Part 25 (1/2)
Bailly went with pain to General Lafayette. ”We must pacify them, or you, general, must prevent them by force!” ”It is impossible,”
replied Lafayette. ”How could we use force against defenceless women? Not one of my soldiers would obey my commands, for these women are the wives, the mothers, the sisters of my soldiers! They have no other weapons than their tongues with which to storm the heart of the queen! How could we conquer them with weapons of steel?
We must let them go! But we must take precautions that the king and the queen do not fall into danger.”
”That will be all the more necessary, general, as the women will certainly be accompanied by armed crowds of men, and excitement and confusion will accompany them all the way to Versailles. Make haste, general, to defend Versailles. The columns of women are already in motion, and, as I have said to you, they will be accompanied by armed men!”
”It would not be well for me to take my soldiers to Versailles,”
said Lafayette, shaking his head. ”You know, M. De Bailly, to what follies the reactionaries of Versailles have already led the royal family. All Paris speaks of nothing else than of the holiday which the king and queen have given to the royal troops, the regiment of Flanders, which they have summoned to Versailles. The king and the queen, with the dauphin, were present. The tri-colored c.o.c.kade was trodden under foot, and the people were arrayed in white ribbons.
Royalist songs were sang, the National Guard was bitterly talked of, and an oath was given to the king and queen that commands would only be received of them. My soldiers are exasperated, and many of my officers have desired of me to-day that we should repair to Versailles and attack the regiment of Flanders and decimate them. It is, therefore, perilous to take these exasperated National Guards to Versailles.”
”And yet something must be done for the protection of the king,”
said Bailly; ”believe me, these raging troops of women are more dangerous than the exasperated National Guards. Come, General Lafayette, we will go to the city hall, and summon the magistracy and the leaders of the National Guard, to take counsel of them.”
An hour later the drums beat through all the streets of Paris, for in the city hall the resolve had been taken that the National Guard of Paris, under the lead of General Lafayette, should repair to Versailles to protect the royal family against the attacks of the people, but at the same time to protect the National a.s.sembly against the attacks of the royalist troops.
But long before the troops were in motion, and had really begun their march to Versailles, the troops of women were already on their way. Soldiers of the National Guard and armed men from the people accompanied the women, and secured among them a certain military discipline. They marched in ten separate columns, every one of which consisted of more than a thousand women.
Each column was preceded by some soldiers of the National Guard, with weapons on their shoulders, who, of their own free will, had undertaken to be the leaders. On both sides of each column marched the armed men from the people, in order to inspire the women with courage when they grew tired, but at the same time to compel those who were weary of the long journey, or sick of the whole undertaking, and who wanted to return to Paris, to come back into the ranks and complete what they had begun, and carry the work of revolution still further. ”On to Versailles!”
All was quiet in Versailles that day. No one suspected the horrors which it was to bring forth. The king had gone with some of his gentlemen to Meudon to hunt: the queen had gone to Trianon alone-- all alone!
No one of her friends was now at her side, she had lost them all. No one was there to share the misery of the queen of all who had shared her happiness. The d.u.c.h.ess de Polignac, the princesses of the royal house, the cheery brother of the king, Count d'Artois, the Count de Coigny, Lords Besenval and Lauzun, where are they all now, the friends, the suppliants of former days? Far, far away in distant lands, flown from the misfortune that, with its dark wings sinking, was hovering lower and lower over Versailles, and darkening with its uncanny shadows this Trianon which had once been so cheerful and bright. All now is desolate and still! The mill rattles no more, the open window is swung to and fro by the wind, and the miller no more looks out with his good-natured, laughing face; the miller of Trianon is no longer the king, and the burdens and cares of his realm have bowed his head. The school-house, too, is desolate, and the learned master no longer writes his satires and jokes upon the great black-board in the school-room. He now writes libels and pamphlets, but they are now directed against the queen, against the former mistress of Trianon. And there is the fish-pond, along whose sh.o.r.es the sheep used to pasture, where the courtly company, transformed into shepherds and shepherdesses, used to lie on the gra.s.s, singing songs, arranging tableaux, and listening to the songs which the band played behind the thicket. All now is silent. No joyous tone now breaks the melancholy stillness which fills the shady pathways of the grove where Marie Antoinette, the mistress of Trianon, now walks with bended head and heart-broken spirit; only the recollection of the past resounds as an echo in her inner ear, and revives the cheerful strains which long have been silent.
At the fish-pond all is still, no flocks grazing on the sh.o.r.e, no picturesque groups, no songs. The spinning-wheel no longer whirls, the hand of the queen no longer turns the spindle; she has learned to hold the sceptre and the pen, and to weave public policy, and not a net of linen. The trees with their variegated autumn foliage are reflected in the dark water of the pond; some weeping-willows droop with their tapering branches down to the water, and a few swans come slowly sailing across with their necks raised in their majestic fas.h.i.+on. As they saw the figure on the sh.o.r.e, they expanded their wings and sailed quicker on, to pick up the crumbs which the white hands of the queen used to throw to them.
But these hands have to-day no gifts for the solitary, forgotten swans. All the dear, pleasant customs of the past are forgotten, they have all ceased.
Yet the swans have not forgotten her; they sail unquietly hither and thither along the sh.o.r.e of the pond, they toss up their slender necks, and then plunge their red beaks down into the dark water seeking for the grateful bits which were not there. But when they saw that they were disappointed, they poured forth their peculiarly mournful song and slowly sailed away down the lakelet into the obscurity of the distance, letting their complaining notes be heard from time to time.
”They are singing the swan's song of my happiness,” whispered the queen, looking with tearful eyes at the beautiful creatures. ”They too turn away from me, and now I am alone, all alone.”
She had spoken this loudly, and her quivering voice wakened the echo which had been artistically contrived there, to repeat cheery words and merry laughter.
”Alone!” sounded back from the walls of the Marlborough Tower at the end of the fish-pond. ”Alone!” whispered the water stirred with the swans. ”Alone!” was the rustling cry of the bushes. ”Alone!” was heard in the heart of the queen, and she sank down upon the gra.s.s, covered her face with her hands, and wept aloud. All at once there was a cry in the distance, ”The queen, where is the queen? ”
Marie Antoinette sprang up and dried her eyes. No one should see that she had wept. Tears belong only to solitude, but she has no longer even solitude. The voice comes nearer and nearer, and Marie Antoinette follows the sound. She knows that she is going to meet a new misfortune. People have not come to Trianon to bring her tidings of joy; they have come to tell her that destruction awaits her in Versailles, and the queen is to give audience to it.
A man came with hurried step from the thicket down the winding footpath. Marie Antoinette looked at him with eager, sharp eye. Who is he, this herald of misfortune? No one of the court servants, no one of the gentry.
He wears the simple garments of a citizen, a man of the people, of that Third Estate which has prepared for the poor queen so much trouble and sorrow.
He had perhaps read her question in her face, for, as he now sank breathless at her feet, his lips murmured: ”Forgive me, your majesty, forgive me that I disturb you. I am Toulan, your most devoted servant, and it is Madame de Campan who sends me.”
”Toulan, yes, I recognize you now,” said the queen, hastily. ”It was you, was it not, who brought me the sad news of the acquittal of Rohan?”
”It appears, your majesty, that a cruel misfortune has always chosen me to be the bearer of evil tidings to my exalted queen. And to-day I come only with such.”
”What is it?” cried the queen, eagerly. ”Has any thing happened to my husband? Are my children threatened? Speak quickly, say no or yes. Let me know the whole truth at once. Is the king dead? Are my children in danger?”
”No, your majesty.”