Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 15

"Say rather you knew that you would be involved with them. You have at a previous examination deposed circ.u.mstantially, and you cannot take back what you testified then, for your denial would be of no avail. Answer, therefore: What have you done? Why were you afraid of being involved in the trial of Countess Lamotte?"

"Because I had done a great wrong," answered Retaux, with vehemence.

"Because I had allowed myself to be led astray by the promises, the seductive arts, the deceptions of the countess. I was poor; I lived unseen and unnoticed, and I wished to be rich, honored, and distinguished. The countess promised me all this. She would persuade the cardinal to advance me to honor; she would introduce me to the court, and through her means I should become rich and sought after.

I believed all this, and like her devoted slave I did all that she asked of me."

"Slavish soul!" cried the countess, with an expression of unspeakable scorn.

"What did the countess desire of you?" asked the president. "What did you do in her service?"

"I wrote the letters which were intended for the cardinal," answered Retaux de Vilette. "The countess composed them, and I wrote them in the handwriting of the queen."

"How did you know her handwriting?"

"The countess gave me a book in which a letter of the queen's was printed in exact imitation of her hand. I copied the letters as nearly as I could, and so worked out my sentences."

"He lies, he lies!" cried the countess, with a fierce gesture.

"And how was it with the promissory note to the jewellers, Bohmer and Ba.s.senge? Do you know about that?"

"Yes," answered Retaux, with a sigh, "I do know about it, for I wrote it at the direction of the countess, and added the signature."

"Had you a copy?"

"Yes, the signature of the fac-simile."

"In the printed letter was there the subscription which you inserted?"

"No, there was only the name 'Marie Antoinette,' nothing further; but the countess thought that this was only a confidential way of writing her name, as a daughter might use it in a letter to a mother (it was a letter written by the queen to her mother), but that in a doc.u.ment of a more business-like character there must be an official signature. We had a long discussion about it, which resulted in our coming to the conclusion that the proper form would be 'Marie Antoinette of France.' So I practised this several times, and finally wrote it on the promissory note."

"He lies!" cried the countess, stamping on the floor. "He is a born liar and slanderer."

"I am prepared to show the proof at once that I speak the truth,"

said Retaux de Vilette. "If you will give me writing-materials I will write the signature of the queen in the manner in which it is written on the promissory note."

The president gave the order for the requisite articles to be brought and laid on a side-table. Retaux took the pen, and with a rapid hand wrote some words, which he gave to the officer to be carried to the president.

The latter took the paper and compared it with the words which were written on the promissory note. He then pa.s.sed the two to the attorney-general, and he to the judge next to him. The papers pa.s.sed from hand to hand, and, after they came back to the president again, he rose from his seat:

"I believe that the characters on this paper precisely accord with those on the note. The witness has given what seems to me irrefutable testimony that he was the writer of that signature, as well as of the letters to the cardinal. He was the culpable instrument of the criminal Lamotte-Valois. Those of the judges who are of my opinion will rise."

The judges arose as one man.

The countess uttered a loud cry and fell, seized with fearful spasms, to the ground.

"I declare the investigation and hearings ended," said the president, covering his head. "Let the accused and the witnesses be removed, and the spectators' tribune be vacated. We will adjourn to the council-room to prepare the sentence, which will be given to- morrow."

BOOK II.

CHAPTER VII.

THE BAD OMEN

The day was drawing to a close. That endlessly long day, that 31st of August, 1786, was coming to a conclusion. All Paris had awaited it with breathless excitement, with feverish impatience. No one had been able to attend to his business. The stores were closed, the workshops of the artisans were empty; even in the restaurants and cafes all was still; the cooks had nothing to do, and let the fire go out, for it seemed as if all Paris had lost its appet.i.te--as if n.o.body had time to eat.

And in truth, on this day, Paris had no hunger for food that could satisfy the body. The city was hungry only for news, it longed for food which would satisfy its curiosity. And the news which would appease its craving was to come from the court-room of the prison!

It was to that quarter that Paris looked for the stilling of its hunger, the satisfying of its desires.

The judges were a.s.sembled in the hall of the prison to p.r.o.nounce the decisive sentence in the necklace trial, and to announce to all France, yes, all Europe, whether the Queen of France was innocent in the eyes of G.o.d and His representatives on earth, or whether a shade of suspicion was thenceforth to rest upon that lofty brow!

At a very early hour of the morning, half-past five, the judges of the high court of Parliament, forty-nine in number, gathered at the council-room in order to p.r.o.nounce sentence. At the same early hour, an immense, closely-thronged crowd gathered in the broad square in front of the prison, and gazed in breathless expectation at the great gate of the building, hoping every minute that the judges would come out, and that they should learn the sentence.

But the day wore on, and still the gates remained shut; no news came from the council-room to enlighten the curiosity of the crowd that filled the square and the adjacent streets.

Here and there the people began to complain, and loud voices were heard grumbling at the protracted delay, the long deliberations of the judges. Here and there faces were seen full of scornful defiance, full of laughing malice, working their way through the crowd, and now and then dropping stinging words, which provoked to still greater impatience. All the orators of the clubs and of the secret societies were there among the crowd, all the secret and open enemies of the queen had sent their instruments thither to work upon the people with poisonous words and mocking observations, and to turn public opinion in advance against the queen, even in case the judges did not condemn her; that is, if they did not declare the cardinal innocent of conspiracy against the sovereign, and contempt of the majesty of the queen.

It was known that in his resume, the attorney-general had alluded to the punishment of the cardinal. That was the only news which had worked its way out of the court-room. Some favored journalist, or some friend of the queen, had heard this; it spread like the wind all over Paris, and in thousands upon thousands of copies the words of the attorney-general were distributed.

His address purported to run as follows: that "Cardinal de Rohan is indicted on the accusation, and must answer the Parliament and the attorney-general respecting the following charges: of audaciously mixing himself up with the affairs of the necklace, and still more audaciously in supposing that the queen would make an appointment with him by night; and that for this he would ask the pardon of the king and the queen in presence of the whole court. Further, the cardinal is enjoined to lay down his office as grand almoner within a certain time, to remove to a certain distance from the royal residence and not to visit the places where the royal family may be living, and lastly, to remain in prison till the complete termination of the trial."

The friends and dependants of the cardinal, the enemies and persecutors of the queen, received this decision of the attorney- general with vexation and anger; they found fault with the servility of the man who would suffer the law to bow before the throne; they made dishonorable remarks and calumnious innuendoes about the queen, who, with her coquetry and the amount received from the jewels, had gained over the judges, and who would, perhaps have appointed a rendezvous with every one of them in order to gain him over to her side.

"Even if the judges clear her," cried the sharp voice of Marat from the heart of the crowd, "the people will pa.s.s sentence upon her. The people are always right; the people cannot be bribed--they are like G.o.d in this; and the people will not disown their verdict before the beautiful eyes and the seductive smiles of the Austrian woman. The people will not be made fools of; they will not believe in the story of the counterfeited letters and the forged signature."

"No," shouted the crowd, laughing in derision, "we will not believe it. The queen wrote the letters; her majesty understands how to write love-letters!"

"The queen loves to have a hand in all kinds of nonsense," thundered the brewer Santerre, in another group. "She wanted to see whether a pretty girl from the street could play the part of the Queen of France, and at the same time she wanted to avenge herself upon the cardinal because she knew that he once found fault with her before her mother the empress, on account of her light and disreputable behavior, and the bad manners which, as the dauphiness, she would introduce into this court. Since then she has with her glances, her smiles, and her apparent anger, so worked upon the cardinal as to make him fall over ears in love with the beautiful, pouting queen.

And that was just what she wanted, for now she could avenge herself.

She appointed a rendezvous with the cardinal, and while she secretly looked on the scene in the thicket, she allowed the pretty Mademoiselle Oliva to play her part. And you see that it is not such a difficult thing to represent a queen, for Mademoiselle Oliva performed her part so well that the cardinal was deceived, and took a girl from the streets to be the Queen of France."

"Oh, better times are coming, better times are coming!" cried Simon the cobbler, who was close by, with his coa.r.s.e laugh. "The cardinal took a girl from the streets for the Queen of France; but wait a little and we shall see the time when she will have to sweep the streets with a broom, that the n.o.ble people may walk across with dry feet!"

In the loud laugh with which the crowd greeted this remark of the cobbler, was mingled one single cry of anger, which, however, was overborne by the rough merriment of the ma.s.s. It came from the lips of a man in simple citizen's costume, who had plunged into the mob and worked his way forward with strong arms, in order to reach a place as near as possible to the entrance-door of the prison, and to be among the first to learn the impending sentence.

No one, as just said, had heard this cry; no one had troubled himself about this young man, with the bold defiant face, who, with shrugged shoulders, was listening to the malicious speeches which were uttered all around him, and who replied to them all with flaming looks of anger, pressing his lips closely together, in order to hold back the words which could hardly be suppressed.

He succeeded at last in reaching the very door of the prison, and stood directing his eyes thither with gloomy looks of curiosity.

His whole soul lay in this look; he heard nothing of the mocking speeches which echoed around him; he saw nothing of what took place about him. He saw only this fatal door; he only heard the noises which proceeded from within the prison.

At last, after long waiting, and when the sun had set, the door opened a little, and a man came out. The people who, at his appearance, had broken into a loud cry of delight, were silent when it was seen that it was not the officer who would announce the verdict with his stentorian voice, but that it was only one of the ordinary servants of the court, who had been keeping watch at the outer gate.

This man ascended with an indifferent air the steps of the staircase, and to the loud questions which were hurled at him by the crowd, whether the cardinal were declared innocent, he answered quietly, "I do not know. But I think the officer will soon make his appearance. My time is up, and I am going home, for I am half dead with hunger and thirst."