The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

CHAPTER XVII
THE KING ATTENDS TO PRIVATE MATTERS

LOUIS the King displayed the usual irresolution in dealing with Favras’ proposition, approved by the Queen, to make a rush out of the kingdom. He reflected all the night and at breakfast called for Count Charny.

He was still at table when the officer walked in.

“Won’t you take breakfast with me, count?”

Charny was obliged to excuse himself from the honor as he had broken his fast.

“I must ask you to wait a while as I never care to speak of important matters while at meals and I have something to talk over with your lordship. Let us speak of other matters for the moment. Of yourself, for instance. I hear that you are badly lodged here; somewhere in the garret, my lord, while the countess is lodging in Paris.”

“Sire, I am in a room of my own choice: the countess is dwelling in her own house in Coq-Heron Street.”

“I must confess my ignorance; is it near the palace?”

“Tolerably, Sire.”

“What does this mean that after only three years of married life, you have separate establishments?”

“Sire, I have no answer to make than that my lady wishes to live alone. I have not had the pleasure of seeing her since your Majesty sent me for news. That is, better than a week ago.”

The King understood grief more readily than melancholy and noticed the difference in the tone.

“Count, there is some of your fault in this estrangement,” said the monarch, with the familiarity of the family man, as he called himself.

“The man must be to blame when so charming a woman keeps aloof from him. Do not tell me that this is none of my business: for a king can do a great deal by speaking a word. You must treat the lady ungratefully, for she loves you dearly – or did when Lady Taverney.”

“Sire, you know that one must not dispute with a king.”

“I do not know that the signs were visible to me alone; but this I know very well that on that dreadful October night, when she came to join us, she did not lose sight of you throughout, and her eyes expressed all her soul’s anguish, so much so that I saw her make a movement to fling herself between you and danger when the Bullseye Saloon door was beaten down.”

Count Charny was not softened; he believed he had seen something of this sort: but the details of his recent interview with his wife were too distinct for him to have his opinion shaken.

“I was paying all the more attention to her,” went on Louis, “from the Queen having said when you were sent to the City Hall while I was on my journey to Paris, that she almost died of distress in your absence and of joy at your return.”

“Sire,” replied Charny with a sad smile, “God had allowed those who are born above us to receive in birth as a privilege of their rank, the gift of seeing deeper into one’s heart than oneself can do; the King and the Queen have perceived secrets unrevealed to me: but my limited vision prevents me seeing the same. Therefore I beg to be employed on any dangerous errand or one that would take me to a distance without considering the great love of the Countess of Charny. Absence or danger will be equally welcome, coming at least for my part.”

“Nevertheless, a week ago, you appeared wishful to stay in town when the Queen desired to despatch you to Italy.”

“I deemed my brother adequate for the position and reserved myself for a mission more difficult or dangerous.”

“Then count, this is the very time when I have a difficult task to entrust to you, that with danger to you in the future, that I spoke of the countess’s isolation and wished her to have a lady friend’s company while I took away her husband.”

“I will write to the countess, yes, write: for from the way she last received me, I ought in that manner acquaint her with my movements.”

“Say no more on this head; I will talk it over with the Queen during your absence,” said Louis, rising. “Faith, the medical lights are right to say that things look differently as you handle them before or after a hearty meal. Come into my study, count; I feel in a mood to talk straight out to you.”

Charny followed, thinking how much Majesty lost by this material side, for which the proud Marie Antoinette was always carping at him.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE KING ATTENDS TO PUBLIC MATTERS

THOUGH the King had been only a fortnight in the Tuileries he had two places fitted out completely for him. The forge was one, the study the other.

Charny walked up to the desk at which his royal master seated himself without looking round at the papers with which he was familiar.

“Count Charny,” began the King at last, yet seeming to halt, “I noticed one thing, on the night of the attack by the rioters, you stood by me while you set your brother on guard over the Queen.”

“Sire, it was my right as head of my family, as you are chief of the realm, to die for you.”

“That made me think, that if ever I had a secret errand, difficult and dangerous, I could rely on your loyalty as a Frenchman, and on your heart as a friend’s.”

“Oh, Sire, however the King may raise me, I have no pretension to believe that I shall be more than a faithful and thankful subject.”

“My lord, you are a grave man though but thirty-six; you have not passed through recent events without drawing some conclusion from them. What do you think of the situation and what would be your means to relieve me, if you were my Premier?”

“Sire, I am a soldier and a seaman,” returned Charny, with more hesitation than embarrassment, “these high social questions fly over my head.”

“Nay, you are a man,” said the sovereign with a dignity in holding out his hand which sprang from the quandary; “another man, who believes you to be his friend, asks you, purely and simply, what you, with your upright heart and healthy mind, would do in his place.”

“Sire, in a no less serious position, the Queen asked my opinion: the day after the Taking of the Bastile, when she wanted to fling the foreign legions upon the mobs. My reply would have embroiled me with her Majesty had I been less known to her and my respect and devotion less plain. I said that your Majesty must not enter these walls as a conqueror if he could not as a father of his people.”

“Well, my lord, is not that the counsel I followed? The question is was I right? am I here as a King or a captive?”

“Speaking in full frankness, I disapproved of the banquet at Versailles, supplicating the Queen not to go there; I was in despair when she threw down the tricolor and set up the black cockade of Austria.”

“Do you believe that led really to the attack on the palace?”

“No, Sire; but it was the cover for it. You are not unjust for the lower orders; they are kindly and love you – they are royalist. But they are in pain from cold and hunger; beneath and around them are evil advisers, who urge them on, and they know not their own strength. Once started they become flood or fire, for they overwhelm or they consume.”

“Well, what am I to do? supposing, as is natural enough, I do not want to be drowned or burned.”

“We must not open the sluices to the flood or windows to the flame. But pardon me forgetting that I should not speak thus, even on a royal order – “

“But you will on a royal entreaty. Count Charny, the King entreats you – to continue.”

“Well, Sire, there are two strata of the lower orders, the soil and the mud; the one which may be reposed upon and the other which will yield and smother one. Distrust one and rest on the other.”

“Count, you are repeating at two hours’ interval, what Dr. Gilbert told me.”

“Sire, how is it that after taking the advice of a learned man, you ask that of a poor naval officer like me?”

“Because there is a wide difference between you, I believe. Dr. Gilbert is devoted to royalty and you to the King. If the principle remains safe, he would let the King go.”

“Then there is a difference between us, for the King and the principle are inseparable for me,” responded the nobleman; “under this head it is that I beg your Majesty to deal with me.”

“First, I should like to hear to whom you would apply in this space of calm between two storms perhaps, to efface the wreck made by one and soothe the coming tempest.”

“If I had the honor and the misfortune to be the wearer of the crown, I should remember the cheers I heard round my carriage, and I should hold out my hands to General Lafayette and Member Mirabeau.”

“Can you advise this when you detest one and scorn the other?”

“My sympathies are of no moment, the whole question is the safety of the crown and the salvation of the monarchy.”

“Just what Dr. Gilbert says,” muttered the hearer as though speaking to himself.

“Sire, I am happy to be in tune with such an eminent man.”

“But if I were to agree to such a union and there should be failure, what think you I ought to do?”

“Think of your safety and your family’s.”

“Then you suggest that I should flee?”

“I should propose that your Majesty should retire with such regiments as are reliable and the true nobles to some fortified place.”

“Ah,” said the King with a radiant face: “but among the commanders who have given proof of devotion, you knowing them all, to which would you confide this dangerous mission, of guarding and removing the King?”

“Sire,” replied Charny, after hesitation, “it is not because ties of friendship – almost of family – attach me to a certain nobleman that I name him, but because he is known for his steadfast devotion; as Governor of the Leeward Islands, he not only protected our possessions in the Antilles, but captured some islands from the British: he had been charged with various commands, and at present he is General Governor, I believe, at Metz – this is the Marquis of Bouille. Were I a father, I should trust my son to him; a subject, I would confide the King!”

At the name the hearer could not repress an outcry of joy. He held out a letter, saying:

“Read this address, my lord, and see if Providence itself did not inspire me to apply to you.”

The address ran: “To Lord François Claude Amour, Marquis of Bouille, General Commander at Metz.”

“After what has happened, I do not feel that I ought to keep anything back from you. I have thought of this flight before, but in all the propositions was the hand of Austria beckoning me into a trap, and I have recoiled. I do not love Austria more than you do yourself.”

“Sire, you forget that I am the faithful subject of the King and the Queen of France.” He emphasized the second title.

“I have already told you, count,” went on the King, “that you are a friend, and I can speak the more frankly as the prejudice I cherished against the Queen is completely effaced from my mind. But it was against my will that I received into my house the double enemy of my line, as an Austrian and a Lorrainer. After ten years’ struggle it was despite my will that I had to charge Lord Breteuil with the management of my household and the government of Paris; make the Premier of the Archbishop of Toulouse, an atheist; lastly, pay to Austria the millions she extorted from the Low Countries. At present speaking, who succeeds the dead Maria Theresa, to counsel and direct the Queen? Her brother Joseph II., who is luckily dying. He is advised by old women of councillors who sway the Queen of France through her hairdresser Leonard and her dressmaker Bertin.

“They are pensioned by us while they are leading her to alliance with Austria. Austria has always been fatal to France, either as foe or friend, as when she put the dagger in Jacques Clement’s or Ravaillac’s or Damien’s to slay our kings. Formerly it was Catholic and devout Austria, but she is abjuring now and is partly philosophical under Joseph; rashly, she runs against her own sword, Hungary: without foresight, she lets the Belgian priesthood rob her of the finest jewels in her crown, the Low Countries; become the vassal of Russia, she wears out her troops in fighting for it against the Turks, our allies. No, my lord, I hate Austria and I will not trust to her. But I was saying that her overtures of flight were not the only ones. I have had one proposed by Marquis Favras. Do you know him?”

“He was the captain in the Belgunze Regiment, and lieutenant in the Count of Provence’s own Guards.”

“You have hit it with the latter shot. What think you of him?”

“He is a brave soldier and a loyal gentleman. Unfortunately he has no means and this makes him restless and fit for mad projects and hazardous attempts. But he is a man of honor who will die without retreating a step, or uttering a complaint in order to keep his word. He may be trusted to make a dash but not to manage an enterprise.”

“He is not the leader,” said the King, with marked bitterness; “that is Provence, who finds the means and manages all; devoted to the end, he will remain while Favras bears me hence. This is not the plot of Austria but of the fugitive princes and peers.”

“But why should not your Majesty’s brother go with you? why would he remain?”

“Through devotion, and also to be at hand in case the people should be tired of revolution and seek a regent. I tell you what all know, my dear count, and what your brother wrote me yesterday from Turin. They debate about deposing me and ruling by a regent. You see that unless in an extremity I can no sooner accept the Favras plan than the Austrian. This is what I have said to nobody, my dear count, but yourself, and I do it in order that nobody, not even the Queen,” he laid stress on the last three words, “can make you more devoted to them than to me, since they cannot show more confidence.”

“Sire, am I to keep the journey a secret from everybody?” inquired Charny, bowing.

“It little matters, count, that it should be known whither you go, as long as the design is unknown. You know the situation, my fears and hopes, better than my Minister Necker and my adviser Gilbert. Act accordingly; I put the scissors and the thread in your hands – disentangle or cut, as you see fit.”

He held the letter open for him to read:

Tuileries Palace, Oct. 29th.

“I hope, my lord, that you continue contented with your post as Governor of Metz. Count Charny, Lieutenant of my Lifeguards, passing through your city, will inquire if among your desires are any I can gratify. In that event I will take the opportunity to be agreeable to you as I do this one to renew the assurance of my feelings of esteem for your lordship.

“Louis.”

“Now, my Lord Charny,” said the King, “you have full power to make promises to Bouille if you think he needs any; only do not commit me farther than I can perform.”

For the second time he held out his hand.

Charny kissed it with emotion forefending any fresh pledges, and went forth, leaving his master convinced that he had acquired by his trust, the heart of the servitor, better than by offerings of wealth and favors such as he had lavished in the days of his power.

CHAPTER XIX
A LOVING QUEEN

CHARNY left the King with his heart full of opposing feelings.

The primary one, mounting to the surface over the tumultuous waves of turbulent thoughts, was deep gratitude for the boundless confidence testified to him.

This imposed duties the more holy from his conscience not being dumb. He remembered his wrongs towards this worthy monarch who laid his hand on his shoulder as on a true friend at the time of danger.

The more Charny felt guilty towards his master, the more ready he was to devote himself to him.

The more this respectful allegiance grew the lesser became the less pure emotion which he had cherished for the Queen during years.

This is the reason why he – having lost the vague hope which led him towards Andrea for the test, as if she was one of those flowering shrubs on the precipice edge by which a falling man can save himself – grasped with eagerness this mission diverging him from the court. Here he felt the double torment of being still loved by the woman whom he was ceasing to love and of not being loved by her whom he was beginning to adore.

Profiting by the coldness lately introduced into his relations with the Queen, he went to her rooms with the intention of leaving a note to tell of his departure when he found Weber awaiting him.

The Queen wished to see him forthwith, and there is no eluding the wishes of crowned heads in their palace.

Marie Antoinette was in the opposite mood to her visitor’s, she was recalling her harshness towards him and his devotion at Versailles; at the sight of the count’s brother laid dead across her threshold she had felt a kind of remorse; she confessed to herself that had this been the count she would have badly paid him for the sacrifice.

But had she any right to expect aught else than devotion of Charny?

She admitted that she was stern and unfair towards him, when the door opened and the gentleman appeared in the irreproachable costume of the military officer on duty.

But there was in his deeply respectful bearing something chilly which repelled the magnetic flow from the Queen’s heart, to go and seek in his the tender, sweet and sad memories collected during four years.

The Queen looked round her as though to try to ascertain why he remained on the sill, and when assured it was a matter of his will, she said:

“Come, my lord: we are alone.”

“I see that, but I do not see what in that fact should alter the bearing of a subject to his sovereign.”

“When I sent Weber for you I thought that fond friends were going to speak with one another.”

Charny smiled bitterly.

“I understand that smile and that you say, inwardly, the Queen was unjust at Versailles and is capricious here.”

“Injustice or caprice, a woman is allowed anything,” returned Charny: “a queen more than all.”

“Whatever the caprice, my friend,” said Marie with all the witchingness she could put in a voice or smile, “the Queen cannot do without you as adviser or the woman without you as loved friend.”

She held out her hand, a little thinned but still worthy of a lovely statue. He kissed it respectfully and was about to let it fall when he felt her retain his.

“I ought to have wept with you over the loss of your brother, slain for my sake: well, I have been weeping these ten days since I have not seen you: they are falling yet.”

Ah, if Charny could have surmised what a quantity of tears would follow those, no doubt the immense grief would have made him fall at her feet, and ask pardon for any grievances she had against him.

But the future is enveloped in mystery which no human hand can unveil before the hour and the black garb which Marie Antoinette was to wear to the scaffold, was too thickly embroidered with gold for one to spy the gloom of it.

“Believe, my lady,” he said, “that I am truly grateful for your remembrance of me and sorrow for my brother? unfortunately I must be brief as the King has entrusted me with a mission so that I leave in an hour.”

“What, do you abandon us like the others?”

“I repeat it is a mission.”

“But you refused the like a week ago!”

“In a week much happens in a man’s existence to alter his determination.”

“Do you depart alone?” she asked, making an effort.

She breathed again when he answered: “Alone.”

“Where do you go?” she asked, recovering from her weakness.

“It is the King’s secret, but he has none from you.”

“My lord, the secret is ours alike,” said Marie Antoinette haughtily. “But is it abroad or in the kingdom?”

“The King alone can give your Majesty the desired information.”

“So you go away,” said she, with profound sorrow overcoming the irritation from Charny’s reserve, “to run into dangers afar, and I am not to know what they are!”

“Wheresoever I go, you will have a devoted heart daring all for you: and the dangers will be light since I expose my life in the service of the two sovereigns whom I most venerate on earth.”

The Queen uttered a sob which seemed to tear out her heart; and she said with a hand on her throat as if to keep down her gorge.

“It is well – go! for you love me no longer.”

Charny felt a thrill run through him; it was the first time this haughty woman and ruler had bowed unto him.

At any other time and under any other circumstances, he must have fallen at her feet if only to crave pardon; but the remembrance of what had happened between him and the King recalled all his strength.

“My lady,” he said, “I should be a scoundrel if, after all the tokens of kindness and confidence the King has showered on me, I were to assure your Majesty of anything but my respect and devotion.”

“It is very well,” said she; “you are free to go.”

But when he departed without looking behind him, she waited till she heard him, not returning, but continuing his departure, in the carriage which rolled out of the courtyard.

She rang for her foster-brother.

“Weber,” she ordered, “go to the Countess of Charny’s residence and say I must speak with her this evening. I had an appointment with Dr. Gilbert, but I postpone that till the morning.”

She dismissed him with a wave of the hand.

“Yes, politics to-morrow,” she mused: “besides my conversation with Andrea may influence me on the course I take.”