The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty
I will say they gave me twenty-five louis for four hours’ work and
counting a million, and for fear I should tell where they keep their
treasure, they poisoned me like a dog!”
“And I, my dear Gamain,” said the hearer, rising as though he had all
the information he wanted: “I will support your evidence by swearing
that I saved you with the antidote.”
“That is why we are sworn comrades till death do us part,” exclaimed the
smith, grasping the speaker’s hands.
Refusing with Spartan sobriety the wine which his friend offered him for
the third or fourth time--for the amoniacal dose had sobered him as well
as disgusted him with drink for a time, Gamain took the road for
Versailles where he arrived safely at two in the morning with the
King’s coin in his pocket and the Queen’s cake in another.
Left behind in the saloon, the pretended gunsmith drew out a set of
tablets mounted in diamonds and gold, and wrote with fluid-ink pencil
these two notes:
“An iron safe behind the King’s alcove, in the unlighted passage
leading to the prince’s rooms. Make sure whether Louis Lecomte,
locksmith’s boy, is not really Count Louis, son of Marquis Bouille,
arrived eleven days ago from Metz.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE FIRST GUILLOTINE.
On Christmas Eve, a party was given at the Princess Lamballe’s, which
the Queen’s presiding over made it really her own reception.
Isidore Charny had returned from Italy that morning and he had found
King and Queen very kind to him. Two reasons influenced the latter: one
his being the brother of Count Charny, which was a charm in his absence,
and his bringing back news from the fugitive princes which suited her
wishes.
They backed the Favras scheme and urged her to flee for Turin.
He left her only to go and acquaint Favras with the encouragement. The
Queen had said nothing positive about the flight: but he took enough to
the conspirator to fill him with joy. For the rest, the cash was in
hand, the men notified to stand ready, and the King would only have to
nod to have the whole plot set in motion.
The silence of the royal couple was the only thing which worried him.
The Queen broke this by sending Isidore, and vague as were the words he
repeated, they acquired weight from coming out of a royal mouth.
At nine the young viscount went to Lady Lamballe’s.
Count Provence was uneasy; Count Louis Narbonne walked about with the
ease of a man quite at home among princes. Isidore was not known to any
of the circle of the princes’ bosom friends, but his well-known name and
the partiality accorded him by the princess led to all hands being held
out to him.
Besides, he brought news from the foreign refuge where so many had
relatives.
When he had delivered his budget, the conversation returned to its
former channel; the young men were laughing about a machine for
executing criminals which Dr. Guillotin had shown in a full size working
model and had proposed to the National Assembly.
When an usher announced the King, and another the Queen, of course all
the merriment and chatter ceased.
The more the revolutionary spirit stripped majesty of its eternals the
more the true royalists vied with each other to pour evidences of
respect upon the august chiefs. 1789 saw great ingratitude, but 1793
great devotion.
To talk over the Favras scheme in secret a whist party was made up of
the two rulers, Provence and Charny for the fourth hand. Respect
isolated the table.
“Brother,” said the Queen, “Lord Charny, who comes from Turin, says that
our kinsfolk there are begging us to join them.”
The King gave a stamp with impatience.
“I entreat you to listen,” whispered Lady Elizabeth, who sat on a stool.
“Listen to what?”
“That Lord Charny has also seen the Marquis Favras since he came home, a
gentleman whose lealty we know, and he says that the King has but to say
a word,” went on the Queen, “or make a sign, and this very night, you
will be at Peronne.”
The King kept still. His brother twisted a jack of hearts all to rags.
“Repeat this as the marquis put it,” said he to Isidore.
“Your Majesty, thanks to measures taken by Marquis Favras, he declares
that the King has but the cue to give to be in safety in Peronne this
blessed night.”
Turning sharply on his brother, the King said as he fixed his eyes on
him:
“Are you coming if I go?”
“I” said the other, turning pale and trembling. “I have not been
notified, and I have made no preparations.”
“You know nothing about it, and yet you found the money for Favras?”
exclaimed the monarch. “You not notified, and the moves in the game have
been reported to you hour by hour?”
“The game?” faltered the prince.
“The plot; for it is one of those plots for which, if discovered, Favras
will be tried and doomed to death--unless by money and other means we
save him as we did Bezenval.”
“Then you will save Favras.”
“No; for I might not be able to do as much for him. Besides, Bezenval
was my liege as Favras is yours. Let each save his own man, and both of
us shall have done our duty.”
He rose, but the Queen retained him by the skirt of the coat.
“Sire, whether you accept or refuse, you owe the marquis an answer. What
is Viscount Charny to answer for the King?”
“That the King does not allow himself to be spirited away like a slave
for the Louisiana plantations.” He disengaged his coat.
“This means,” said Provence, “that the King will not allow of the
abduction but if it be executed in spite of his permission, it will be
welcome. In politics success condones the crime and blunderers deserve
double punishment.”
“Viscount,” said the Queen, “tell the marquis what you heard and let him
act as he thinks it points. Go.”
The King had gone over to where the younger men were so hilariously
chatting; but the deepest silence fell at his approach.
“Is the King so unhappy that he casts melancholy around him?” he
demanded.
“Sire!” muttered the gentlemen.
“You were very merry when the Queen and I came in. It is a bad thing for
kings when no one dares laugh before them. I may say the converse:
‘Happy are the kings before whom laughter resounds.'”
“Sire,” returned one, “the subject is not one for a comic opera.”
“Of what were you talking?”
“Sire, I yield the guilty one to your Majesty,” said another, stepping
forward.
“Oh, it is you, Editor Suleau,” said the King. “I have read the last
number of your journal the Acts of the Apostles. Take care that you do
not offend Master Populus.”
“I only said that our Revolution is going so slowly that it has to help
on that in Brabant. We are lamenting the dulness of the session of the
Assembly where they had to take up the motion of Dr. Guillotin upon--of
all things--a new machine for public executions.”
“Are you making fun of Dr. Guillotin--a philanthropist? remember that I
am one myself.”
“There are various kinds; the sort I approve of has a representative at
the head of the French Nation--the one who abolished torture before
trial: we venerate, nay, we love him.”
The hearers bowed with the same impulse.
“But,” proceeded Suleau, “there are others who try to find means to kill
the hale while they had a thousand to send the ailing out of this life.
I beg your Majesty to let me deal with them?”
“What would you do? decapitate them painlessly, or at least merely give
a slight coolness round the neck?” inquired the King, quoting Dr.
Guillotin’s recommendation of his invention.
“Sire, I should like all of these inventors to have the first experiment
tried on themselves. I do not complain that Marigny was hanged on the
Gibbet of Montfaucon which he built. I am not asking, I am not even a
judge; the probability is that I shall have to take my revenge on Dr.
Guillotin in the columns of my paper. I will give him a whole number and
propose that the machine shall bear his name for eternity, the
Guillotine!”
“Ha, ha, the Guillotine!” exclaimed the men, without waiting for express
permission to laugh.
“I shall assert, also, that life is divided not extinguished by this
process,” continued Suleau; “why may not the sufferer feel pain in the
head and the trunk after being cut in two?”
“This is a question for medical men. Did none of us here witness the
experiment this very morning at Bicetre madhouse?” asked the King.
“No, no, no!” cried many voices.
“Sire, I was there,” said one grave voice.
“Oh; it is you? Dr. Gilbert,” said the sovereign, turning.
“Yes, Sire.”
“And how did the experiment succeed?”
“Perfectly in two instances; but at the third the instrument, though it
severed the spine, did not detach the head. They had to finish with a
knife.”
The young gentlemen listened with frightened eyes and parted lips.
“Three executions this morning?” exclaimed Charles Lameth, who with his
brother had not yet turned against the Queen.
“Yes, gentlemen,” said the King; “but they were three corpses furnished
by the hospitals. What is your opinion of the instrument?”
“An improvement on such machines; but the accident at the third
experiment proves that it stands in need of improvement still.”
“What is it like?” asked the royal locksmith who had a bias for
machines.
Gilbert helped his explanation out by drawing a sketch on a sheet of
paper at a table. The King saw how curious the bystanders were and
allowed them to come near.
“Who knows,” said Suleau obeying, “but that one of us may make the
acquaintance of Lady Guillotine?”
Laughing, they pressed round the board where the King, taking the pen
from Dr. Gilbert, said:
“No wonder the experience failed, particularly after awhile. The cutting
blade is crescent-shaped whereas it ought to be triangular to sever a
resisting substance. See here: shape your knife thus, and I wager that
you would cut me off twenty-four heads one after another without the
edge turning up.”
He had scarcely finished the words before a heart-rending scream was
heard. The Queen had been attracted to the group of which the King and
his corrected sketch were the centre. She beheld the same instrument
which had been presented her in its likeness in a glass of water by
Balsamo the Magician twenty years before!
At the view she had no strength to do more than scream, and life
abandoning her as though she were under the blade, she swooned in the
arms of Dr. Gilbert.
It is easily understood that this incident broke up the party.
Gilbert attended to the royal patient who was given the bed of the
princess. When the crisis was over, which he rightly attributed to a
mental cause, he was going out but she bade him stay.
“Therese,” she added to Lady Lamballe, “tell the King that I have come
to: and do not let us be interrupted: I must speak with the doctor.
Doctor,” she pursued when they were alone, “are you not astonished that
chance seems to place us face to face in all the crises moral or
physical of my life?”
“As I do not know whether to be sorry or to be glad for it, since I read
in your mind that the contact is not through your wish or your will.”
“That is why I said chance. I like to be frank. But the last time we
were in contiguity, you showed true devotion and I thank you and shall
never forget it.”
He bowed.
“I am also a physiognomist. Do you know that you have said without
speaking: ‘That is over; let us change the subject.'”
“At least I felt the desire to be put to the test.”
“Doctor, what do you think of the recent event?” inquired Marie
Antoinette as though this was interlinked with what she had spoken.
“Madam, the daughter of Maria Theresa is not one of the women who faint
at trifles.”
“Do you believe in forewarnings?”
“Science repels all phenomena tending to upset the prevailing order of
things; still, facts offtimes give the lie to science.”