Taking the Bastile (33 page)

‘No; your duty was to fly Versailles; it was to do what we had agreed, to obey me. Your duty is to sacrifice nothing to my destiny; your duty is to separate yourself from me 1’

fl TAKING THE BASTILLE

‘To separate myself from you?’ said he. And who, then, flies from you, madame?’

‘Those who are prudent.’

‘I think myself very prudent, madame, and that is why I now come to Versailles.’

‘And from where do you come?’

‘From Paris. From boiling, intoxicated, and ensanguined Paris.’

The queen covered her face with both her hands.

‘Oh I’ said she, ‘no one, not even you, will then come to bring me some good news.’

‘Madame, in the present circumstances, ask your messengers to tell you but one thing the truth.’

‘And is it the truth you have just been telling me?’

‘As I do always, madame.’

‘Well, then, spare me for the moment, my friend; do not tell me a single word. You have arrived at a moment when my heart was breaking. My friends, to-day, for the first time overwhelm me with that truth which you have always told me. Oh 1 it was this truth, count, it was impossible for them to withhold it from me any longer. It bursts forth evervwhere : in the heavens, which are red; in the air, which is filled with sinister noises : in the physiognomy of the courtiers, who are pale and serious. No, no, count, for the first time in your life, tell me not the truth.’

The count looked at the queen with amazement.

‘Yes, yes,’ said she; ‘you who know me to be courageous, you are astonished, are you not ? Oh 1 you are not yet at the end of your astonishment.’

M. de Charny allowed an inquiring gesture to escape him.

‘You will see by-and-by,’ said the queen, with a nervous laugh.

‘Does your majesty suffer?’ asked the count.

‘No, no, sir. Come and sit down near me; and not a word more about those dreadful politics. Try to make me forget them.’

The count obeyed with a sad smile. Marie Antoinette placed her hand upon his forehead.

‘Your forehead burns,’ said she.

‘Yes, I have a volcano in my head.’

‘Your hand is icy cold.’

And she pressed the count’s hand between both hers.

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‘My heart is affected with a deathlike coldness,’ said he.

‘Poor Olivier ! I had told you so. Let us forget it. I am no longer queen : I am no longer threatened : I am no longer hated. No, I am no longer a queen. I am a woman, that is all. What is the whole universe to me ? One heart that loves me would suffice for me.’

The count fell on his knees before the queen, and kissed her feet with the respect the Egyptians had for the goddess Isis.

‘Oh, count, my only friend 1’ said the queen, trying to raise him up.

‘Your majesty has done me the honour to make me lieutenant of the Guards,’ said the Count de Charny; ‘my post is at Versailles. I should not have left my post if your majesty had not entrusted me with the care of the Tuileries. It is a necessary exile,” said the queen to me, and I accepted that exile. Now, in all this, your majesty well knows the Countess de Charny has neither reproved the step, nor was she consulted with regard to it.’

‘It is true,’ replied the queen, with perceptible coldness.

‘To-day,’ continued the count, with intrepidity, ‘I think my post is no longer at the Tuileries, but at Versailles. Well, may it not displease the queen, I have violated my orders, thus selecting the service I prefer; and here I am. Whether Madame de Charny be alarmed or not at the complexion of events, I will remain near the queen, unless, indeed, the queen breaks my sword; in which case, having no longer the right to fight and to die for her on the floor of Versailles, I shall still have that of sacrificing it on its threshold, on the pavement.’

The young man pronounced these simple words so valiantly and so loyally, they emanated so evidently from the depths of his heart, that the queen appeared suddenly to lose her haughtiness, a retreat behind which she had just concealed feelings more human than royal.

‘Count,’ said she, ‘never pronounce that word again. Do not say that you will die for me, for in truth I know that you would do as you say.’

‘Oh, I shall always say it 1 on the contrary,’ exclaimed M. de Charny. ‘I shall say it to every one, and in every place. I shall say it, and I shall do it, because the time has come, I fear, when all who have been attached to the kings of this earth must die.’

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‘Count 1 count I what is it gives you this fatal forewarning?’

‘Alas I raadame,’ replied Do Charny, shaking his head, ‘and I too, during that fatal American war, I too was affected like the rest with that fever of independence which pervaded all society. I too wished to take an active part in the emancipation of the slaves, as it was customary to say in those days; and I was initiated into the secrets of masonry. I became affiliated with a secret society, with the Lafayettes and the Lamoths. Do you know what the object of this society was, madame? The destruction of thrones. Do you know what it had for its motto? Three letters L.P.D.’

‘And what did these letters signify?’

‘Liha pedtbus destrue I Trample the lilies underfoot 1’

‘Then, what did you do?’

‘I withdrew with honour. But for one who withdrew from the society, there were twenty who applied to be admitted into it. Well, then, what is happening to-day, madame, is the prologue to the grand drama which has been preparing In silence and in darkness for twenty years. At the head of the men who are stimulating Paris to resistance, who govern the H6tel do Ville, who occupy the Palais-Royal, and who took the Bastille, I recognised the countenances of my former affiliated brethren. Do not deceive yourself, madame; all the events which have just taken place are not the results of chance; they are outbreaks which had been planned for years.’

‘Oh, you think so I you think so, my friend 1’ exclaimed the queen, bursting into tears.

‘Do not weep, madame, but endeavour to comprehend the present crisis,’ said the count.

‘You wish me to comprehend it 1’ continued Marie Antoinette. ‘I, the queen I, who was born the sovereign of twenty-five millions of men you wish me to understand how these twenty-five millions of subjects born to obey me, should revolt and murder my friends I No that I shall never comprehend.’

‘ And yet it is absolutely necessary that you understand it, madame; for the moment this obedience becomes a burden to these subjects, to these men born to obey you, you become their enemy; and until they have the strength to devour von. to do which they are sharpening their famished teeth, they will devour your friends, still more detested than you are.’

OLIVIER DE CHARNY *I 9

‘And, perhaps, you will next tell me that they are right, most sage philosopher,’ exclaimed the queen imperiously, her eyes dilated, and her nostrils quivering with anger.

‘AlasT yes, madame, they are right,’ said the count, in his gentle and affectionate voice; ‘for when I drive along the Boulevards, with my beautiful English horses, my coat glittering with gold, and my attendants covered with more silver than would be necessary to feed three families, your people, that is to tay, those twenty-five millions of starving men, ask themselves of what use I am to them I, who am only a man like themselves.’

‘You serve them with this, marquis,’ exclaimed the queen, seizing the hilt of the count’s sword; ‘you serve them with the sword that your father wielded so heroically at Fontenoy, your grandfather at Steinkirk, your great-grandfather at Lens and at Rocroi, your ancestors at Ivry, at Marignan, and at Agincourt. The nobility serves the French nation by waging war. By war, the nobility has earned, at the price of its blood, the gold which decks its garments, the silver which covers its liveries. Do not, therefore, ask yourself, Olivier, how you serve the people, you who wield in your turn, and bravely too, the sword which has descended to you from your forefathers.’

‘Madame 1 madame 1 said the count, shaking his head, ‘do not speak so much of the blood of the nobility : the people, too, have blood in their veins; go and see it running in streams on the Place de la Bastille; go and count their dead, stretched out on the crimsoned pavement, and consider that their hearts, which now no longer beat, throbbed with as much feeling as that of a knight, on the day when your cannon were thundering against them; on the day when, seizing a new weapon in their unskilful hands, they sang in the midst of grape-shot a thing which even our bravest grenadiers do not always. Ah 1 madame my sovereign, look not on me, I entreat you, with that frowning eye. What is a grenadier ? It is a gilt blue coat, covering the heart of which I was speaking to you a moment since. Of what importance is it to the bullet which pierces and lolls, that the heart be covered with blue cloth or with a linen rag ? Of what importance is it to the heart which is pierced through, whether the cuirass which protected it was cloth or canvas ? The time is come to think of all that, madame.

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You have no longer twenty-five millions of subjects; yon have no longer even twenty-five millions of men. You have twenty-five millions of soldiers.’

‘Who will fight against me, count’ ?

‘Yes, against you; for they are fighting for liberty, and you stand between them and liberty.’

A long silence followed the words of the count. The queen was the first to break it.

‘In fine,’ said she, ‘you have told me this truth, which I had begged you not to tell me.’

‘Alas, madame,’ replied Charny, ‘under whatever form my devotion may conceal it, under whatever veil my respect disguises it, in spite of me, in spite of yourself, examine it, listen to it, think of it. The truth is there, madame, is there for ever, and you can no longer banish it from your mind, whatever may be your efforts to the contrary. Sleep 1 sleep, to forget it, and it will haunt your pillow, will become the phantom of your dreams, a reality at your awakening.’

‘Oh I count,’ said the queen proudly, ‘I know a sleep which it cannot disturb 1’

‘As for that sleep, madame, I do not fear it more than does your majesty, and perhaps I desire it quite as much.’

‘Oh I’ exclaimed the queen, in despair, ‘according to you, it is then, our sole refuge?’

‘Yes; but let us do nothing rashly, madame. Let us go no faster than our enemies, and we shall go straight to that sleep by the fatigues which we shall have to endure during so many stormy days.’

And a new silence, still more gloomy than the first, appeared to weigh down the spirits of the two speakers.

The queen was the first to return to the subject of their conversation, but indirectly. She looked fixedly at the count.

‘Let us see, sir,’ said she. ‘One word as to ourselves, and you will tell me all all all. You understand me?’

‘I am ready to answer you, madame.’

‘Can you swear to me that you came here only for my sake ? ‘

‘Oh 1 do you doubt it?’

‘Will you swear to me that Madame de Charny had not written to you?’

‘She?’

‘Listen to me. I know that she was going out. T know

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that she had some plan in her mind. Swear to me, count, that it was not on her account that you returned !’

The count seemed as anxious as the queen to come to an explanation.

‘You ask me if it was for Madame de Charny that I had come back,’ said he. ‘Has your majesty then forgotten that engagements were entered into between us, and that I am a man of honour?’

‘Yes,’ said the queen, holding down her head, ‘yes, we have made engagements; yes, you are a man of honour; yes, you have sworn to sacrifice yourself to my happiness, and it is that oath which most tortures me, for in sacrificing yourself to my happiness, you immolated at the same time a beautiful woman and a noble character another crime 1 ‘

‘Oh 1 madame, now you are exaggerating the accusation. I only wish you to confess that I have kept my word as a gentleman.’

‘It is true; I am insensate forgive me ‘

‘Do not call a crime that which originated in chance and necessity. We have both deplored this marriage, which alone could shield the honour of the queen. As for this marriage, there only remains for me to endure it, as I have done for many years.’

‘Yes !’ exclaimed the queen. ‘But do you think that I do not perceive your grief, that I do not understand your sorrow, which evince themselves in the shape of the highest respect ? Do you think that I do not see all this ? ‘

‘Do me the favour, madame,’ said the count, bowing, ‘to communicate to me what you see, in order that if I have not suffered enough myself, and made others suffer enough, I may double the amount of suffering for myself, and for all those who surround me, as I feel certain of ever falling short of what I owe you.’

The queen held out her hand to the count. The words of the young man had an irresistible power, like everything that emanates from a sincere and impassioned heart.

‘Command me, then, madame,’ rejoined he; ‘I entreat you, do not fear to lay your commands upon me.’

‘Oh ! yes, yes, I know it well. I am wrong; yes, forgive me; yes, it is true. But if you have anywhere some hidden idol, to whom you offer up mysterious incense if for you there is in some corner of the world an adored

22 TAKING THE BASTILLE

woman if such a woman does exist, concealed from every one, do not forget that you have publicly, in the eyes of others as in your own, a young and beautiful wife, whom you surround with care and attentions, a wife who leans upon your arm, and who, while leaning on your arm, leans at the same time on your heart.’

Olivier knit his brow, and the delicate lines of his face assumed for a moment a severe aspect.

‘What do you ask, madame?’ said he; ‘do I separate myself from the Countess de Charny? You remain silent; is that the reason, then? Well, then, I am ready to obey this order, even; but you know that she is alone in the world she is an orphan. Her father, the Baron de Taverney, died last year, like a worthy knight of the olden time, who wishes not to see that which is about to take place in ours. Her brother you know that her brother, Maison-Rouge, makes his appearance once a year, at most comes to embrace his sister, to pay his respects to your majesty, and then goes away, without any one knowing what becomes of him.’