Part 16 (1/2)
”Let the poor hungry man go through,” cried the young man, pressing up to him. ”Only see how exhausted he is. Come, old fellow, give me your hand; support yourself on me.”
And he took the man by the arm, and with his powerful elbows forced a way through the crowd. The people let them pa.s.s, and directed their attention again to the door of the prison.
”The verdict is p.r.o.nounced?” asked the young man, softly.
”Yes, Mr. Toulan,” he whispered, ”the councillor gave me just now, as I was handing him a gla.s.s of water, the paper on which he had written it.”
”Give it to me, John, but so that n.o.body can see; otherwise they will suspect what the paper contains, and they will all grab at it and tear it in bits.”
The servant slid, with a quick motion, a little folded paper into the hand of the young man, who thanked him for it with a nod and a smile, and then quickly dropped his arm, and forced his way in another direction through the crowd. Soon, thanks to his youth and his skill, he had worked through the dense ma.s.s; then with a flying step he sped through the street next to the square, then more swiftly still through the side streets and alleys, till he reached the gate that led out to the street of Versailles. Outside of this there was a young man in a blue blouse, who, in an idle and listless manner, was leading a bridled horse up and down the road.
”Halloo, Richard, come here!” cried the young man.
”Ah! Mr. Toulan,” shouted the lad in the blouse, running up with the horse. ”You have come at last, Mr. Toulan. I have been already waiting eight hours for you.”
”I will give you a franc for every hour,” said Mr. Toulan, swinging himself into the saddle. ”Now go home, Richard, and greet my sweetheart, if you see her.”
He gave his horse a smart stroke, pressed the spurs into his flanks, and the powerful creature sped like an arrow from a bow along the road to Versailles.
In Versailles, too, and in the royal palace, this day had been awaited with anxious expectations. The king, after ending his daily duties with his ministers, had gone to his workshop in order to work with his locksmith, Girard, upon a new lock, whose skilful construction was an invention of the king.
The queen, too, had not left her room the whole day, and even her friend, the d.u.c.h.ess Julia de Polignac, had not been able to cheer up the queen by her pleasant talk.
At last, when she saw that all her efforts were vain, and that nothing could dissipate the sadness of the queen, the d.u.c.h.ess had made the proposition to go to Trianon, and there to call together the circle of her intimate friends.
But the queen sorrowfully shook her head, and gazed at the d.u.c.h.ess with a troubled look.
”You speak of the circle of my friends,” she said. ”Ah! the circle of those whom I considered my friends is so rent and broken, that scarcely any torn fragments of it remain, and I fear to bring them together again, for I know that what once is broken cannot be mended again.”
”And so does your majesty not believe in your friends any more?”
asked the d.u.c.h.ess, reproachfully. ”Do you doubt us? Do you doubt me?”
”I do not doubt you all, and, before all things else, not you,” said Marie Antoinette, with a lingering, tender look. ”I only doubt the possibility of a queen's having faithful friends. I always forgot, when I was with my friends, that I was the queen, but they never forgot it.”
”Madame, they ought never to forget it,” replied the d.u.c.h.ess, softly. ”With all their love for your majesty, your friends ought never to forget that reverence is due you as much as love, and subjection as much as friends.h.i.+p. They ought never to make themselves your majesty's equals; and if your majesty, in the grace of your fair and gentle heart, designs to condescend to us and make yourself like us, yet we ought never to be so thoughtless as to raise ourselves to you, and want to make ourselves the equals of our queen.”
”Oh, Julia! you pain me--you pain me unspeakably,” sighed Marie Antoinette, pressing her hand to her heart, as if she wanted to keep back the tears which would mount into her eyes.
”Your majesty knows,” continued the d.u.c.h.ess, with her gentle, and yet terribly quiet manner, ”your majesty knows how modestly I make use of the great confidence which you most graciously bestow upon me; how seldom and how tremblingly my lips venture to utter the dear name of my queen, of whom I may rightly talk only in intimate converse with your exalted mother and your royal husband. Your majesty knows further--”
”Oh! I know all, all,” interrupted the queen, sadly. ”I know that it is not the part of a queen to be happy, to love, to be loved, to have friends. I know that you all, whom I have so tenderly loved, feel yourselves more terrified than benefited; I know, that with this confession, happiness has withdrawn from me. I look into the future and see the dark clouds which are descending, and threatening us with a tempest. I see all; I have no illusions more. The fair days are all past--the suns.h.i.+ne of Trianon, and the fragrance of its flowers.”
”And will your majesty not go there to-day?” asked the d.u.c.h.ess. ”It is such beautiful weather, the sun s.h.i.+nes so splendidly, and we shall have such a glorious sunset.”
”A glorious sunset!” repeated Marie Antoinette, with a bitter smile.
”A queen is at least allowed to see the sun go down; etiquette has not forbidden a queen to see the sun set and night approach. But the poor creature is not allowed to see the sun rise, and rejoice in the beauty of the dawn. I have once, since I was a queen, seen the sun rise, and all the world cried 'Murder,' and counted it a crime, and all France laughed at the epigrams and jests with which my friends punished me for the crime that the queen of France, with her court, had seen the sun rise. And now you want to allow me to see it set, but I will not; I will not look at this sad spectacle of coming night. In me it is night, and I feel the storms which are drawing nigh. Go, Julia, leave me alone, for you can see that there is nothing to be done with me to-day. I cannot laugh, I cannot be merry. Go, for my sadness might infect you, and that would make me doubly sad.”
The d.u.c.h.ess did not reply; she only made a deep reverence, and went with light, inaudible step over the carpet to the door. The queen's face had been turned away, but as the light sound of the door struck her ear, she turned quickly around and saw that she was alone.
”She has left me--she has really gone,” sighed the queen, bitterly.