CHAPTER III.
THE UNDYING MAN.
It was the more easy for the pretended gunsmith to blend with the crowdas it was numerous.
It was the advance guard of the procession around the King, Queen andthe Prince Royal, leaving the court suburb at half past one.
In the royal coach were the Queen, her son, her daughter, called MadamRoyale though a child, Count Provence, the King's brother. LadyElizabeth his sister, and the Queen's favorite lady of the household,Andrea Taverney Countess of Charny.
In a hundred carriages came the National Assemblymen who had declaredthey would henceforth be inseparable from the monarch.
This mob was about a quarter of an hour ahead of the royal party, andrallied round the two royal guardsmen's heads as their colors. Allstopped at the Sevres wine saloon. The collection was of tattered andhalf-drunken wretches, the scum that comes to the surface whether theinundation is water or lava.
Suddenly, great stir in the concourse, for they had seen the NationalGuards' bayonets and General Lafayette's white horse, immediatelypreceding the royal coach.
Lafayette was fond of popular gatherings: he really reigned among theParis people whose idol he was. But he did not like the lowest orders.Paris, like Rome, had a grade under the mere mob.
In particular, he did not approve of Lynch Law, and he had done hisutmost to try to save those aristocrats whom the crowd had executed. Itwas to hide their trophies and preserve the bloody tokens of victorythat the multitude kept on ahead. But on being encouraged by the trio ofcaptains waiting at the Sevres saloon, they decided to keep the heads upand wait for the King, so that he should not be parted from his faithfulguards.
The mob was increased by the country folks flocking to the road from allquarters to see the cortege go by. A few cheered, adding their uproar tothe howls, hoots and groans of the marching column, but the majority,stood dull and quiet on both sides of the road.
Did this mean that they were for the Royal Family? No: or at leastunless they belonged to the court party, everybody, even the uppermiddle class, suffered more or less from the dreadful famine spreadingover the kingdom. If they did not insult the King and Queen, theyremained hushed, and the silence of an assemblage is often worse than aninsult.
On the other hand the myriads roared with all their lung power: "Hurrahfor Lafayette!" who took off his hat now and then or waved the sword inhis right hand: and "Long live Mirabeau!" who thrust his head out of thecarriage window, where he was one of six, to get a whiff of the airnecessary for his broad chest.
Hence, amid the silence for himself, the unfortunate Louis XVI. heardapplauded that Popularity which he had lost and that Genius which he hadnever possessed.
By the King's right side carriage-window walked a man in a black suitwhose dress pointed him out as one of the Philosophers, as they weretermed, or Revolutionists who worked intellectually for the ameliorationof the monarchy. This was the royal honorary physician, Dr. HonoreGilbert. The crowd cheered him at times, for he was a hero of their own.Born a Frenchman, of humble degree, a boy on the estate of theultra-royalist Baron Taverney, he had educated himself in democraticlearning. Falling in love with his master's lovely daughter, Andrea,since Countess of Charny, he had followed her to court. At Paris hebecame favorite pupil of Rousseau, the revolutionist, and this fartherconfirmed him in his subversive principles.
But having taken advantage of Andrea while she was powerless under theinfluence of a mesmeric sleep, he fled the country. He had deposited insure hands the living evidence of his crime, a boy named Emile (In honorof Rousseau, who wrote a book so called) Sebastian Gilbert, and fled thecountry. But at the Azores Islands he came in contact with the younglady's brother Philip, who shot him down and believed he left him dead.
But, restored to life by his friend, the Baron Balsamo, otherwiseCagliostro the Magician he accompanied him to America.
The two formed part of the legion of Frenchmen who helped the revoltedThirteen Colonies to throw off the British yoke.
Returning to his country he was arrested at Havre and thown into theBastile. When that hated prison was stormed by the Parisians led by theFarmer Billet, he was rescued. He had gone to court to learn who hadcaused this arrest, and to his amazement discovered that its author wasthe woman whom he had unutterably wronged. Yes, the baron's daughter hadmarried the Queen's favorite, thought by some to be her paramour, CountGeorge Charny, very rich, very brave and altogether fit to create her apower in the realm.
Gilbert had a sincere pity for royalty under a cloud. He was known tothe King as the author of certain articles on the way to steer the Shipof State, and his offer to serve him was gladly accepted.
The mob cheered at the remarkable shaking up of the sands in Time's boxby which the revolutionary advocate, fresh from the Bastile dungeons,should walk at the side of the King's coach to shield his life from theassassin. No mere touch of rhetoric, for on the royal visit to Parislately a bullet had cut a button off the doctor's coat and slain a womanin the throng: this graceful gentlemen in black was then a bettersafeguard than the soldiers whose heads were now garnishing the pikesthere in advance.
Queen Marie Antoinette looked with wonder at this doctor, whose stoicismshe could not understand, while to it the American manner of forcedquiet added more sternness. Without love or devotion for his sovereigns,he carried out what he considered duty towards them, as ready to die forthem as those who had the qualities of the loyalist he lacked.
On both sides of the royal coach tramped men and women, in mud sixinches deep, while amid the ribbons and rags, the Fishmarket women andporters of the Paris Markets swarmed round waves more compact than therest of the human sea. These clumps were cannon or ammunition wagons, onwhich sat women singing at the top of their voices. An old song whichhad been applied to King Louis XV.'s mistress Jeanne Dubarry, and wasnow altered to suit Marie Antoinette and the situation of affairs, wastheir choice. They roared:
"The Baker's wife has got the cash, which costs her very little."
They also kept reiterating: "We shall not want for bread any more, as wehave got the Baker, the Baker's Wife and the Baker's Little Boy along."
The Queen seemed to listen to it all without understanding. Between herknees she held her son, who looked at the multitude as frightenedprinces stare when appalled.
The King watched with a dull and heavy eye. He had little sleep in thenight; he had not made a good breakfast though usually a hearty eater;he had no time to have his hair dressed and his beard had grown long.His linen was limp and roughened, too--all things to his disadvantage.Alas, Louis was not the man for emergencies, and this was a period ofemergencies. He bent his head when they came: save once when he held hischin up--it was when he walked upon the scaffold.
Lady Elizabeth was the angel of sweetness and resignation placed byheaven beside those doomed creatures to console the King during theQueen's absence; and the Queen after the King's death.
Count Provence, here as everywhere, had the squinting glance of a falseman; he knew that he ran no present danger; he was the popular member ofthe family--no one knew why--perhaps because he remained in France when hisbrother Artois fled.
Could the King have read his heart, he might not have felt any gratitudeto him for what he pledged in the way of devotion.
Countess Andrea seemed of marble. She had recognized the man she mosthated in the King's new confidential adviser, and one whom the Queenseemed bound to win to her side. Like a statue, the stir round herseemed not to affect her, and she looked in attire as trim as if freshfrom a band-box. One thought was alive within her, fierce andluminous--love for some unknown--perchance her husband, or hate forGilbert--at whom she darted lightnings involuntarily whenever theirglances crossed. But she felt that she might not defy his with impunity,for he was a pupil of Balsamo Cagliostro, the arch-mesmerist, and mightsway her with the same art.
A hundred paces on the other side of the little drinking saloon, theroyal train stopped. All along the line the clamo
r doubled.
The Queen bent out of the window and as the movement looked like a bowto the crowd, there was a long murmur. She called Dr. Gilbert.
He went up to the window: as he had kept his hat off all the way, hehad no need to bare his head in respect. His attitude showed he wasentirely under her orders.
"What are your people shouting and singing?" she requested to know.
The Queen's form of putting the question showed that she had beenruminating it for some time. He sighed as much as to say, it is the sameold story.
"Alas, my lady," he proceeded with profound melancholy, "those you callmy people, were yours in former times, and it is less than twenty yearsago when Lord Brissac, a delightful courtier whom I look in vain forhere, showed you the same people shouting for the Dauphin under the CityHall windows and said: 'You behold twenty thousand admirers there.'"
The Queen bit her lips from the impossibility of catching this man inwant of a repartee or of respect.
"That is true--it only proves that the many-headed change," she said.
Gilbert bowed this time, without retort.
"I asked you a question, doctor," persisted the lady, with the obstinacyshe had for even disagreeable matters.
"Yes, and I answer since your Majesty insists. They are singing that theBaker's Wife has plenty of money which it gave her no trouble to get.You are aware that they style your Majesty the Baker's Wife?"
"Just as they called me Lady Deficit before. Is there any connectionbetween the nicknames?"
"So much also as the finances are concerned. They mean by your moneybeing easily come by that you had complaisant treasurers such as Calonnein particular, who gave you whatever you asked; the people thereforeassume that you got your money readily for the asking."
The Queen's hand was clenched on the red velvet carriage-window ledge.
"So much for what they are singing. Now, for what they bellow out?"
"They say that they shall no longer want for bread since they have theBaker, the Baker's Wife and the Baker's Son among them."
"I expect you to make this second piece of insolence clear."
"You would see that they are not so much to blame as you fancy if youwere to look to the intention and not weigh the words of the people.Wrongly or rightfully, the masses believe that a great Grain Trust iscarried on at Versailles. This prevents flour from coming freely intothe capital. Who feeds the Paris poor? the Baker. Towards whom does theworking man and his wife hold out their supplicating hands when theirchildren cry for food? the baker and the baker's wife. Who do they prayto after the Sender of the harvest? the lady of the estate--that is, theloaf-giver, as the name is derived. Are not you three the loaf-giversfor the country, the King, yourself and this august child? Do not beastonished at the mighty, blessed name the people give you, but thankthem for cherishing the hope that as soon as the King, the Queen andtheir son are in the midst of the famished thousands, they will nolonger be in want."
For an instant the royal lady closed her eyes, and she made the movementof swallowing as though to keep down her hatred as well as bitter salivawhich scorched her throat.
"So we ought to thank these howlers for their songs and nick-names uponus?"
"Yes, and most sincerely: the song is but an expression of their goodhumor as the shouts are of their expectations. The whole explains theirdesire."
"So they want Lafayette and Mirabeau to live long?"
"Yes," returned Gilbert, seeing that the Queen had clearly heard thecries, "for those two leaders, separated by the gulf over which youhang, may, united, save the monarchy."
"Do you mean that the monarchy has sunk so low that it can be picked upby those two?" queried the lady.
He was going to make some kind of reply when a burst of voices, indread, with atrocious peals of laughter and a great swaying of thegathering, driving Gilbert closer to the vehicle, announced that hewould be needed in defense of the Queen by speech or action. It was thetwo head-carriers, who, after having made Leonard barb and curl thehair, wanted to have the fun of presenting them to Marie Antoinette--asother roughs, or perhaps the same--had presented the dead heads of sonsto their fathers.
The crowd yelled with horror and fell away as these ghastly things cameup.
"In heaven's name, do not look to the right," cried Gilbert.
The Queen was no woman to obey such an injunction without a peep to seethe reason. So her first movement was to turn her gaze in the forbiddendirection and she uttered a scream of fright. But, all of a sudden, asshe tore her sight from this horrible spectacle as if they were Gorgonheads, they became fixed as though they met another view even moreawful, from which she could not detach it.
This Medusa's head was the stranger's who had been drinking and chattingwith Locksmith Gamain in the wine-store: with folded arms, he wasleaning against a tree.
The Queen's hand left the window cushion, and resting on Gilbert'sshoulder, he felt her clench her nails into its flesh. He turned to seeher pale, with fixed eyes and quivering, blanched lips.
He would have ascribed the emotion to the two death's heads but for hernot looking at either. The gaze was in another direction, travelingvisually in which he descried the object and he emitted a cry of amaze.
"Cagliostro!" both uttered at the same time.
The man at the tree clearly saw the Queen, but all he did was beckon forGilbert to come to him.
At this point of time the carriages started on once more. By a naturaland mechanical impulse the Queen gave Gilbert an outward push to preventhis being run over by the wheel. It looked as though she urged himtowards the summoner. Anyhow, he was not sufficiently master of himselfnot to obey the mandate. Motionless, he let the party proceed; then,following the mock gunsmith who merely looked back to be sure he wasfollowed, he entered behind him a little lane going uphill to Bellevue,where they disappeared behind a wall at the same time as the processionwent out of sight in a declivity of the hills, as though plunging intoan abyss.
The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty Page 3