Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 29

"Sire, now? shall we breakfast now?" asked the queen, amazed.

"Why not?" answered Louis calmly. "If the body is strengthened, we look at every thing more composedly and confidently. You must take breakfast too, Marie, for who knows whether we shall find time for some hours after this?"

"I! oh, I need no breakfast," cried Marie Antoinette; and as she saw Louis eagerly taking a cup of chocolate from the hands of a valet, and was going to enjoy it, she turned away to repress the tears of anger and pain which in spite of herself pressed into her eyes.

"Mamma queen," cried the dauphin, who was yet in her arms, "I should like my breakfast too. My chocolate--I should like my chocolate too!"

The queen compelled herself to smile, carried the child to its father, and softly set him down on the king's knee.

"Sire," said she, "will the King of France teach his son to take breakfast, while revolution is thundering without, and breaking down, with treasonable hands, the doors of the royal palace? Campan, come here--help me arrange my toilet; I want to prepare myself to give audience to revolution!"

And withdrawing to a corner of the room, the queen finished her toilet, for which her women fortunately had in their flight brought the materials.

While the queen was dressing and the king breakfasting with the children, the cabinet of the king began to fill. All Louis's faithful servants, then the ministers and some of the deputies, had hurried to the palace to be at the side of the king and queen at the hour of danger.

Every one of them brought new tidings of horror. St. Priest told how he, entering the Swiss room, at the door leading into the antechamber of the queen, had seen the body of Varicourt covered with wounds. The Duke de Liancourt had seen a dreadful man, of gigantic size, with heavy beard, the arms of his blouse rolled up high, and bearing a heavy hatchet-knife in his hand, springing upon the person of the faithful Swiss, in order to sever his head from his body. The Count de Borennes had seen the corpse of the Swiss officer, Baron de Deshuttes, who guarded the iron gate, and whom the people murdered as they entered. The Marquis de Croissy told of the heroism with which another Swiss, Miomandre of St. Marie, had defended the door between the suites of the king and queen, and had gained time to draw the bolt and barricade the door. And during all these reports, and while the cabinet was filling more and more with pale men and women, the king went composedly on dispatching his breakfast.

The queen, who had long before completed her toilet, now went up to him, and with gentle, tremulous voice conjured him to declare what should be done--to come at last out of this silence, and to speak and act worthy of a king.

Louis shrugged his shoulders and set the replenished cup which he was just lifting to his mouth, on the silver waiter. At once the queen beckoned to the valet Hue to come up.

"Sir," said she, commandingly, "take these things out. The king has finished his breakfast."

Louis sighed, and with his eye followed the valet, who was carrying the breakfast into the garde-robe.

"Now, sire," whispered Marie Antoinette, "show yourself a king."

"My love," replied the king, quietly, "it is very hard to show myself a king when the people do not choose to regard me as one.

Only hear that shouting and yelling, and then tell me what I can do as a king to bring these mad men to peace and reason?"

"Sire, raise your voice as king; tell them that you will avenge the crimes of this night, take the sword in your hand and defend the throne of your fathers and the throne of your son, and then you will see these rebels retire, and you will collect around you men who will be animated with fresh courage, and who will take new fire from your example. Oh, sire, disregard now the pleadings of your n.o.ble, gentle heart; show yourself firm and decided. Have no leniency for traitors and rebels!"

"Tell me what I shall do," murmured the king, with a sigh.

Marie Antoinette stooped down to his ear. "Sire," whispered she, "send at once to Vincennes, and the other neighboring places. Order the troops to come hither, collect an army, put yourself at its head, march on Paris, declare war on the rebellious capital, and you will march as conqueror into your recaptured city. Oh, only no yielding, no submission! Only give the order, sire; say that you will do so, and I will summon one of my faithful ones to give him orders to hasten to Vincennes."

And while the queen whispered eagerly to the king, her flas.h.i.+ng glance sped across to Toulan, who, in the tumult, had found means to come in, and now looked straight at the queen. Now, as her glance came to him as an unspoken command, he made his way irresistibly forward through the crowd of courtiers, ministers, and ladies, and now stood directly behind the queen.

"Has your majesty orders for me?" he asked, softly. She looked anxiously at the king, waiting for an answer, an order. But the king was dumb; in order not to answer his wife, he drew the dauphin closer to him and caressed him.

"Has your majesty commands for me?" asked Toulan once more.

Marie Antoinette turned to him, her eyes suffused with tears, and let Toulan see her face darkened with grief and despair.

"No," she whispered, "I have only to obey; I have no commands to give!"

"Lafayette," was now heard in the corridor--"General Lafayette is coming!"

The queen advanced with hasty steps toward the entering general.

"Sir," she cried, "is this the peace and security that you promised us, and for which you pledged your word? Hear that shouting without, see us as if beleaguered here, and then tell me how it agrees with the a.s.surances which you made to me!"

"Madame, I have been myself deceived," answered Lafayette. "The most sacred promises were made to me; all my requests and propositions were yielded to. I succeeded in pacifying the crowd, and I really believed and hoped that they would continue quiet; that--

"Sir," interrupted the queen, impatiently, "Whom do you mean by 'they?' Of whom are you speaking in such tones of respect?"

"Madame, I am speaking of the people, with whom I came to an understanding, and who promised me to keep the peace, and to respect the slumbers of your majesty."

"You are not speaking of the people, but of the rebels, the agitators," cried Marie Antoinette, with flas.h.i.+ng eyes. "You speak of high traitors, who break violently into the palace of the king; of murderers, who have destroyed two of our faithful subjects. Sir, it is of such crime that you speak with respect; it is with such a rabble that you have dealt, instead of ordering your soldiers to cut them down."

"Madame," said Lafayette, turning pale, "had I attempted to do that, your majesty would not have found refuge in this chamber. For the anger of the mob is like the lightning and thunder of the tempest, it heeds neither door nor bolt, and if it has once broken loose, nothing can restrain or stop it."

"Oh," cried the queen, with a mocking laugh, "it is plain that Mr.

Lafayette has been pursuing his studies in America, at the university of revolutions. He speaks of the people with a deference as if it were another majesty to bow to."

"And in that Lafayette is right," said the king, rising and approaching them. "Hear the yell, madame! it sounds like the roaring of lions, and you know, Marie, that the lion is called the king of beasts. Tell us, general, what does the lion want, and what does his roaring mean?"

"Sire, the enemies of the royal family, the agitators and rebels, who have within these last hours come from Paris, have urged on the people afresh, and kindled them with senseless calumnies. They have persuaded the people that your majesty has summoned hither the regiments from all the neighboring stations; that you are collecting an army to put yourself at its head and march against Paris."

Louis cast a significant look at his wife, which was answered with a proud toss of her head.

"I have sought in vain," continued Lafayette, "to make the poor, misguided men conscious of the impossibility of such a plan."

"Yet, sir," broke in Marie Antoinette, fiercely, "the execution of this plan would save the crown from dishonor and humiliation!"

"Only, madame, that it is exactly the execution of it which is impossible," answered Lafayette, gently bowing.

"If you could give wings to the soldiers of the various garrisons away from here, the plan might be good, and the army might save the country! But as, unfortunately, this cannot be, we must think of other means of help, for your majesty hears the danger knocking now at the door, and we must do with pacificatory measures what we cannot do with force."

"How will you use pacificatory measures, sir?" asked Marie Antoinette, angrily.

Lafayette cast upon her a sad, pained look, and turned to the king.

"Sire," said he, with loud, solemn voice, "sire, the people are frightfully carried away. Stimulating speeches have driven them to despair and to madness. It is only with difficulty that we have succeeded in keeping the mob out of the palace, and closing the door again. 'Paris shall be laid in ashes!' is the horrible cry which drives all these hearts to rage, and to which they give unconditional belief!"

"I will show myself to the people," said Louis. "I will tell them that they have been deceived. I will give them my royal word that I have no hostile designs whatever against Paris."

General Lafayette sighed, and dropped his head heavily upon his breast.

"Do you counsel me not to do this?" asked the king, timidly.

"Sire," answered the general, with a shrug, "the people are now in such an excited, unreasonable state, that words will no longer be sufficient to satisfy them. Your majesty might a.s.sure them ever so solemnly that you entertain no hostile intentions whatever against Paris, and that you will not call outside help to your a.s.sistance, and the exasperated people would mistrust your a.s.surances! For in all their rage the people have a distinct consciousness of the crimes they are engaged in committing in creating this rebellion against the crown, and they know that it were not human, that it were divine, for your majesty to forgive such crimes, and therefore they would not credit such forgiveness."

"How well General Lafayette knows how to interpret the thoughts of this fanatical rabble, whom he calls 'the people!' "e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the queen, with a scornful laugh. At this instant a loud, thundering cry was heard below, and thousands upon thousands of voices shouted, "The king! We want to see the king!"

Louis's face lighted up. With quick step he hurried to the window and raised it. The people did not see him at once, but the king saw.

He saw the immense square in front of the palace, which had been devoted to the rich equipages of the n.o.bility, occupied by the humbler cla.s.ses--the troops of his staff marching up in their gala uniforms--he saw it filled with a dense ma.s.s of men whom Lafayette had called "the people," whom the queen had termed a "riotous rabble," surging up and down, head pressed to head, here and there faces distorted with rage, eyes blazing, fists clinched, arms bare, and pikes glistening in the morning light, while a great roar, like that which comes from the sea in a tempest, filled the air.

"You are right, Lafayette," said the king, who looked calmly at this black sea of human life--"you are right, this is the people; there are here probably twenty thousand men, and Heaven defend me from regarding all as criminals and rabble! I believe--"