"The sins of a century whose scapegoat I am; I am expiating the sins of Madame de Pompadour, Madame Dubarry, the Parc-aux-Cerfs; the sins of poor Latude, who for thirty years rotted in dungeons, and was immortalized by suffering,—one more victim who caused the Bastille to be detested. Poor fellow! Ah, Madame! what blunders I have made in giving effect to the stupid measures of others! Philosophers, political economists, scientists, men of letters, I have taken part in persecuting them all. Good Heavens! these men asked for nothing better than to love me. If they had loved me they would have at once constituted the glory and the happiness of my reign. Monsieur Rousseau, for example, that bugbear of Sartines and others—ah well! I saw him one day myself, that day you made him come to Trianon, you recollect. His clothes, it is true, were ill brushed, and it is also true that his beard was long; but he was nevertheless a good man. If I had donned my rough gray coat and thick stockings, and had said to Monsieur Rousseau, 'Let us go and gather mosses in the woods of Ville d'Avray—'"
"Ah, well! what then?" interrupted the queen, with supreme contempt.
"Well, then Monsieur Rousseau would not have written the 'Vicar of Savoy' nor the 'Social Contract.'"
"Yes, yes, I am well aware of that; that is the way you reason," said Marie Antoinette. "You are a prudent man; you fear your people as the dog does his master."
"Not so, but as the master fears his dog; it is something to be sure that one's dog will not bite him. Madame, when I walk with Médor, that Pyrenean hound of which the king of Spain made me a present, I feel quite proud of his friendship. Laugh if you will, but it is nevertheless true that Médor, if he was not my friend, would chew me up with his great white teeth. You see I say to him: 'Pretty Médor, good Médor,' and he licks me. I prefer his tongue to his tusks."
"Be it so, then; flatter the revolutionists, caress them, throw titbits to them."
"Oh, the very thing I am going to do I have no other project, believe me. Yes, my decision is taken. I will lay up a little money, and then I will deal with these gentlemen as if they were so many Cerberi. Ah, but stay! There is Monsieur de Mirabeau—"
"Oh, yes! tell me about that ferocious brute."
"With fifty thousand livres a month he will be a Médor, whereas if we wait, he will not perhaps be satisfied with less than half a million."
The queen laughed scornfully.
"Oh, the idea of flattering people like him!"
"Monsieur Bailly," continued the king, "having become minister of arts—an office which I am going to institute for my amusement—will be another Médor. Pardon me, Madame, if I do not entertain the same views that you do, but I am of the same opinion as my ancestor Henry IV. He was a profound politician if there ever was one, and I remember well what he said."
"What did he say?"
"'Flies are not caught with vinegar.'"
"Sancho said that also, or something very like it."
"Well, Sancho would have made the people of Barataria very happy, had there been such a place as Barataria."
"Sire, your ancestor Henry IV., whom you bring forward, caught wolves as well as flies. Witness Marshal de Biron, whose throat he cut. He could say then what he pleased. By reasoning like Henry and acting as you do, you take all prestige from royalty, which can only exist by prestige. You degrade the principle, 'What will majesty become?' Majesty, I am aware, is but a word, but in this word centre all the royal virtues: 'He who respects, loves; he who loves, obeys—'"
"Ah! let us speak of majesty," interrupted the king, with a smile; "yes, let us speak of it. You, for example, are as majestic as one can be; and I know of none in Europe, not even your mother, Marie Thérèse, who has promoted as you have the science of majesty."
"I understand you; you mean that my majesty does not prevent my being abhorred by the French people."
"I do not say 'abhorred,' my dear Antoinette," said the king, gently; "but perhaps you are not so much loved as you deserve to be."
"Sir," said the queen, deeply wounded, "you only echo all that is said. I have, nevertheless, injured nobody; on the contrary, I have often benefited my sub- jets. Why should they hate me as you say? Why should they not love me, were it not that there are people who make it their business to repeat daily, 'The queen is not loved!' Are you aware, sir, that one voice alone is needed to say that, in order that a hundred voices should repeat it; a hundred voices evoke ten thousand. Then, in unison with these ten thousand voices everybody repeats: 'The queen is not loved!' And the queen is not loved simply because one person said: 'The queen is not loved!'"
"Good heavens!" muttered the king.
"Thank goodness," interrupted the queen, "I have but little faith in popularity; but I also believe that my unpopularity is exaggerated. Praises are not showered down upon me, it is true; but I was once the popular idol, and because they loved me too much, they now run to the opposite extreme and hate me."
"Stay, Madame," said the king; "you know not the whole truth, and are still laboring under a delusion; were we not talking of the Bastille?"
"Yes."
"Well, there was a large room in the Bastille full of all sorts of books written against you. They will surely have burned all that."
"With what did these books accuse me?"
"Ah, you very well know, Madame, that I take not upon me to be your accuser, and have no wish to be your judge. When these pamphlets appeared, I had the whole edition seized and buried in the Bastille. But sometimes these books fall into my own hands. For instance, I have one here now," said the king, striking his coat pocket, "and it is simply abominable."
"Show it me," cried the queen.
"I cannot," said the king; "it contains engravings."
"And have you come to that? Have you reached that point of blindness and imbecility that you do not even attempt to trace all these base slanders to their source?"
"That is just what I have done. I have traced them to their source; there is not one of my lieutenants of police who has not grown gray in that service."
"Then you know the author of these indignities?"
"I know one of the authors, at least,—Monsieur Furth, the author of that one; there is his receipt for 22,500 livres. You see when the thing is worth the trouble, I do not regard the expense."
"But the others,—the others!"
"Ah, they are often poor hungry wretches who vegetate in England or Holland. We are bitten, stung, irritated; we ferret them out, expecting to find a serpent, a crocodile, to crush, to kill. Nothing of the sort; but we find an insect, so mean, so base, so despicable, that we dare not dirty our hands by touching it, even to punish it."
"That is all very fine! But if you care not to touch insects, why not accuse boldly the sun which calls them into existence. In truth, we may safely affirm that their sun is Philip of Orléans."
"Ha!" exclaimed the king, clapping his hands, "are you there? Monsieur d'Orléans! nay, nay, seek not to embroil me with him."
"Embroil you with your enemy, Sire! Oh, the idea is original!"
The king shrugged his shoulders.
"There now," said he, "there is your system of interpreting matters. Monsieur d'Orléans! You attack Monsieur d'Orléans, who has just placed himself under my orders to fight the rebels,—who leaves Paris and hastens to Versailles! Monsieur d'Orléans my enemy! Truly, Madame, the hatred you bear to the house of Orléans surpasses all conception."
"Oh, he has come, has he? and do you know the reason? He fears that his absence might be remarked in the general demonstration of loyalty. He has come because he is a coward."
"Indeed! We are going to begin again. Whoever first imputed such motives to Orléans is a coward. You had it inserted in your gazette that he showed the white feather at Ushant, because you wished to dishonor him. Ah, well! it was a calumny, Madame. Philip was not afraid; Philip did not flee. Had he fled, he would not belong to the family. The Orléans are brave. The fact is indisputable. The chief of the family, who seemed rather to have descended from Henry III. than
from Henry IV., was brave, in spite of D'Effiat and Chevalier de Lorraine. He braved death at the battle of Cassel. The regent had indeed some trifling things to say against him on the score of manners; but he exposed his life at Steinkerque, at Nerwinde, and at Almanza like the meanest soldier in his army. Tell only half the truth, Madame, if you will; but tell not the evil that has no existence."
"Your Majesty is in the vein of whitewashing all the revolutionists. You will see, you will see what that fellow is worth. Oh, if I regret the destruction of the Bastille, it is on his account; yes, I repent that criminals were thrown into it, while he was at large."
"Ah, well!" said the king, "if Monsieur d'Orléans had been in the Bastille, we should be in a fine predicament to-day."
"In that case what would have happened, I should like to know?"
"You are aware, Madame, that his bust was prome- naded round, crowned with flowers, together with that of Monsieur de Necker."
"I am."
"Ah, well! once out of the Bastille, Monsieur d'Orléans would have been king of France."
"And perhaps you would have thought that just," said Marie Antoinette, in a tone of bitter irony.
"I' faith, yes; shrug your shoulders as much as you please. To judge others, I look at matters from their point of view. From the height of the throne we cannot well see the people; I descend to their level, and I ask myself if as a burgess or a clod-hopper I could suffer a noble to count me among his cows and poultry as a chattel! if, as a farmer, I could endure that my lord's ten thousand pigeons should daily eat ten grains each of wheat, oats, or buckwheat, that is to say, about two bushels, whilst his hares and rabbits browsed on my clover, whilst his wild boars rooted up my potatoes, whilst his tax-gatherers tithed my produce, whilst my lord himself kissed my wife and daughters, whilst the king pressed my sons into his army, and whilst the priest, in his moments of passion, condemned my soul to endless misery."
"Why, sir," interrupted the queen, whose eyes flashed thunderbolts, "you should take a pickaxe and go and aid in the demolition of the Bastille."
"You laugh," replied the king; "but, by my troth, I should go, were it not ridiculous for a king to handle a pickaxe, when he could have the same work done by a single dash of the pen. Yes, I should take the pickaxe, and they would applaud me, as I applauded those who accomplished the business. Nay, Madame, they did me a famous service in demolishing the Bastille, and to you they did a still greater; yes, to you, who can no longer throw, according to the whims of your friends, honest people into dungeons."
"Honest people in the Bastille! I—I sent honest people there! Oh, perhaps Monsieur de Rohan is an honest man!"
"Oh, speak no more of him; I speak not of him myself. Our sending him there was not a success, seeing that the parliament set him at liberty. Besides, it was no place for a prince of the Church, since in our time forgers were sent to the Bastille; and, indeed, I ask what forgers and robbers were doing there. Have I not prisons in Paris which cost me dear enough for the entertainment of these gentry? But let the forgers and robbers pass; the evil is that honest men were sent there."
"Honest men?"
"Undoubtedly; I have seen this very day an honest man who was incarcerated there, and who only got out a very short time since."
"When was that?"
"This morning."
"You have this evening seen a man who got out of the
Bastille this morning?"
"I have just parted with him."
"Who is it?"
"Faith, one of your acquaintance."
"Of my acquaintance!"
"Yes."
"Might I ask his name?"
"Doctor Gilbert."
"Gilbert! Gilbert!" exclaimed the queen. "What! he whom Andrée named on returning to her senses?"
"Precisely so; it must have been he; I could swear to it."
"Was that man in the Bastille?"
"Faith, Madame, one would suppose that you were ignorant of the fact."
"I am entirely ignorant of it."
And, perceiving that the king looked astonished:—
"Unless," continued the queen, "for some reason I may have forgotten it."
"Ah! there," exclaimed the king, "for these acts of injustice there is always a reason which one forgets. But though you may have forgotten both the reason and the doctor, Madame de Charny has forgotten neither, I will answer for it."
"Sire! Sire!" exclaimed Marie Antoinette.
"There must have been something between them," the king continued.
"Sire, please to refrain!" said the queen, looking anxiously towards the boudoir, where Andrée was concealed, and could hear all that was said.
"Oh, yes!" said the king, laughing; "you fear that De Charny may chance to learn. Poor De Charny!"
"Sire, I entreat you; Madame de Charny is one of the purest of women, and I should rather believe, I assure you, that this Doctor Gilbert—"
"Pshaw!" interrupted the king, "do you accuse that honest fellow? I know what I know; and the worst of it is that, knowing so much, I do not yet know all."
"Really, I am horrified that you should persist in entertaining such suspicions," said the queen, without removing her eyes from the cabinet.
"Oh," continued Louis, "I am in no hurry; I shall lose nothing by waiting a little. The beginning promises me an interesting conclusion, and I can learn the conclusion from Gilbert himself, he being now my doctor."
"Your doctor! that fellow your doctor! You can trust the life of the king to a stranger!"
"Oh," replied the king, coolly, "I have confidence in my first impressions, and I needed only a glance to read that man's inmost soul."
The queen uttered a groan, from mingled anger and disdain.
"You can sneer at me as you will," said the king, "but you can never shake my confidence in the learning and science of Doctor Gilbert."
"Infatuation!"
"I should like to see you in my place. I should like to know if Monsieur Mesmer was not able to make some impression on you and Madame de Lamballe."
"Monsieur Mesmer?" asked the queen, blushing.
"Yes; four years ago you went disguised to one of his meetings. Oh, my police are drilled thoroughly. You see I know all."
And the king, while uttering these words, smiled kindly on Marie Antoinette.
"You know all, Sire," answered the queen; "and you are a good dissembler, for you have never once spoken to me on the subject."
"Why should I have done so? I am sure the novelists and newspaper reporters abused you sufficiently on that score. But to return to Gilbert and at the same time to Mesmer. Monsieur Mesmer placed you round a vat, touched you with a steel rod, surrounded himself with a thousand phantasmagories, like the quack that he was. Gilbert uses no such illusions; he extends his hand over a woman; she sleeps, and sleeping, talks."
"Talks!" muttered the queen, terrified.
"Yes," replied the king, not unwilling to prolong somewhat his wife's little nervousness; "yes, put to sleep by Gilbert, she talks, and, believe me, says very strange things."
The queen grew pale.
"Madame de Charny may have said very strange things!" she muttered.
"Most strange," said the king. "It was very fortunate for her—"
"Hush! hush!" interrupted Marie Antoinette.
"Why hush? I say that it was very fortunate for her that I alone heard what she said in her sleep."
"Oh, for pity's sake, Sire, say not a word more!"
"Indeed, I had much rather talk no more. I feel ready to drop with weariness; and as I eat when I am hungry, so do I go to bed when I am sleepy. So good-night, Madame, and may our conversation leave upon you a salutary impression."
"In what way, Sire?"
"The people were right in undoing what we and our friends had done, witness my poor Doctor Gilbert. Adieu, Madame; trust me that after signalling the danger, I shall have the courage to prevent it. Pleasant dreams, Antoinette."
And the king moved towards
the door.
"À propos," said he, turning round, "warn Madame de Charny that she has to make her peace with the doctor if it is not now too late. Adieu."
He slowly retired, shutting the doors himself with all the satisfaction of the mechanic when his locks work well under the pressure of his fingers.
The king had not taken half a dozen steps in the corridor, when the countess issued from the boudoir, ran to the doors and bolted them, and to the windows and drew the curtains. She seemed to be excited with all the energy of rage and madness. Then, having assured her- self that she could neither be seen nor heard, she returned to the queen with a heart-rending cry, fell on her knees, and exclaimed,—"Save me, Madame; for Heaven's sake, save me!" Then, after a pause followed by a long sigh, she added:
"And I will tell you all."
END OF VOL. I.
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Chapter I
What the Queen's Thoughts were, during the Night from July 14 to July 15, 1789
How long the interview between Andrée and the queen lasted, it would be impossible for us to say; but it was certainly of considerable duration, for at about eleven o'clock that night the door of the queen's boudoir was seen to open, and on the threshold Andrée, almost on her knees, kissing the hand of Marie Antoinette. After which, having raised herself up, the young woman dried her eyes, red with weeping, while the queen, on her side, re-entered her room.
Andrée, on the contrary, walked away rapidly, as if she desired to escape from her own thoughts.
After this, the queen was alone. When the lady of the bedchamber entered the room, to assist her in undressing, she found her pacing the room with rapid strides, and her eyes flashing with excitement. She made a quick movement with her hand, which meant to say, "Leave me."
The lady of the bedchamber left the room, without offering an observation.
The queen again found herself alone. She had given orders that no one should disturb her, unless it was to announce the arrival of important news from Paris.
Andrée did not appear again.
As for the king, after he had conversed with Monsieur de la Rochefoucault, who endeavored to make him comprehend the difference there was between a riot and a revolution,—he declared himself fatigued, went to bed, and slept as quietly as if he had returned from a hunt, and the stag (a well-trained courtier) had suffered himself to be taken in the grand basin of the fountain called the Swiss.
Ange Pitou (Volume 1) Page 38