Ange Pitou (Volume 1)
Page 47
"A fear of a similar nature to one which had been expressed by one of the gentlemen present before the countess had expressed hers," rejoined Marie Antoinette.
And with her eyes she pointed out the courtier whose doubts had given rise to this discussion.
But it required more than this to convince Charny. The great confusion which had appeared on his entering the room persuaded him that there was some mystery in the affair.
He therefore persisted.
"It matters not, Madame," said he. "It seems to me that it is your duty not to express vain fears, but on the contrary, to state precise facts."
"What, sir," said the queen, with some asperity, "you are returning to that subject!"
"Madame!"
"Your pardon, but I find that you are still questioning the Countess de Charny."
"Excuse me, Madame," said Charny; "it is from interest for—"
"For your self-love, is it not? Ah, Monsieur de Charny," added the queen, with an ironical expression of which the count felt the whole weight, "acknowledge the thing frankly. You are jealous."
"Jealous! jealous!" cried Charny, coloring,—"but of what? I ask this of your Majesty."
"Of your wife, apparently," replied the queen, harshly.
"Madame!" stammered Charny, perfectly astounded at this unlooked-for attack.
"It is perfectly natural," dryly rejoined Marie Antoinette; "and the countess assuredly is worth the trouble."
Charny darted a look at the queen, to warn her that she was going too far.
But this was useless trouble, superfluous precaution. When this lioness was wounded, and felt the burning pain galling her heart, she no longer knew restraint.
"Yes, I can comprehend your being jealous, Monsieur de Charny,—jealous and uneasy; it is the natural state of every soul that loves, and which consequently is on the watch."
"Madame!" repeated Charny.
"And therefore I," pursued the queen,—"I experience precisely the same feelings which you do at this moment, I am at once a prey to jealousy and anxiety." She emphasized the word "jealousy." "The king is at Paris and I no longer live."
"But, Madame," observed Charny, who could not at all comprehend the meaning of this storm, the thunder of which appeared to growl more fiercely and the lightnings to flash more vividly every moment, "you have just now received news of the king; the news was good, and you must feel more tranquil."
"And did you feel tranquillized when the countess and myself, a moment ago, endeavored to reassure you?"
Charny bit his lip.
Andrée began to raise her head, at once surprised and alarmed,—surprised at what she heard, alarmed at what she thought she understood.
The silence which had ensued after the first question which Charny had addressed to Andrée was now renewed, and the company seemed anxiously awaiting Charny's answer to the queen. Charny remained silent.
"In fact," resumed the queen, with still increasing anger, "it is the destiny of people who love to think only of the object of their affection. It would be happiness to those poor hearts to sacrifice pitilessly everything—yes, everything—to the feeling by which they are agitated. Good Heaven! how anxious am I with regard to the king!"
One of the courtiers ventured to remark that other couriers would arrive.
"Oh, why am I not at Paris, instead of being here? I why am I not with the king?" said Marie Antoinette, who had seen that Charny had become agitated since she had been endeavoring to instil that jealousy into his mind which she so violently experienced.
Charny bowed.
"If it be only that, Madame," said he, "I will go there; and if, as your Majesty apprehends, the king is in any danger, if that valuable life be exposed, you may rely, Madame, that it shall not be from not having exposed mine in his defence."
Charny bowed and moved towards the door.
"Sir! sir!" cried Andrée, rushing between Charny and the door; "be careful of yourself!"
Nothing was wanting to the completion of this scene but this outburst of the fears of Andrée.
And therefore, as soon as Andrée had been thus impelled, in spite of herself, to cast aside her habitual coldness, no sooner had she uttered these imprudent words and evinced this unwonted solicitude, than the queen became frightfully pale.
"Why, Madame," she cried to Andrée, "how is this, that you here usurp the part of a queen?"
"Who,—I, Madame?" stammered Andrée, comprehending that she had, for the first time, allowed to burst forth from her lips the fire which for so long a period had consumed her soul.
"What!" continued Marie Antoinette, "your husband is in the king's service. He is about to set out to seek the king. If he is exposing his life, it is for the king; and when the question is the service of the king, you advise Monsieur de Charny to be careful of himself."
On hearing these appalling words, Andrée was near fainting. She staggered, and would have fallen to the floor had not Charny rushed forward and caught her in his arms.
An indignant look, which Charny could not restrain, completed the despair of Marie Antoinette, who had considered herself an offended rival, but who, in fact, had been an unjust queen.
"The queen is right," at length said Charny, with some effort, "and your emotion, Madame, was inconsiderate. You have no husband, Madame, when the interests of the king are in question; and I ought to be the first to request you to restrain your sensibility, if I presumed that you deigned to feel any alarm for me."
Then, turning towards Marie Antoinette:—
"I am at the queen's orders," said he, coldly, "and I set out at once. It is I who will bring you news of the king,—good news, Madame, or I will not bring any."
Then, having spoken these words, he bowed almost to the ground, and left the room before the queen, moved at once by terror and by anger, had thought of detaining him.
A moment afterwards the hoofs of a horse galloping at full speed rang over the pavement of the courtyard.
The queen remained motionless, but a prey to internal agitation, so much the more terrible from her making the most violent efforts to conceal it.
Some understood, while others could not comprehend the cause of this agitation; but they all showed that they respected their sovereign's tranquillity.
Marie Antoinette was left to her own thoughts.
Andrée withdrew with the rest from the apartment, abandoning Marie Antoinette to the caresses of her two children, whom she had sent for, and who had been brought to her.
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Chapter IX
The Return
NIGHT had returned, bringing with it its train of fears and gloomy visions, when suddenly shouts were heard from the front of the palace.
The queen started and rose. She was not far from a window, which she opened.
Almost at the same instant, servants, transported with joy, ran into the queen's room, crying:—
"A courier, Madame, a courier!"
Three minutes afterwards, a hussar rushed into the antechamber.
He was a lieutenant despatched by Monsieur de Charny. He had ridden at full speed from Sèvres.
"And the king?" said Marie Antoinette.
"His Majesty will be here in a quarter of an hour," replied the officer, who was so much out of breath that he could scarcely articulate.
"Safe and well?" asked the queen.
"Safe, well, and smiling, Madame," replied the officer.
"You have seen him, then?"
"No, Madame, but Monsieur de Charny told me so, when he sent me off."
The queen started once more at hearing this name, which chance had thus associated with that of the king.
"I thank you, sir; you had better rest yourself," said the queen to the young gentleman.
The young officer made his obedience and withdrew.
Marie Antoinette, taking her children by the hand, went towards the grand entrance of the palace, where were already assembled all the courtiers and the servants.
It was Andrée, whom even the presence of the queen did not arouse from her fixed gaze.
She, who generally was so eager to fly to the side of her mistress, evidently had not seen her, or disdained to appear to have seen her.
Andrée, then, bore the queen ill-will for the levity which she had shown that afternoon, and from which cruel levity Andrée had so much suffered.
Or else, carried away by the deepest concern, she was with eager anxiety looking for the return of Charny, for whom she had manifested so much affectionate apprehension.
A twofold poniard-stab to the queen, which deepened a wound that was still bleeding.
She lent but an absent ear to the compliments and joyful congratulations of her other friends, and the courtiers generally.
She even felt for a moment her mind abstracted from the violent grief which had overwhelmed her all the evening. There was even a respite to the anxiety excited in her heart by the king's journey, threatened by so many enemies.
But with her strong mind she soon chased all that was not legitimate affection from her heart. At the feet of God she cast her jealousy. She immolated her anger and her secret feelings to the holiness of her conjugal vow.
It was doubtless God who thus endowed her, for her quiet and support, with this faculty of loving the king, her husband, beyond every being in the world.
At that moment, at least, she so felt, or thought she felt it; the pride of royalty raised the queen above all terrestrial passions,—love of the king was her egotism.
She had therefore driven from her breast all the petty vengeance of a woman, and the coquettish frivolity of the lover, when the flambeaux of the escort appeared at the end of the avenue.
These lights increased in volume every moment, from the rapidity with which the escort advanced.
They could hear the neighing and the hard breathing of the horses. The ground trembled, amid the silence of the night, beneath the weight of the squadrons which surrounded and followed the king's carriage.
The gates were thrown open; the guards rushed forth to receive the king with shouts of enthusiasm. The carriage rolled sonorously over the pavement of the great courtyard.
Dazzled, delighted, fascinated, strongly excited by the varied emotions she had experienced during the whole day, by those which she then felt, the queen flew down the stairs to receive the king.
Louis XVI., as soon as he had alighted from his carriage, ascended the staircase with all the rapidity which was possible, surrounded as he was by his officers, all agitated by the events of the day and their triumph; while in the courtyard, the guards, mixing unceremoniously with the grooms and equerries, tore from the carriages and the harness all the cockades which the enthusiasm of the Parisians had attached to them.
The king and the queen met upon a marble landing. The queen, with a cry of joy and love, several times pressed the king to her heart.
She sobbed as if, on thus meeting him, she had believed she was never again to see him.
Yielding thus to the emotions of an overflowing heart, she did not observe the silent pressure of their hands which Charny and Andrée had just exchanged.
This pressure of the hand was nothing; but Andrée was at the foot of the steps; she was the first Charny had seen and touched.
The queen, after having presented her children to the king, made him kiss them; and then the dauphin, seeing in his father's hat the new cockade, on which the torches cast an ensanguined light, exclaimed with childish astonishment:—
"Why, Papa, what have you on your cockade? Is it blood?"
It was the national red.
The queen uttered a cry, and examined it in her turn.
The king bent down his head, under the pretence of again kissing his little daughter, but in reality to conceal his shame.
Marie Antoinette, with profound disgust, tore the cockade from the hat, without seeing—the noble, furious woman—that she was wounding to the heart a nation that would one day know how to avenge itself.
"Throw it away, Sire," said she; "throw it away!"
And she threw the cockade down the stairs, upon which trampled the feet of the whole escort which accompanied the king to his apartments.
This strange transition had extinguished all conjugal enthusiasm in the queen's breast. She looked around, but without apparent intention, for Monsieur de Charny, who was standing at his ordinary post near the king, with the stiff formality of a soldier.
"I thank you, sir," she said to him, when their eyes met, after several moments of hesitation on the part of the count,—"I thank you, sir. You have well fulfilled your promise."
"To whom are you speaking?" inquired the king.
"To Monsieur de Charny," said she, boldly.
"Yes, poor Charny! he had trouble enough to get near me. And Gilbert—what has become of him? I do not see him," added Louis.
The queen, who had become more cautious since the lesson of the afternoon, called out:—
"Come in to supper, Sire," in order to change the conversation. "Monsieur de Charny," pursued she, "find the Countess de Charny, and bring her with you. We will have a family supper."
In this she acted as a queen. But she sighed on observing that Charny, who till then had appeared gloomy, at once became smiling and joyful.
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Chapter X
Foulon
BILLOT was in a state of perfect ecstasy.
He had taken the Bastille; he had restored Gilbert to liberty; he had been noticed by Lafayette, who called him by his name; and finally, he had seen the burial of Foulon.
Few men in those days were as much execrated as Foulon. One only could in this respect have competed with him, and this was his son-in-law, Monsieur Berthier de Savigny.
They had both of them been singularly lucky the day following the capture of the Bastille.
Foulon died on that day, and Berthier had managed to escape from Paris.
That which had raised to its climax the unpopularity of Foulon, was that on the retirement of Monsieur Necker he had accepted the place of the "virtuous Genevese," as he was then called, and had been comptroller-general during three days.
And therefore was there much singing and dancing at his burial.
The people had at one time thought of taking the body out of the coffin and hanging it; but Billot had jumped upon a post, and had made a speech on the respect due to the dead, and the hearse was allowed to continue on its way.
As to Pitou, he had become a perfect hero.
Pitou had become the friend of Monsieur Elie and Monsieur Hullin, who deigned to employ him to execute their commissions.
He was, besides, the confidant of Billot,—of Billot, who had been treated with distinction by Monsieur de Lafayette, as we have already said, who sometimes employed him as a police guard about his person, on account of his brawny shoulders, his herculean fists, and his indomitable courage.
Since the journey of the king to Paris, Gilbert, who had been, through Monsieur Necker, put in communication with the principal members of the National Assembly and the Municipality, was incessantly occupied with the education of the republic, still in its infancy.
He therefore neglected Billot and Pitou, who, neglected by him, threw themselves ardently into the meetings of the citizens, in the midst of which political discussions of transcendent interest were constantly agitated.
At length, one day, after Billot had employed three hours in giving his opinion to the electors as to the best mode of victualling Paris, and fatigued with his long speech, though proud of having played the orator, he was resting with delight, lulled by the monotonous voices of his successors, which he took good care not to listen to, Pitou came in, greatly agitated; and gliding like an eel through the Ses
sions Hall of the electors in the Hôtel de Ville, and in a palpitating tone, which contrasted greatly with the usual placidity of his enunciation: "Oh, Monsieur Billot!" said he, "dear Monsieur Billot!"
"Well, what is it?"
"Great news!"
"Good news?"
"Glorious news!"
"What is it, then?"
"You know that I had gone to the club of the Virtues, at the Fontainebleau barrier?"
"Yes, and what then?"
"Well, they spoke there of a most extraordinary event."
"What was it?"
"Do you know that that villain Foulon passed himself off for dead, and carried it so far as to allow himself to be buried?"
"How! passed himself for dead? How say you,—pretended to allow himself to be buried? Nonsense! He is dead enough; for was I not at his funeral?"
"Notwithstanding that, Monsieur Billot, he is still living."
"Living?"
"As much alive as you and I are."
"You are mad!"
"Dear Monsieur Billot, I am not mad. The traitor, Foulon, the enemy of the people, the leech of France, the peculator, is not dead."
"But since I tell you he was buried after an apoplectic fit, since I tell you that I saw the funeral go by, and even that I prevented the people from dragging him out of his coffin to hang him?"
"And I have just seen him alive. Ah, what do you say to that?"
"You?"
"As plainly as I now see you, Monsieur Billot. It appears that it was one of his servants who died, and the villain gave him an aristocratic funeral. Oh, all is discovered! It was from fear of the vengeance of the people that he acted thus."
"Tell me all about it, Pitou."
"Come into the vestibule for a moment, then, Monsieur Billot. We shall be more at our ease there."
They left the hall and went into the vestibule.
"First of all, we must know whether Monsieur Bailly is here."
"Go on with your story; he is here."
"Good! Well I was at the club of the Virtues, listening to the speech of a patriot. Didn't he make grammatical faults! It was easily seen that he had not been educated by the Abbé Fortier."