The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty
that she is at table digesting Poland and cannot rise until she has
finished her feast. She gives me advice which aims to be sublime but is
only ridiculous, considering what has lately occurred. She says:
‘Monarchs ought to proceed on their course like the moon in her orbit,
without being disturbed by the baying of curs!’--that is, the protests
of the common people. It appears that the Russian curs merely bark;
ours do some biting, as you may learn of my poor Lifeguardsmen, torn to
pieces by them.”
“The people thought that your Majesty was going to quit the country.”
“Doctor,” said the King after hesitating, and he laid his hand on the
other’s shoulder, “I have promised you the truth and you shall have it
thoroughly. Such a matter has been broached; it is the opinion of many
faithful servitors surrounding me that I ought to flee. But on the sixth
of October night, when weeping in my arms, the Queen besought me never
to flee without her, and that we should all depart together, to be saved
or die in company. I shall keep my word; and as I do not think that we
could flee in such a number without being stopped, a dozen times before
we got to the frontier, I conclude that we shall never get away.”
“Well, Sire, there is indeed no need of the foreigners. What would be
the use until you shall exhaust your own resources? My advice is that we
are only beginning the fight and that the Taking of the Bastile and the
attack on the Palace at Versailles are only the two first acts in the
tragedy to be played by France under the eyes of Europe.”
“I hope you are mistaken, sir,” replied Louis, slightly turning pale:
“My police tell me nothing like this.”
“I have no police or information to check them; but in my position I am
the natural conductor between the heavens and what is still concealed in
the bowels of the earth. Sire, what we have experienced is merely the
rumble that runs before the earthquake; we have yet to meet the lava,
the fire and the smoke. I fear that the Revolutionary torrent will run
ahead of us. There are only two methods to save yourself. One is to
place yourself on the foremost breaker and be carried on with it.”
“I do not wish to go where it would carry me.”
“The second is to place a barrier across the tide. It is Genius and
Popularity in one dam: and it is named Mirabeau.”
“The King looked Gilbert in the face as though he had misunderstood him;
then turning to the portrait, he said:
“What would you have replied, Charles Stuart, if when you felt the
ground quake beneath your feet, some one had suggested your leaning on
Cromwell?”
“He would have refused, and rightly; for there is no likeness between
Cromwell and Mirabeau.” Such was Gilbert’s answer.
“They were both traitors.”
“Sire,” replied the other with profound respect but invincible firmness;
“neither were traitors: Cromwell was a rebellious subject, and Mirabeau
is a discontented nobleman.”
“What is he discontented with?”
“With his father, who locked him up in prison; the courts which
condemned him to death; with the King who miscomprehended and still
miscomprehends his genius.”
“The spirit of a public man is honesty,” said the King quickly.
“The reply is fine, worthy of Titus, Trajan or Marcus Aurelius,
unluckily many examples arise to the contrary.”
“How can you ask me to confide in a man who has a price?”
“Because he is a man of his price. If he will sell himself for a
million, it is a bargain. Do you think he is worth twice a Polignac?”
“You are pleading for a friend.”
“I have not that honor: but he has a friend who is of the Queen’s party,
too.”
“Count Lamarck? We cast it up to him every day.”
“On the contrary, your Majesty ought to dissuade him breaking the
friendship with him, under pain of death. Mirabeau is a noble, an
aristocrat, a King’s-man above all. He was elected by the people because
the nobles scorned him and he had sublime disdain of the means to attain
an end which genius thirsted for. You may say that he will never quit
the party of his constituents to join the court party? Why is there not
union of the court and plebeians? Mirabeau could make them one. Take
him, my lord! To-morrow, rebuffed by your despisal, he may turn against
you, and then you will say, as the portrait of your Martyr King will
say: All is lost!”
“I will talk this over with the Queen, sir,” said the monarch, having
turned pale and hesitatingly glanced at the royal portrait. “She may
decide on speaking with Mirabeau: but I will not. I like to be able to
shake hands with those I confer with, and I could never take the hand of
a Mirabeau, though my life, my liberty, and my throne were at
stake--After she shall have seen him, we will see----“
“I pray God that it will not be too late.”
“Do you believe the peril so imminent?”
“Sire, do not let the portrait of Charles First be removed from your
room,” said Gilbert; “it is a good adviser.”
Bowing, he went forth as another visitor appeared on the sill. He could
not restrain from a cry of surprise. This gentleman was Marquis Favras,
whom he had met at Cagliostro’s a week or so before and to whom the
magician had predicted a near and shameful death.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE KING ATTENDS TO PRIVATE MATTERS.
Louis the King displayed the usual irresolution in dealing with Favras’
proposition, approved by the Queen, to make a rush out of the kingdom.
He reflected all the night and at breakfast called for Count Charny.
He was still at table when the officer walked in.
“Won’t you take breakfast with me, count?”
Charny was obliged to excuse himself from the honor as he had broken his
fast.
“I must ask you to wait a while as I never care to speak of important
matters while at meals and I have something to talk over with your
lordship. Let us speak of other matters for the moment. Of yourself, for
instance. I hear that you are badly lodged here; somewhere in the
garret, my lord, while the countess is lodging in Paris.”
“Sire, I am in a room of my own choice: the countess is dwelling in her
own house in Coq-Heron Street.”
“I must confess my ignorance; is it near the palace?”
“Tolerably, Sire.”
“What does this mean that after only three years of married life, you
have separate establishments?”
“Sire, I have no answer to make than that my lady wishes to live alone.
I have not had the pleasure of seeing her since your Majesty sent me for
news. That is, better than a week ago.”
The King understood grief more readily than melancholy and noticed the
difference in the tone.
“Count, there is some of your fault in this estrangement,” said the
monarch, with the familiarity of the family man, as he called himself.
“The man must be to blame when so charming a woman keeps aloof from him.
Do not tell me that this is none of my business: for a king can do a
great deal by speaking a word. You must treat the lady ungratefully, for
she loves you dearly--or did when Lady Taverney.”
“Sire, you know that one must not dispute with a king.”
“I do not know that the signs were visible to me alone; but this I know
very well that on that dreadful October night, when she came to join us,
she did not lose sight of you throughout, and her eyes expressed all her
soul’s anguish, so much so that I saw her make a movement to fling
herself between you and danger when the Bullseye Saloon door was beaten
down.”
Count Charny was not softened; he believed he had seen something of this
sort: but the details of his recent interview with his wife were too
distinct for him to have his opinion shaken.
“I was paying all the more attention to her,” went on Louis, “from the
Queen having said when you were sent to the City Hall while I was on my
journey to Paris, that she almost died of distress in your absence and
of joy at your return.”
“Sire,” replied Charny with a sad smile, “God had allowed those who are
born above us to receive in birth as a privilege of their rank, the gift
of seeing deeper into one’s heart than oneself can do; the King and the
Queen have perceived secrets unrevealed to me: but my limited vision
prevents me seeing the same. Therefore I beg to be employed on any
dangerous errand or one that would take me to a distance without
considering the great love of the Countess of Charny. Absence or danger
will be equally welcome, coming at least for my part.”
“Nevertheless, a week ago, you appeared wishful to stay in town when the
Queen desired to despatch you to Italy.”
“I deemed my brother adequate for the position and reserved myself for a
mission more difficult or dangerous.”
“Then count, this is the very time when I have a difficult task to
entrust to you, that with danger to you in the future, that I spoke of
the countess’s isolation and wished her to have a lady friend’s company
while I took away her husband.”
“I will write to the countess, yes, write: for from the way she last
received me, I ought in that manner acquaint her with my movements.”
“Say no more on this head; I will talk it over with the Queen during
your absence,” said Louis, rising. “Faith, the medical lights are right
to say that things look differently as you handle them before or after a
hearty meal. Come into my study, count; I feel in a mood to talk
straight out to you.”
Charny followed, thinking how much Majesty lost by this material side,
for which the proud Marie Antoinette was always carping at him.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE KING ATTENDS TO PUBLIC MATTERS.
Though the King had been only a fortnight in the Tuileries he had two
places fitted out completely for him. The forge was one, the study the
other.
Charny walked up to the desk at which his royal master seated himself
without looking round at the papers with which he was familiar.
“Count Charny,” began the King at last, yet seeming to halt, “I noticed
one thing, on the night of the attack by the rioters, you stood by me
while you set your brother on guard over the Queen.”
“Sire, it was my right as head of my family, as you are chief of the
realm, to die for you.”
“That made me think, that if ever I had a secret errand, difficult and
dangerous, I could rely on your loyalty as a Frenchman, and on your
heart as a friend’s.”
“Oh, Sire, however the King may raise me, I have no pretension to
believe that I shall be more than a faithful and thankful subject.”
“My lord, you are a grave man though but thirty-six; you have not passed
through recent events without drawing some conclusion from them. What do
you think of the situation and what would be your means to relieve me,
if you were my Premier?”
“Sire, I am a soldier and a seaman,” returned Charny, with more
hesitation than embarrassment, “these high social questions fly over my
head.”
“Nay, you are a man,” said the sovereign with a dignity in holding out
his hand which sprang from the quandary; “another man, who believes you
to be his friend, asks you, purely and simply, what you, with your
upright heart and healthy mind, would do in his place.”
“Sire, in a no less serious position, the Queen asked my opinion: the
day after the Taking of the Bastile, when she wanted to fling the
foreign legions upon the mobs. My reply would have embroiled me with her
Majesty had I been less known to her and my respect and devotion less
plain. I said that your Majesty must not enter these walls as a
conqueror if he could not as a father of his people.”
“Well, my lord, is not that the counsel I followed? The question is was
I right? am I here as a King or a captive?”
“Speaking in full frankness, I disapproved of the banquet at Versailles,
supplicating the Queen not to go there; I was in despair when she threw
down the tricolor and set up the black cockade of Austria.”
“Do you believe that led really to the attack on the palace?”