Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 37

"Ah, see," cried Madame Elizabeth, with a smile, "I believe now our Louis has fallen asleep."

But the child quickly raised his head and looked at the smiling young princess with a reproachful glance.

"Ah, my dear aunt," cried he, reprovingly, "how could any one sleep when mamma sings?" [Footnote: The dauphin's own words.--See Beauchesne, vol. i., p. 27.]

Marie Antoinette drew the child within her arms, and her countenance beamed with delight. Never had the queen received so grateful a compliment from the most flattering courtier as these words of her fair-haired boy conveyed, who threw his arms around her neck and nestled up to her.

The Queen of France is still a rich, enviable woman, for she has children who love her; the Queen of France ought not to look without courage into the future, for the future belongs to her son. The throne which now is so tottering and insecure, shall one day belong to him, the darling of her heart, and therefore must his mother struggle with all her power, and with all the means at her command contend for the throne for the Dauphin of France, that he may receive the inheritance of his father intact, and that his throne may not in the future plunge down into the abyss which the revolution has opened.

No, the dauphin, Louis Charles, shall not then think reproachfully of his parents; he shall not have cause to complain that through want of spirit and energy they have imperilled or lost the sacred heritage of his fathers.

No, Queen Marie Antoinette may not halt and lose courage,--not even when her husband has done so, and when he is prepared to humbly bow his sacred head beneath that yoke of revolution, which the heroes and orators selected by the nation have wished to put upon his neck in the name of France.

This makes hers a double duty, to be active, to plan, and work; to keep her head erect, and look with searching eye in all directions to see whence help and deliverance are to come.

Not from without can they come, not from foreign monarchs, nor from the exiled princes. Foreign armies which might march into the country would place the king, who had summoned them to fight with his own people, in the light of a traitor; and the moment that they should pa.s.s the frontiers of France, the wrath of the nation would annihilate the royal couple.

Only from those who had called down the danger could help come. The chiefs of the revolution, the men who had raised their threatening voices against the royal couple, must be won over to become the advocates of royalty. And who was more powerful, who more conspicuous among all these chiefs of the revolution, and all the orators of the National a.s.sembly, than Count Mirabeau!

When he ascended the Speaker's tribune of the National a.s.sembly all were silent, and even his opponents listened with respectful attention to his words, which found an echo through all France; when he spoke, when from his lips the thunder of his speeches resounded, the lightning flashed in his eyes, and his head was like the head of a lion, who, with the shaking of his mane and the power of his anger, destroyed every thing which dared to put itself in his way.

And the French nation loved this lion, and listened in reverential silence to the thunder of his speech, and the throne shook before him. And the excitable populace shouted with admiration whenever they saw the lion, and deified that Count Mirabeau, who, with his powerul, lace-cuffed hand, had thrust these words into the face of his own caste: "They have done nothing more than to give themselves the trouble to be born."

The people loved this aristocrat, who was abhorred by his family and the men of his own rank; this count whom, the n.o.bility hated because the Third Estate loved him.

CHAPTER XVII.

MIRABEAU.

"Count Mirabeau must be won over," Count de la Marck ventured to say one day to Marie Antoinette. "Count Mirabeau is now the mightiest man in France, and he alone is able to bring the nation back again to the throne."

"It is he," replied the queen, with a glow, "who is most to blame for alienating the nation from the throne. Never will the renegade count be forgiven! Never can the king stoop so low as to pardon this apostate, who frivolously professes the new religion of 'liberty,'

and disowns the faith of his fathers."

"Your majesty," replied Count de la Marck, with a sigh, "it may be that in the hand of this renegade lies the future of your son."

The queen trembled, and the proud expression on her features was softened.

"The future of my son?" said she. "What do you mean by that? What has Count Mirabeau to do with the dauphin? His wrath follows us only, his hatred rests upon us alone! I grant that at present he is powerful, but over the future he has no sway. I hope, on the contrary, that the future will avenge the evil that Mirabeau does to us in the present."

"But how does it help, madame, if vengeance hurries him on?" asked Count de la Marck, sadly. "The temple which Samson pulled down was not built again, that Samson might be taken from its ruins; it remained in its dust and fragments, and its glory was gone forever.

Oh, I beseech your majesty, do not listen to the voice of your righteous indignation, but only to the voice of prudence. Master your n.o.ble, royal heart, and seek to reconcile your adversaries, not to punish them!"

"What do you desire of me?" asked Marie Antoinette, in amazement.

"What shall I do?"

"Your majesty must chain the lion," whispered the count. "Your majesty must have the grace to change Mirabeau the enemy into Mirabeau the devoted ally and friend!"

"Impossible, it is impossible!" cried the queen, in horror. "I cannot descend to this. I never can view with friendly looks this monster who is accountable for the horrors of those October days. I can only speak of this man, who has created his reputation out of his crimes, who is a faithless son, a faithless husband, a faithless lover, a faithless aristocrat, and a faithless royalist--I can only speak of him in words of loathing, scorn, and horror! No, rather die than accept a.s.sistance from Count Mirabeau! Do you not know, count, that he honors me his queen with his enmity and his contempt? Is it not Mirabeau who caused the States-General to accept the words 'the person of the king is inviolable,' and to reject the words 'and that of the queen?' Was it not Mirabeau who once, when my friends exhorted him to moderation, and besought him to soften his words about the Queen of France, had the grace to answer with a shrug, 'Well, she may keep her life!' Was it not Mirabeau who was to blame for the October days? Was it not Mirabeau who publicly said: 'The king and the queen are lost. The people hate them so, that they would even destroy their corpses?'" [Footnote: The queen's own words.--See Goncourt, "Marie Antoinette," p. 305.]

"Your majesty, Mirabeau said that, not as a threat, but out of pity, and deep concern and sympathy."

"Sympathy!" repeated the queen, "Mirabeau, who hates us!"

"No, your majesty, Mirabeau, who honors his queen, who is ready to give his life for you and for the monarchy, if your majesty will forgive him and receive him as a defender of the throne!"

The queen shuddered, and looked in astonishment and terror at the excited face of Count de la Marck. "Are you speaking of Mirabeau, the tribune of the people," she asked, "the fiery orator of the National a.s.sembly?"

"I am speaking of Count Mirabeau, who yesterday was the enemy of the throne, and who to-day will be a zealous defender, if your majesty will only have it so--if your majesty will only speak a gracious word to him."

"It is impossible, it is impossible!" whispered the queen.

De la Marck continued: "Since he has frequently seen your majesty-- since he has had occasion to observe your proud spirit and lofty resignation--a change has taken place in the character of Mirabeau.

He is subdued as the lion is subdued, when the beaming eye of a pure soul looks it in the face. He might be of service again, he might be reconciled! He writes, he speaks of his exalted queen with admiration, with enthusiasm; he glows with a longing desire to confess his sins at the feet of your majesty, and to receive your forgiveness."

"Does the king know this?" asked Marie Antoinette. "Has any one told his majesty?"

"I should not have taken the liberty of speaking to your majesty about these things if the king had not authorized me," replied Count de la Marck, bowing. "His majesty recognizes it to be a necessary duty to gain Mirabeau to the throne, and he hopes to have in this matter the cooperation of his exalted wife."

Marie Antoinette sadly shook her head. "I will speak with his majesty about it," she said, with a sigh, "but only under circ.u.mstances of extreme urgency can I submit to this, I tell you in advance."

But the case was of extreme urgency, and when Marie Antoinette had seen it to be so, she kept her word and conformed to it, and commissioned Count de la Marck to tell his friend Mirabeau that the queen would grant him an audience.

But in order that this audience might be of advantage, it must be conducted with the deepest secrecy. No one ought to suspect that Mirabeau, the tribune of the people, the adored hero of the revolution--Mirabeau, who ruled the National a.s.sembly, and Paris itself, whom the freest of the free hailed as their apostle and saviour, who with the power of his eloquence ruled the spirits of thousands and hundreds of thousands of men,--no one could suspect that the leader of the revolution would now become the devoted dependant upon the monarchy, and the paid servant of the king.

Two conditions Mirabeau had named, when Count de la Marck had tried to gain him over in the name of the king: an audience with the queen, and the payment of his debts, together with a monthly pension of a hundred louis-d'or.

"I am paid, but not bought," said Mirabeau, as he received his first payment. "Only one of my conditions is fulfilled, but what will become of the other?"

"And so you still insist on having an audience with the queen?"

asked La Marck.

"Yes, I insist upon it," said Mirabeau, with naming eyes. "If I am to battle and speak for this monarchy, I must learn to respect it.

If I am to believe in the possibility of restoring it, I must believe in its capacity of life; I must see that I have to deal with a brave, decided, n.o.ble man. The true and real king here is Marie Antoinette; and there is only one man in the whole surroundings of Louis XVI., and that is his wife. I must speak with her, in order to hear and to see whether she is worth the risking of my life, honor, and popularity. If she really is the heroine that I hold her to be, we will both united save the monarchy, and the throne of Louis XVI., whose king is Marie Antoinette. The moment is soon to come when we shall learn what a woman and a child can accomplish, and whether the daughter of Maria Theresa with the dauphin in her arms cannot stir the hearts of the French as her great mother once stirred the Hungarians." [Footnote:Mirabeau's own words.--See "Marie Antoinette et sa Famille." Far M. de Lescure. p. 478.]

"Do you then believe the danger is so great," asked La Marck, "that it is necessary to resort to extreme, heroic measures?"

Mirabeau grasped his arm with a sudden movement, and an expression of solemn earnestness filled his lion-like face. "I am convinced of it," he answered, "and I will add, the danger is so great, that if we do not soon meet it and in heroic fas.h.i.+on, it will not be possible to control it. There is no other security for the queen than through the reestablishment of the royal authority. I believe of her, that she does not desire life without her crown, and I am certain that, in order to keep her life, she must before all things preserve her crown. And I will help her and stand by her in it; and for this end I must myself speak with her and have an audience."

[Footnote: Mirabeau's own words.--See Count de la Marck, "Mirabeau,"

vol. 21. p. 50.]

And Mirabeau, the first man in the revolution had his audience with Marie Antoinette, the dying champion of monarchy.

On the 3rd of July, 1790, the meeting of the queen and Mirabeau took place in the park of St. Cloud. Secrecy and silence surrounded them, and extreme care had been taken to let no one suspect, excepting a few intimate friends, what was taking place on this sequestered, leaf-embowered gra.s.s-plat of St. Cloud.

A bench of white marble, surrounded by high oleander and taxus trees, stood at the side of this gra.s.s-plat. It was the throne on which Marie Antoinette should receive the homage of her new knight.