The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty
had no need to bare his head in respect. His attitude showed he was
entirely under her orders.
“What are your people shouting and singing?” she requested to know.
The Queen’s form of putting the question showed that she had been
ruminating it for some time. He sighed as much as to say, it is the same
old story.
“Alas, my lady,” he proceeded with profound melancholy, “those you call
my people, were yours in former times, and it is less than twenty years
ago when Lord Brissac, a delightful courtier whom I look in vain for
here, showed you the same people shouting for the Dauphin under the City
Hall windows and said: ‘You behold twenty thousand admirers there.'”
The Queen bit her lips from the impossibility of catching this man in
want of a repartee or of respect.
“That is true--it only proves that the many-headed change,” she said.
Gilbert bowed this time, without retort.
“I asked you a question, doctor,” persisted the lady, with the obstinacy
she had for even disagreeable matters.
“Yes, and I answer since your Majesty insists. They are singing that the
Baker’s Wife has plenty of money which it gave her no trouble to get.
You are aware that they style your Majesty the Baker’s Wife?”
“Just as they called me Lady Deficit before. Is there any connection
between the nicknames?”
“So much also as the finances are concerned. They mean by your money
being easily come by that you had complaisant treasurers such as Calonne
in particular, who gave you whatever you asked; the people therefore
assume that you got your money readily for the asking.”
The Queen’s hand was clenched on the red velvet carriage-window ledge.
“So much for what they are singing. Now, for what they bellow out?”
“They say that they shall no longer want for bread since they have the
Baker, the Baker’s Wife and the Baker’s Son among them.”
“I expect you to make this second piece of insolence clear.”
“You would see that they are not so much to blame as you fancy if you
were to look to the intention and not weigh the words of the people.
Wrongly or rightfully, the masses believe that a great Grain Trust is
carried on at Versailles. This prevents flour from coming freely into
the capital. Who feeds the Paris poor? the Baker. Towards whom does the
working man and his wife hold out their supplicating hands when their
children cry for food? the baker and the baker’s wife. Who do they pray
to after the Sender of the harvest? the lady of the estate--that is, the
loaf-giver, as the name is derived. Are not you three the loaf-givers
for the country, the King, yourself and this august child? Do not be
astonished at the mighty, blessed name the people give you, but thank
them for cherishing the hope that as soon as the King, the Queen and
their son are in the midst of the famished thousands, they will no
longer be in want.”
For an instant the royal lady closed her eyes, and she made the movement
of swallowing as though to keep down her hatred as well as bitter saliva
which scorched her throat.
“So we ought to thank these howlers for their songs and nick-names upon
us?”
“Yes, and most sincerely: the song is but an expression of their good
humor as the shouts are of their expectations. The whole explains their
desire.”
“So they want Lafayette and Mirabeau to live long?”
“Yes,” returned Gilbert, seeing that the Queen had clearly heard the
cries, “for those two leaders, separated by the gulf over which you
hang, may, united, save the monarchy.”
“Do you mean that the monarchy has sunk so low that it can be picked up
by those two?” queried the lady.
He was going to make some kind of reply when a burst of voices, in
dread, with atrocious peals of laughter and a great swaying of the
gathering, driving Gilbert closer to the vehicle, announced that he
would be needed in defense of the Queen by speech or action. It was the
two head-carriers, who, after having made Leonard barb and curl the
hair, wanted to have the fun of presenting them to Marie Antoinette--as
other roughs, or perhaps the same--had presented the dead heads of sons
to their fathers.
The crowd yelled with horror and fell away as these ghastly things came
up.
“In heaven’s name, do not look to the right,” cried Gilbert.
The Queen was no woman to obey such an injunction without a peep to see
the reason. So her first movement was to turn her gaze in the forbidden
direction and she uttered a scream of fright. But, all of a sudden, as
she tore her sight from this horrible spectacle as if they were Gorgon
heads, they became fixed as though they met another view even more
awful, from which she could not detach it.
This Medusa’s head was the stranger’s who had been drinking and chatting
with Locksmith Gamain in the wine-store: with folded arms, he was
leaning against a tree.
The Queen’s hand left the window cushion, and resting on Gilbert’s
shoulder, he felt her clench her nails into its flesh. He turned to see
her pale, with fixed eyes and quivering, blanched lips.
He would have ascribed the emotion to the two death’s heads but for her
not looking at either. The gaze was in another direction, traveling
visually in which he descried the object and he emitted a cry of amaze.
“Cagliostro!” both uttered at the same time.
The man at the tree clearly saw the Queen, but all he did was beckon for
Gilbert to come to him.
At this point of time the carriages started on once more. By a natural
and mechanical impulse the Queen gave Gilbert an outward push to prevent
his being run over by the wheel. It looked as though she urged him
towards the summoner. Anyhow, he was not sufficiently master of himself
not to obey the mandate. Motionless, he let the party proceed; then,
following the mock gunsmith who merely looked back to be sure he was
followed, he entered behind him a little lane going uphill to Bellevue,
where they disappeared behind a wall at the same time as the procession
went out of sight in a declivity of the hills, as though plunging into
an abyss.
CHAPTER IV.
FATALITY.
Gilbert followed his guide half-way up the slope where stood a handsome
house. The foregoer pulled out a key and opened a side door intended for
the master to go in or come out without the servants knowing when he did
so. He left the door ajar to signify that the companion of the journey
was to use it. Gilbert entered and shut the door gently but it silently
closed itself tightly with a pneumatic arrangement at the hinges which
seemed the work of magic. Such an appliance would have been the delight
of Master Gamain.
Through luxuriously fitted passages Gilbert finally came into a drawing
room, hung with Indian satin tapestry; a fantastic Oriental bird held
the lustre in its beak and it emitted a light which Gilbert knew was
electricity, though its application thus would have been a puzzle to
others than this specialist in advanced science. The lights represented
lily-blooms, which again was an anticipation of modern illuminators.
One picture alone adorned this room but it was Raphael’s Madonna.
Gilbert was admiring this masterpiece when the host entered by a secret
door behind him from a dressing room.
An instant had sufficed for him to wash off the stain and the
pencillings and to give his black hair, without any grey, a stylish
turn. He had also changed his clothes. Instead of the workman was an
elegant nobleman. His embroidered coat and his hands glittering with
rings in the Italian style, strongly contrasted with Gilbert’s American
black coat and his plain gold ring, a keepsake from General Washington.
Count Cagliostro advanced with a smiling open face and held out his hand
to Gilbert.
“Dear Master,” cried the latter rushing to him.
“Stop a bit,” interrupted the other, laughing: “since we have parted,
my dear Gilbert, you have made such progress in revolutionary methods at
all events, that you are the master at present and I not fit to undo
your shoestrings.”
“I thank you for the compliment,” responded the doctor, “but how do you
know I have made such progress, granting I have progressed?”
“Do you believe you are one of those men whose movement is not marked
although not seen? Since eight years I have not set eyes on you but I
have had a daily report of what you did. Do you doubt I have
double-sight?”
“You know I am a mathematician.”
“You mean, incredulous? Let me show you, then. In the first place you
returned to France on family matters; they do not concern me, and
consequently----“
“Nay, dear master, go on,” interposed the other.
“Well, you came to have your son Sebastian educated in a boarding school
not far from Paris in quiet, and to settle business affairs with your
farmer, an honest fellow whom you are now retaining in town against his
wishes. For a thousand reasons he wants to be home beside his wife.”
“Really, master, you are prodigious!”
“Wait for something stronger. The second time you returned to France
because political questions drew you, like many others; besides you had
published several political treatises which you sent to King Louis XVI.,
and as there is much of the Old Man in you--you are prouder for the
approval of the King than perhaps you would be of that of my predecessor
in your training, Rousseau--who would be higher than a king this day,
had he lived--you yearn to learn what is thought of Dr. Gilbert by the
descendant of St. Louis, Henry Fourth and Louis XIV. Unfortunately a
little matter has kept alive which you did not bear in mind, as a sequel
to which I picked you up in a cave in the Azores, where my yacht put in.
I restored you from the effects of a bullet in your breast. This little
affair concerned Mdlle. Andrea Taverney, become Countess Charny, which
she deserves, to save the Queen’s reputation, compromised by the King
coming upon her and Count Charny by surprise.
“As the Queen could refuse nothing to this saver, she got a blank
warrant and committal to prison for you, so that you were arrested on
the road out of Havre and taken to the Bastile. There you would be to
this day, dear doctor, if the people, prepared for a rising by a person
whom you may divine, had not in a day knocked the old building lower
than the gutter. I was not sorry, for I had a taste of the fare myself
before I was banished the Kingdom. This morning early, you contributed
to the rescue of the Royal Family, by running to arouse Lafayette, who
was sleeping the sleep of the virtuous; and just now, when you saw me,
you were about to make a breastwork of your body for the Queen who
seemed threatened--though, between ourselves, she detests you. Is this
right? Have I forgotten anything of note, such as a hypnotic seance
before the King when Countess Charny was made to disclose how she had
led to your imprisonment and how she obtained a certain casket of your
papers by one Wolfstep, a police agent? Tell me and if I have omitted
any point, I am ready to do penance for it.”
Gilbert stood stupefied before this extraordinary man, who knew so well
to prepare his march that his hearer was inclined to attribute to him
the faculty of comprising heavenly as well as mundane things, and to
read in the heart of man.
“Yes, it is thus and you are still the magician, the fortune-teller, the
thaumaturgist, Cagliostro!”
The wonder-worker smiled with satisfaction, for it was evident that he
was proud of having worked on Gilbert such an impression as the latter’s
visage revealed.
“And now,” continued Gilbert, “as I love you as much as you do me, dear
master, and my desire to learn what you have been doing is equal to
yours and how I have fared, will you kindly tell me, if I am not
intruding too far, in what part of the globe you have exhibited your
genius and practiced your power?”