Taking the Bastile (36 page)

236 TAKING THE BASTILLE

The whole destiny of this privileged child of suffering revealed itself in the condition of her mind during that night. For, how was it possible to escape misfortune and grief at the same time? she would ask herself, with constantly renewing anguish. Was it necessary to determine on abandoning a life of royalty, and could she live happily in a state of mediocrity? was it necessary to return to her own Trianon, and to her Swiss cottage, to the quiet shores of the lake and the humble amusements of the dairy? was it necessary to allow the people to divide among them the shreds of monarchy, excepting some few fragments which the woman could appropriate to herself from the contested revenues of a few faithful servants, who would still persist in considering themselves her vassals ? Alas I it was now that the serpent ol jealousy began to sting still deeper. Happy ! Could she be happy with the humiliation of despised love ? Happy I Could she be happy by the side of the king that vulgar husband in whom everything was deficient to form the hero ?

Happy 1 Could she be happy with M. de Charny, who might be so with some woman whom he loved by the side of his own wife, perhaps ?

But in the midst of this feverish torture, she saw a ray of hope; in the midst of this shuddering anguish, she felt a sensation of joy. Andre had entrusted the queen with all her secrets; she had unveiled the one shame of her life to her rival. Andre, her eyes full of tears, her head bowed down to the ground, had confessed to the queen that she was no longer worthy of the love and the respect of an honourable man : therefore Charny could never love Andre. But Charny is ignorant of this. Charny will ever be ignorant of that catastrophe at Trianon, and its consequences. Therefore, to Charny it is as if the catastrophe had never taken place. And while making these reflections the queen examined her fading beauty in the mirror of her mind, and deplored the loss of her gaiety, the freshness of her youth. Then she thought of Andre, of the strange and almost incredible adventures which she had just related to her. She wondered at the magical working of blind fortune, which had brought to Tnanon, from the shade of a hut and the muddv furrows of a farm, a little gardener’s boy, to associate his destinies with those of a highly-born young lady, who was herself associated with the destinies of a queen.

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‘Thus,’ said she to herself, ‘the atom which was thus lost in the lowest regions, has come, by a freak of superior attraction, to unite itself, like a fragment of a diamond, with the heavenly light of the stars.’

This gardener’s boy, this Gilbert, was he not a living symbol of that which was occurring at that moment a man of the people, rising from the lowness of his birth to busy himself with the politics of a great kingdom. This Gilbert, now become a learned man this Gilbert, dressed in the black coat of the Tiers Etat, the counsellor of M. de Necker, the confidant of the King of France, would now find himself, thanks to the revolution, on an equal footing with the woman whose honour, like a thief, he had stolen in the night. The queen had again become a woman, and, shuddering in spite of herself at the sad story related by Andrfce, she was endeavouring to study the character of this Gilbert, and to learn by herself to read in human features what God has placed there to indicate so strange a character; and, notwithstanding the pleasure she had experienced on seeing the humiliation of her rival, she still felt a lingering desire to attack the man who had caused a woman such intensity of suffering. Gilbert was therefore both a venomous and a terrible being venomous, because he had caused the loss of Andre as a lover : terrible, because he had just assisted in overthrowing the Bastille as an enemy. It was therefore necessary to know, in order to avoid him; or rather, to know him, in order to make use of him.

Two-thirds of the night had already flown away, three o’clock was striking, and the first rays of the rising sun gilded the high tops of the trees in the park, and the summits of the statues of Versailles. The queen had passed the whole night without sleeping; her dimmed vision lost itself in the shaded streaks of the mild light. A heavy and burning slumber gradually seized the unfortunate woman. She fell back, with her neck overhanging the back of the armchair, near the open window. She dreamed that she was walking in Trianon, and that there appeared to her eyes, at the extremity of a flower-bed, a grinning gnome, similar to those we read of in German ballads; that this sardonic monster was Gilbert, who extended his hooked fingers towards her. She screamed aloud. Another cry answered hers. That cry roused her from her slumber. It was Madame de Tourzel who had uttered it. She had

aa8 TAKING THE BASTILLE

just entered the queen’s apartment, and seeing her exhausted and gasping in an armchair, she could not avoid giving utterance to her grief and surprise.

‘The queen is indisposed I’ she exclaimed. ‘The queen is suffering : shall I send for a physician?’

The queen opened her eyes. This question of Madame de Tourzel coincided with the demands of her own curiosity.

‘Yes, a physician I* she replied; ‘Doctor Gilbert! send for Doctor Gilbert I’

‘Who is Doctor Gilbert?’ asked Madame de Tourzel.

‘A new physician, appointed by the king only yesterday, I believe, and just arrived from America.’

While waiting for the doctor’s arrival, the queen mad* her ladies in attendance enter the room; after which she put on a dressing-gown and adjusted her hair.

A FBW moments after the queen had expressed the above desire, Gilbert, who felt astonished, slightly anxious, and profoundly agitated, but still without showing any external marks of it, presented himself to Marie Antoinette. The firm and noble carriage, the delicate pallor of the man of science and of thought, to whom study had given a second nature, a mixture of respectful timidity towards the woman, and of calm courage towards the patient, but no signs of servility towards her as a queen such were the plainly-written signs that Marie Antoinette, with her aristocratic intelligence, could perceive in the countenance of Gilbert, at the moment when the door opened to admit him into her bed-chamber. But the less Gilbert was provoking in his demeanour, the more did the queen feel her anger incresw). She had figured him to herself as a type of an odious class of men; she had considered him instinctively, though almost involuntarily, as one of those impudent heroes of which she had so many around her. It had seemed to her, before she saw Gilbert, that it required a gigantic physical development to contain so colossal a mind.

But when she saw a young, upright, and slender man, of elegant and graceful form, of sweet and amiable countenance, he appeared to her as having committed the new

THE KING’S PHYSICIAN 139

ie of belying himself by bis exterior. Gilbert, a man tf the peopie, of obscure, and unknown birth IGilbert was gouty, in the eyes of the queen, of having usurped the external appearance of a gentleman and a man of hotour. The proud Austrian, the sworn enemy of lying and deception in others, became indignant, ana immediately conceived a violent hatred for the unfortunate atom whom so many different motives combined to induce her to abhor.

For those who were intimate with her nature, for those who were accustomed to read in her eyes either serenity of temper or indications of an approaching storm, it was easy to discern that a tempest, mil of thunder-claps and flashes of lightning, was raging in the depths of her heart. The queen with a single look dismissed all her attendants, even Madame de Misery. The queen waited till the door had been closed on the last person. Then, casting her eyes upon Gilbert, she perceived that he had not ceased to gaze at her. So much audacity offended her. The doctor’s look was apparently inoffensive; but as it was continual, and seemed full of design, it weighed heavily upon her. Maria Antoinette felt compelled to repress its importunity.

f Well, then, sir,’ laid she, with the abruptness of a pistol-shot, ‘what are yon doing there, standing before me and gazing at me, instead of telling me with what complaint I am suffering?’

This furious apostrophe, rendered more forcible by the flashing of her eyes, would have annihilated any of the queen’i courtiers it would even have compelled a marshal of France, a hero, of a demi-god, to fall on his knees before her.

But Gilbert tranquilly replied, ‘It Is by means of the eyes, madame, that the physician must first examine his patient. By looking at your majesty, who sent for me, I do not satisfy an idle curiosity I exercise my profession I obey your orders.’

“Then you must have studied me sufficiently.’

‘As much as lay in my power, madame.’

Am I ill?’

‘Not in the strict sense of the word. But your majesty is suffering from great over-excitement.

‘Ah 1 ah 1’ said Marie Antoinette ironically, ‘why do you not say at once that I am in a passion?’

240 TAKING THE BASTILLE

‘Let your majesty allow me, since you have ordered the attendance of a physician, to express myself in medical terms.’

‘ Be it so. But what is the cause of my over-excitement ? ‘

‘Your majesty has too much knowledge not to be aware that the physician discovers the sufferings of the body, thanks to his experience and the traditions of his studies; but he is not a sorcerer, who can discover at first sight the depths of the human soul.’

‘By this you mean to imply, that the second or third time you could tell me not only from what I am suffering, but also what are my thoughts?’ ,

‘Perhaps so, madame,’ coldly replied Gilbert.

The queen appeared to tremble with anger; her words seemed to be hanging on her lips, ready to burst forth in burning torrents. She, however, restrained herself.

‘I must believe you,’ said she, ‘you who are a learned man.’

‘It is too kind of your majesty to give me the title of a learned man, without having received any proofs of my knowledge.’

The queen bit her lip.

‘You must understand that I do not know if you are a scientific man,’ she replied; ‘but I have heard it said, and I repeat what everybody says.’

‘Well, then,’ said Gilbert respectfully, and bowing still lower than he had done hitherto, ‘a superior mind, like that of your majesty, must not blindly repeat what is said by the vulgar.’

‘Do you mean the people?’ said the queen insolently.

‘The vulgar, madame, repeated Gilbert, with a firmness which made the blood thrill in the queen’s veins.

‘Let us not discuss that point,’ answered she. ‘You are said to be learned, that is all that is essential. Where have you studied?’

‘Everywhere, madame.’

‘That is not an answer.’

‘Nowhere, then.’

‘I prefer that answer. Have you studied nowhere?’

‘As it may please you, madame,’ replied the doctor, bowing, ‘and yet it is less exact than to say everywhere.’

‘Come, answer me, then 1’ exclaimed the queen, becoming exasperated; ‘and above all, for Heaven’s sake, Monsieur Gilbert, spare me such phrases. Everywhere 1

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Mention some place; come, explain your meaning, Monsieur Gilbert.’

‘I said everywhere,’ answered Gilbert coldly, ‘because, in fact, I have studied everywhere, madame; in the hut and in the palace, in cities and in the desert; upon our own species and upon animals, upon myself and upon others, in a manner suitable to one who loves knowledge, and studies it where it is to be found, that is to say, everywhere.’

The queen, overcome, cast a terrible glance at Gilbert, whild he, on his part, was eyeing her with terrible perseverance. She became convulsively agitated, and, turning round, upset a small stand, upon which her chocolate had been served up in a cup of Sevres porcelain. Gilbert saw the tible fall, saw the broken cup, but did not move a finger, The colour mounted to the cheeks of Marie Antoinette; she raised her cold, moist hand to her burning temples, but did not dare to raise her eyes again to look at Gilbert. But her features assumed a more com tern p-tuous, more insolent expression than before.

‘Then, under what great master did you study?’ continued the queen, again taking up the conversation at the point where she had left it off.

‘I hardly know how to answer your majesty, without running the risk of again wounding your majesty.’

The queen perceived the advantage that Gilbert had given her, and threw herself upon it like a lioness upon her prey.

‘Wound me you wound me you !’ exclaimed she. ‘Oh! sir, what are you saying there? You wound a queen I You are mistaken, sir, I can affirm to you. Ah, Dr Gilbert, you have not studied the French language in as good schools as you have studied medicine 1 People of my station are not to be wounded, Dr Gilbert. You may weary them; that is all.’

Gilbert bowed, and made a step towards the door; but it was not possible for the queen to discover in his countenance the least show of anger, the least sign of impatience. The queen, on the contrary, was stamping her feet with rage; she sprang towards Gilbert, as if to present him from leaving the room. He understood her.

‘Pardon me, madame,’ said he. ‘It is true I committed the unpardonable error to forget that, as a physician, I was called to see a patient. Forgive me, madame; hereafter I shall remember it.’ And he came back.

4* TAKING THE BASTILLE

‘Your majesty continued ha, ‘is rapidly approaching a nervous crisis. I will venture to ask you not to give way to it; for in a Short time it would DO beyond your power to control it. At this moment your pulse must be imperceptible, the blood is rushing to the heart; your majesty la suffering, your majesty is almost suffocating, and perhaps it would be prudent for you to summon one of your ladies-in-waiting.

The queen took a turn round the room, and, seating herself. Is your name Gilbert ? ‘ asked she.

‘Yes, Gilbert, madam*.’

‘Strange I I remember an incident of my youth, the Strange nature of which would doubtless wound you much, were I to relate it to you. But it matters not : for, if hurt, you will soon cure yourself you, who are no less a philosopher than a learned physician.’