, that is, of no value. But all the sham battle was fought under the Austrian colors while the national one was shouted down. Only a few dull protests were heard, drowned under the trumpet blasts, the hurrahs, and the music of the band. The tumult came menacingly to the crowd at the doors. Astonished at first, they were soon indignant as it was known that the tricolor had been spurned and the black streamer flaunted in its stead. [Pg 180] An officer of the National Guard had been badly beaten in the scuffle to 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 on himself. The Queen had returned to her rooms, dazed by the scene. A swarm of flatterers and adulators assailed her. "See the true spirit of your troops," they said. "When the fury of the mob is bragged of, think how it would melt away in the blast of this wild ardor of the military for monarchical ideas." She was still under the illusion that this fire would spread over the kingdom from the palace, at her will, when, next day, receiving the National 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 to love the King, as we love them both. I was delighted with the rejoicing yesterday!" 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 are betrayed!" "Am I not brave?" she asked of Charny who looked on with sorrow and listened with terror. "To the point of folly," he replied with a deeply clouded face. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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