Ange Pitou (Volume 1)

by Alexandre Dumas

  The queen, however, wrote several letters, went into an adjoining room, where her two children slept under the care of Madame de Tourzel, and then went to bed, not for the sake of sleeping, like the king, but merely to meditate more at ease.

  But soon after, when silence reigned around Versailles, when the immense palace became plunged in darkness, when there could no longer be heard in the gardens aught but the tramp of the patrols upon the gravel-walks, and in the long passages nothing but the ringing of muskets on the marble pavement, Marie Antoinette, tired of repose, felt the want of air, got out of bed, and putting on her, velvet slippers and a long white dressing-gown, went to the window to inhale the ascending freshness of the cascades, and to seize in their flight those counsels which the night winds murmur to heated minds and oppressed hearts.

  Then she reviewed in her mind all the astounding events which this strange day had produced.

  The fall of the Bastille, that visible emblem of royal power, the uncertainties of Charny, her devoted friend, that impassioned captive who for so many years had been subjected to her yoke, and who during all those years had never breathed anything but love, now seemed for the first time to sigh from regret and feelings of remorse.

  With that synthetic habit with which the knowledge of men and events endows great minds, Marie Antoinette immediately divided the agitation which oppressed her into two portions, the one being her political misfortunes, the other the sorrows of her heart.

  The political misfortune was that great event, the news of which had left Paris at three o'clock in the afternoon, and was then spreading itself over the whole world, and weakening in every mind that sacred reverence which until then had always been accorded to kings, God's mandatories upon earth.

  The sorrow of her heart was the gloomy resistance of Charny to the omnipotence of his well-beloved sovereign. It appeared to her like a presentiment that, without ceasing to be faithful and devoted, his love would cease to be blind, and might begin to argue with itself on its fidelity and its devotedness.

  This thought grieved the queen's heart poignantly, and filled it with that bitter gall which is called jealousy, an acrid poison which ulcerates at the same instant a thousand little wounds in a wounded soul.

  Nevertheless, grief in the presence of misfortune was logically of secondary importance.

  Thus, rather from reasoning than from conscientious motives, rather from necessity than from instinct, Marie Antoinette first allowed her mind to enter into the grave reflections connected with the dangerous state of political affairs.

  In which direction could she turn Before her lay hatred and ambition,—weakness and indifference at her side.

  For enemies she had people who, having commenced with calumny, were now organizing a rebellion,—people whom, consequently, no consideration would induce to retreat.

  For defenders—we speak of the greater portion at least of those men who, little by little, had accustomed themselves to endure everything, and who, in consequence, no longer felt the depth of their wounds, their degradation—people who would hesitate to defend themselves, for fear of attracting attention.

  It was therefore necessary to bury everything in oblivion,—to appear to forget, and yet to remember; to feign to forgive, and yet not pardon.

  This would be conduct unworthy of a queen of France; it was especially unworthy of the daughter of Maria Theresa—that high-minded woman.

  To resist!—to resist!—that was what offended royal pride most strenuously counselled. But was it prudent to resist? Could hatred be calmed down by shedding blood? Was it not terrible to be surnamed "The Austrian"? Was it necessary, in order to consecrate that name, as Isabeau and Catherine de Médicis consecrated theirs, to give it the baptism of a universal massacre?

  And then, if what Charny had said was true, success was doubtful.

  To combat and to be defeated!

  Such were the political sorrows of the queen, who during certain phases of her meditation felt a sensation like that which we experience on seeing a serpent glide from beneath the brambles, awakened by our advancing steps. She felt, on emerging from the depths of her sufferings as a queen, the despair of the woman who thinks herself but little loved, when in reality she had been loved too much.

  Charny had said, what we have already heard him say, not from conviction, but from lassitude. He had, like many others, drunk calumny from the same cup that she had. Charny, for the first time, had spoken in such affectionate terms of his wife, Andrée being until then almost forgotten by her husband. Had Charny then perceived that his young wife was still beautiful? And at this single idea, which stung her like the envenomed bite of the asp, Marie Antoinette was astounded to find that misfortune was nothing in comparison with disappointed love.

  For what misfortune had failed to do, unrequited love was gradually effecting within her soul. The woman sprang furiously from the chair in which the queen had calmly contemplated danger.

  The whole destiny of this privileged child of suffering revealed itself in the condition of her mind during that night.

  For how was it possible to escape misfortune and disappointment at the same time, she would ask herself, with constantly renewing anguish. Was it necessary to determine on abandoning a life of royalty, and could she live happily in a state of mediocrity?—was it necessary to return to her own Trianon, and to her Swiss cottage, to the quiet shores of the lake and the humble amusements of the dairy?—was it necessary to allow the people to divide among them the shreds of monarchy, excepting some few fragments which the woman might appropriate to herself from the imaginary indebtedness of the faithful few, who would still persist in considering themselves her vassals?

  Alas! it was now that the serpent of jealousy began to sting still deeper.

  Happy! Could she be happy with the humiliation of despised love?

  Happy! Could she be happy by the side of the king,—that vulgar husband in whom everything was deficient to form the hero?

  Happy! Could she be happy with Monsieur de Charny, who might be so with some woman whom he loved,—by the side of his own wife, perhaps?

  And this thought kindled in the poor queen's breast all those flaming torches which consumed Dido even more than her funeral pile.

  But in the midst of this feverish torture, she saw a ray of hope; in the midst of this shuddering anguish, she felt a sensation of joy. God, in his infinite mercy, has he not created evil to make us appreciate good?

  Andrée had intrusted the queen with all her secrets; she had unveiled the one shame of her life to her rival. Andrée, her eyes full of tears, her head bowed down to the ground, had confessed to the queen that she was no longer worthy of the love and the respect of an honorable man: therefore Charny could never love Andrée.

  But Charny is ignorant of this. Charny will ever be ignorant of that catastrophe at Trianon, and its consequences. Therefore, to Charny it is as if the catastrophe had never taken place.

  And while making these reflections the queen examined her fading beauty in the mirror of her mind, and deplored the loss of her gayety, the freshness of her youth.

  Then she thought of Andrée, of the strange and almost incredible adventures which she had just related to her.

  She wondered at the magical working of blind fortune, which had brought to Trianon, from the shade of a hut and the muddy furrows of a farm, a little gardener's boy, to associate his destinies with those of a highly born young lady, who was herself associated with the destinies of a queen.

  "Thus," said she to herself, "the atom which was thus lost in the lowest regions, has come, by a freak of superior attraction, to unite itself, like a fragment of a diamond, with the heavenly light of the stars."

  This gardener's boy, this Gilbert, was he not a living symbol of that which was occurring at that moment,—a man of the people, rising from the lowness of his birth to busy himself with the politics of a great kingdom; a strange comedian, in whom were personified, by a privilege granted to him by the evil
spirit who was then hovering over France, not only the insult offered to the nobility, but also the attack made upon the monarchy by a plebeian mob?

  This Gilbert, now become a learned man,—this Gilbert, dressed in the black coat of the Tiers État, the counsellor of Monsieur de Necker, the confidant of the king of France, would now find himself, thanks to the Revolution, on an equal footing with the woman whose honor, like a thief, he had stolen in the night.

  The queen had again become a woman, and shuddering in spite of herself at the sad story related by Andrée, she was endeavoring to study the character of this Gilbert, and to learn by herself to read in human features what God had placed there to indicate so strange a character; and notwithstanding the pleasure she had experienced on seeing the humiliation of her rival, she still felt a lingering desire to attack the man who had caused a woman such intensity of suffering.

  Moreover, notwithstanding the terror generally inspired by the sight of monsters, she felt a desire to look at, and perhaps even to admire, this extraordinary man, who by a crime had infused his vile blood into the most aristocratic veins in France,—this man who appeared to have organized the Revolution, in order that it should open the gates of the Bastille for him, in which, but for that Revolution, he would have remained immured forever, to teach him that a plebeian must remember nothing.

  In consequence of this connecting link in her ideas, the queen reverted to her political vexations, and saw the responsibility of all she had suffered accumulate upon one single head.

  Thus the author of the popular rebellion that had just shaken the royal power by levelling the Bastille was Gilbert,—he whose principles had placed weapons in the hands of the Billots, the Maillards, the Elies, and the Hullins.

  Gilbert was therefore both a venomous and a terrible being,—venomous, because he had caused the loss of Andrée as a lover; terrible, because he had just assisted in overthrowing the Bastille as an enemy.

  It was therefore necessary to know, in order to avoid him; or rather, to know him, in order to make use of him.

  It was necessary, at any cost, to converse with this man, to examine him closely, and to judge him personally.

  Two thirds of the night had already flown away, three o'clock was striking, and the first rays of the rising sun gilded the high tops of the trees in the park, and the summits of the statues of Versailles.

  The queen had passed the whole night without sleeping; her eyes wandered vaguely up and down the avenues, where streaks of soft light began to appear.

  A heavy and burning slumber gradually seized the unfortunate woman.

  She fell back, with her neck overhanging the back of the arm-chair, near the open window.

  She dreamed that she was walking in Trianon, and that there appeared to her eyes, at the extremity of a flowerbed, a grinning gnome, similar to those we read of in German ballads; that this sardonic monster was Gilbert, who extended his hooked fingers towards her.

  She screamed aloud.

  Another cry answered hers.

  That cry roused her from her slumber.

  It was Madame de Tourzel who had uttered it. She had just entered the queen's apartment, and seeing her exhausted and gasping in an arm-chair, she could not avoid giving utterance to her grief and surprise.

  "The queen is indisposed!" she exclaimed."The queen is suffering. Shall I send for a physician?"

  The queen opened her eyes. This question of Madame de Tourzel coincided with the demands of her own curiosity.

  "Yes, a physician!" she replied; "Doctor Gilbert!—send for Doctor Gilbert!"

  "Who is Doctor Gilbert?" asked Madame de Tourzel.

  "A new physician, appointed by the king only yesterday, I believe, and just arrived from America."

  "I know whom her Majesty means," said one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting.

  "Well?" said the queen, inquiringly.

  "Well, Madame, the doctor is in the king's antechamber."

  "Do you know him, then?"

  "Yes, your Majesty," stammered the woman.

  "But how can you know him? He arrived here from America some eight or ten days ago, and only came out of the Bastille yesterday."

  "I know him."

  "Answer me distinctly. Where did you know him?" asked the queen, in an imperious tone.

  The lady cast down her eyes.

  "Come, will you make up your mind to tell me how it happens that you know this man?"

  "Madame, I have read his works; and his works having given me a desire to see the author, I had him pointed out to me."

  "Ah!" exclaimed the queen, with an indescribable look of haughtiness and reserve,—"ah! it is well. Since you know him, go and tell him that I am suffering, and that I wish to see him."

  While waiting for the doctor's arrival, the queen made her ladies in attendance enter the room; after which she put on a dressing-gown and adjusted her hair.

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  Chapter II

  The King's Physician

  A FEW moments after the queen had expressed the above desire,—a desire which the person to whom it had been mentioned had complied with,—Gilbert, who felt astonished, slightly anxious, and profoundly agitated, but still without showing any external marks of it, presented himself to Marie Antoinette.

  The firm and noble carriage, the delicate pallor of the man of science and of thought, to whom study had given a second nature,—a pallor still more enhanced by the black dress which was not only worn by all the deputies of the Tiers État, but also by those who had adopted the principles of the Revolution; the delicate white hand of the surgical operator, surrounded by a plain muslin wristband; his slender though well-formed limbs, which none of those at court could surpass in symmetry, even in the estimation of the connoisseurs of the Œil-de-Bœuf (combined with all these, there was a mixture of respectful timidity towards the woman, and of calm courage towards the patient, but no signs of servility towards her as a queen),—such were the plainly written signs that Marie Antoinette, with her aristocratic intelligence, could perceive in the countenance of Gilbert at the moment when the door opened to admit him into her bedchamber.

  But the less Gilbert was provoking in his demeanor, the more did the queen feel her anger increase. She had figured him to herself as a type of an odious class of men; she had considered him instinctively, though almost involuntarily, as one of those impudent heroes of whom she had so many around her. The author of the sufferings of Andrée, the bastard pupil of Rousseau, that miserable abortion who had grown up to manhood, that pruner of trees who had become a philosopher and a subduer of souls,—Marie Antoinette, in spite of herself, depicted him in her mind as having the features of Mirabeau; that is to say, of the man she most hated, after the Cardinal de Rohan and Lafayette.

  It had seemed to her, before she saw Gilbert, that it required a gigantic physical development to contain so colossal a mind.

  But when she saw a young, upright, and slender man, of elegant and graceful form, of sweet and amiable countenance, he appeared to her as having committed the new crime of belying himself by his exterior. Gilbert, a man of the people, of obscure and unknown birth!—Gilbert, the peasant, the clown, and the serf!—Gilbert was guilty, in the eyes of the queen, of having usurped the external appearance of a gentleman and a man of honor. The proud Austrian, the sworn enemy of lying and deception in others, became indignant, and immediately conceived a violent hatred for the unfortunate atom whom so many different motives combined to induce her to abhor.

  For those who were intimate with her nature, for those who were accustomed to read in her eyes either serenity of temper or indications of an approaching storm, it was easy to discern that a tempest, full of thunder-claps and flashes of lightning, was raging in the depths of her heart.

  But how was it possible for a human being, even a woman, to follow, in the midst of this hurricane of passions and anger, the succession of strange and contrasting feelings which clashed together in the queen's brain, and filled her brea
st with all the mortal poisons described by Homer!

  The queen with a single look dismissed all her attendants, even Madame de Misery.

  They immediately left the room.

  The queen waited till the door had been closed on the last person; then, casting her eyes upon Gilbert, she perceived that he had not ceased to gaze at her.

  So much audacity offended her. The doctor's look was apparently inoffensive; but as it was continual, and was full of meaning, it weighed so heavily upon her that Marie Antoinette felt compelled to repress its importunity.

  "Well, then, sir," said she, with the abruptness of a pistol-shot, "what are you doing there, standing before me and gazing at me, instead of telling me with what complaint I am suffering?"

  This furious apostrophe, rendered more forcible by the flashing of her eyes, would have annihilated any of the queen's courtiers; it would even have compelled a marshal of France, a hero, or a demi-god, to fall on his knees before her.

  But Gilbert tranquilly replied:—

  "It is by means of the eyes, Madame, that the physician must first examine his patient. By looking at your Majesty, who sent for me, I do not satisfy an idle curiosity; I exercise my profession: I obey your orders."

  "Then you must have studied me sufficiently."

  "As much as lay in my power, Madame."

  "Am I ill?"

  "Not in the strict sense of the word. But your Majesty is suffering from great over-excitement."

  "Ah! ah!" said Marie Antoinette, ironically, "why do you not say at once that I am in a passion?"

  "Let your Majesty allow me, since you have ordered the attendance of a physician, to express myself in medical terms."

  "Be it so. But what is the cause of my over-excitement?"

  "Your Majesty has too much knowledge not to be aware that the physician discovers the sufferings of the body, thanks to his experience and the traditions of his studies; but he is not a sorcerer, who can discover at first sight the depths of the human soul."