THE QUEEN'S FAVORITE.
On entering her boudoir, the Queen beheld the writer of the missive.
Count George Oliver Charny was a tall man of thirty-five, with a strong
countenance warning one of his determination. His bluish grey eyes,
quick and piercing as the eagle's, his straight nose, and his marked
chin, all gave his physiognomy a martial expression, enhanced by the
dashing elegance with which he wore his uniform of Lieutenant in the
Royal Lifeguards.
His hands were still quivering under the torn lace ruffles: his sword
had been so bent as to fit the sheath badly.
He was pacing the room, a prey to a thousand disquieting thoughts.
"My Lord Charny," cried Marie Antoinette, going straight up to him.
"You, here?"
Seeing that he bowed respectfully, according to the regulations,
however, she dismissed her servant, who shut the door.
Hardly giving it the time to close, the lady grasped the nobleman's
hand with force, and said:
"Why have you come here, count?"
"Because I believe it my duty."
"No; your duty was to flee from Versailles; to do as agreed. To obey
me; to act like all my friends--who are afraid of my ill fortune. Your
duty is to sacrifice nothing for me; to keep away from me."
"Who keeps away from you?"
"The wise. Whence come you?"
"From Paris, boiling with excitement, intoxicated and bathed in blood."
The Queen covered her face with her hands.
"Alas, not one, not even you, brings me good news from that quarter."
"In such a time ask but one thing of the messengers: truth."
"You have an upright soul, my friend, a brave heart. Do not tell me
the truth, at present, for mercy's sake. You arrive when my heart
is breaking; for the first time my friends overwhelm me with this
truthfulness always used by you. It is impossible for me to trifle with
it any longer: it flashes out in everything. In the red sky, the air
filled with ominous sounds, the courtiers' faces, now pale and serious.
No, count, for the first time in your life, do not tell me the truth."
"Your Majesty is ailing?"
"No, but come and sit beside me. George, your brow is burning."
"A volcano is raging there."
"Your hand is cold," for she was pressing it between hers.
"My heart has been touched by the chill of death," he replied.
"Poor George! I told you we had best forget. Let me no longer be the
Queen, hated and threatened; but just the woman. What is the realm, the
universe to me, whom one loving heart suffices?"
The count went down on one knee and kissed the hem of her dress with
the reverence of the ancients for a goddess.
"Oh, count, my only friend, do you know what Countess Diana is doing?"
"Leaving the country," returned Charny.
"He guesses rightly," muttered the Queen, "how could he tell that?"
"Oh, goodness--anything can be surmised at this hour."
"But if flight is so natural, why do not you and your family take it?"
"I do not do so, in the first place, because I have pledged myself not
only to your Majesty, but to myself, not to leave you during the storm.
My brothers stay, as they regulate their movements by mine: and my wife
remains because she loves your Majesty most sincerely, I believe."
"Yes, Andrea has a most noble heart," said the lady with visible
coldness.
"That is why she will not quit Versailles," replied Charny.
"It follows that I shall always have you near me," went on the Queen,
in the same glacial tone, awarded to prevent the hearer telling whether
she felt disdain or jealousy.
A witness could have divined this secret, however, from their manner in
this privacy.
Meeting romantically, without either knowing the other's quality, Marie
Antoinette and George Charny had fallen in love with each other. The
royal dame had left the passion swell to the highest point, when the
King had surprised the pair in dangerous intimacy. There was only one
way to save her reputation: she blurted out the first name of a lady
that occurred to her, and protested that the count was at her knees
sueing for this lady to be his wife, with the royal approval.
The Queen had named Andrea Taverney, her companion, and the King, his
suspicions dismissed, consented that she should be withdrawn from the
convent where she had taken refuge, to fulfill the pretendedly wish of
Charny. Was it religion that impelled her, or love on her own side for
Charny? It was love, for she eagerly accepted the proffered hand, and
the wedding took place, all the more as she had had the misfortune to
learn that she was used as the cover for the royal amour.
But at the churchdoor they separated and had dwelt apart ever since.
Had she been truly a wife, the experiment of Dr. Gilbert might have
failed, for mesmerism succeeds best with the single.
"Your Majesty," resumed the count, "made me Lifeguards lieutenant at
Versailles, and I should not have quitted my post only you ordered me
to guard the Tuileries Palace, You called it a necessary exile. Your
Majesty knows that the countess neither approved nor disapproved, as
she was not consulted."
"True," observed the other, still cold.
"I now believe my place is here," proceeded the officer with
intrepidity: "I have broken my orders and come, hoping it will not
displease you. Whether Lady Charny fears the course of events and goes
away or not, I remain by the Queen, unless you break my sword: then,
being unable to die in your presence, I can be killed at your door or
on the pavement without."
He spoke so royally and plainly these simple words straight from the
heart that the sovereign fell from her high pride, behind which she had
hidden a feeling more human than royal.
"Count, never utter that word, never say you will die for me, as I feel
that you will do so."
"I must say so, for the time comes when those who love monarchs must
die for them--I fear so."
"What gives you this fatal presentiment, my lord?"
"Alas," returned the nobleman, "at the time of the American War,
I was fired like others with the fever of independence thrilling
society. I also wish to take a hand in the liberation of the slaves of
Great Britain, as was said in those days, and I became a Free Mason,
an Invisible like the Lafayettes and Lameths, under the redoubtable
Balsamo, the King-Destroyer. Do you know the aim of that secret
society? the wrecking of thrones. Its motto: 'Trample down the Lilies,'
expressed in Latin as 'Lilia Pedibus Destrue!' in three letters for the
initiated: 'L. P. D.' I retired with honor when I learnt this, but for
one who shrank, twenty took the oath. What happens to-day is merely the
first act of a grand tragedy which has been rehearsed during twenty
years in the darkness. I have recognized the Bounden brothers at the
head of the men who govern at the City Hall, occupy the Palais Royal,
and took the Bastile. Do not cheat yourself; these accomplished deeds
are no accidents, but Revolution planned long beforehand."
"Do you believe this, dear friend?" sobbed Marie Antoinette.
"Do not weep, but understand," said the count.
"Understand that I, the Queen, born mistress of thousands of men,
subjects created to obey, must look on at them revolting and killing my
friends--No, never will I understand this."
"You must, madam: for you have become the enemy of these subjects as
soon as obedience weighed upon them, and while they are lacking the
strength to devour you, they are testing their teeth on your friends,
whom they detest as much as you, more than you."
"Perhaps you think they are right, Master Philosopher?" sneered the
Austrian.
"Alas, yes, they are right," replied the Lifeguards Lieutenant, in his
bland, affectionate voice, "for when I idly rode along the street, with
handsome English horses, in a gold-laced suit, and my servants wearing
more gold braid than would have kept three families, your people,
twenty-five thousand wretches without daily bread, asked me to my teeth
what use was I, who set up as a man above his fellow-men?"
"You serve them, my lord," said the Queen, grasping the count's
swordhilt, "with this blade, which your fathers used as heroes on many
a celebrated battlefield. The French nobility shielded the masses in
war times; they won their gold by losing their blood. Do not you ask
what use you are, George, while you, a brave man, swing the sword of
your fathers."
"Do not speak of the nobles' blood," returned the count, "the commoners
have blood to shed also; go and see the streams of it on Bastile
Square. Go and count their dead in the gutters and know that those
hearts, now ceased to beat, throbbed as nobly as a knight's when your
cannon thundered against them. They sang in the showers of grapeshot
while handling unfamiliar weapons, and the oldest grenadiers would
not make a charge with that lightness. Lady and Queen, do not look
at me with that angry eye, I beseech you. What matters to the heart
whether it is clad in steel or rags? The time is come to think of this:
you have no longer millions of slaves, or subjects, or mere men in
France--but soldiers."
"Who will fight against me?"
"Yes, for they fight for Liberty and you stand between them and that
goddess."
A long silence succeeded the words, and the woman was first to break it.
"You have spoken the truth which I begged you to keep back," she said.
"Because it is before you, veiled, seen distorted, but there. You may
sleep to forget it, but it sits on your bedside and it will be the
phantom in your dreams as it is the reality of your waking moments."
"I know one sleep it will not trouble," said she, proudly.
"I do not fear that kind more than your Majesty--I may desire it as
much," said the count.
"Oh, you think it our only refuge?"
"Yes: but we must not hurry towards it. We shall earn it by our
exertions during the day of storm."
They were sitting beside each other, but a gulf divided them; their
thoughts so diverged.
"A last word, count," said Marie Antoinette, "swear to me that you came
back solely on my account? that Lady Charny did not write to you? I
know that she was going out--to meet you? swear that you have not come
back for her sake!"
At this was heard a slight tapping at the door.
It was the servant to announce that the King had finished supper.
Charny frowned with wonder.
"Tell his Majesty," said the Queen without sitting apart from her
favorite, "that I have news from the capital, and will impart to him.
Continue," she added to Charny: "the King having supped must be given
time to digest."
This interruption had not weakened the woman's jealousy as a loving
one, or as a queen.
"Your Majesty asks if I came back on account of my wife?" he asked as
soon as the door was closed. "Do you forget that I am a man of my word
and the engagement I made?"
"It is the oath that goads me, for in immolating yourself to my
happiness, you give grief to a fair and noble woman--a crime the more."
"You exaggerate. Be it enough that I keep my word. Call it not a crime
what was born of chance and necessity. We have both deplored this union
which shielded the Queen's good fame. I have been obliged to submit to
it these four years."
"Yes, but do you believe that I do not see your sorrow and chagrin
translated under the form of the deepest respect?" reproached the Queen.
"For mercy's sake, do me justice for what you see me do; for if I
have not yet suffered and made others suffer enough, I might double
the burden without rising to the level of the gratitude I owe you
eternally."
His speech had irresistible power like all emanating from a sincere and
impassioned heart.
"Yes, yes, I know all, and I am wrong. Forgive me. But if you worship
some secret idol to whom you offer a mystic incense, if you cherish one
adored woman--I dare not utter the words, they frighten me lest the
syllables should scatter through the air and vibrate on my ear--oh, if
one exists, keep her hidden from all; and do not forget that you have a
fair and youthful wife, who should be publicly encompassed with cares
and assiduity; she should lean on your arm and on your heart."
Charny frowned so that the pure lines of his visage were altered for a
space.
"What are you seeking? that I should depart from the Countess of
Charny? you are silent--that is your meaning. I am ready to obey you,
but reflect that she is alone in the world. Andrea is an orphan, her
father the baron having died last year, like a good old nobleman of
the former time who did not wish to see the present. Her brother, the
Knight of Redcastle, only appears once a-year at court to bow to your
Majesty, kiss his sister, and go away without anybody knowing whither.
Reflect, madam, that this lady of Charny, might be called unto God as
a maiden, without the purest of the angels surprising in her mind any
womanly memory."
"Yes, I know your Andrea is an angel on earth, and deserves to be
loved. That is why I think the future will be hers when it flees from
me. No, no; but I am not speaking like a queen. I forget myself, but
there is a voice in my heart singing of love and happiness, while
without roars war, misery and death. It is the voice of my youth which
I have outlived. Forgive one, Charny, who is no longer young, and will
smile, and love no more."
The unhappy woman pressed her long, thin fingers to her burning eyes
and tears, regal diamonds more becoming than the finest in the Diamond
Necklace, trickled between them.
"Oh, order me to quit you, but do not let me see you weep," pleaded the
count, again falling on one knee.
"The dream is over," said Marie Antoinette, rising.
With a witching movement she tossed back her thick, powdered tresses,
unrolling down her white and swanline neck.
"I shall afflict you no more. Let us drop such folly. Is it odd that a
woman should be so weak when a queen stands in such need of comfort?
Let us talk of serious matters--such as you bear from Paris."
"From Paris, madam, where I witnessed the ruin of royalty."
"This is serious with a vengeance. You call a successful revolt the
ruin of royalty? Because the Bastile is taken, Lord Charny, do you say
royalty is abolished? You do not reflect that the Bastile has been
built but in the Fourteenth Century while royalty struck in its roots
six thousand years ago all over the globe."
"I would I could deceive," said the lieutenant sadly, "and proclaim
consoling news instead of saddening your Majesty. Unfortunately the
instrument gives forth no other sounds than it was shaped to send."
"Stay, I will set you to a cheerier tune! though I am but a woman. You
say the Parisians have revolted. In what proportion?"
"Twelve out of fifteen: the calculation is easy. The populace stand
in that proportion to the classes, the other two fifteenths being the
nobility and the clergy."
"But six of the rate are women, and----"
"Women and children are not the least of your foes. You are proud and
courageous yourself, do not omit the women and the children. One day
you may reckon them as demons."
"What do you mean, count?"
"Do you not know the part the women and children play in civil
commotions? I will tell you and you will own that a woman is equal two
soldiers."
"Are you mad, my lord?"
"Had you seen your sex at the taking of the Bastile," he said with a
mournful smile: "hounding the men on to arm themselves, while under the
fire, threatening with their naked fist your Swiss soldiers caparisoned
for war, yelling maledictions over the slain in a voice which made
the living bound unto death. Had you seen them boiling pitch, rolling
cannon, giving the fighting men cartridges and the more timid a kiss
with the cartridges! Do you know that as many women as men dashed
across the Bastile draw-bridges, and that if its stones are coming
down now, the picks are wielded by female hands? Oh, my lady, you must
include the women, and the children who cast the bullets, sharpen the
swords and hurl paving-stones from the roofs. The bullet cast by a boy
will kill your best general from afar; the sword he sharpened will
hamstring your finest war-horse; the blind pebble from this David's
sling will put out the eye of your Dragoon Samson and your Lifeguards
Goliath.
"Count the old men, too, for they who have no strength to swing the
sabre, serve as buckler for the active fighters. At the taking of the
Bastile old men were on hand: they stood so that the younger ones
could rest their guns on their shoulder so that the balls of your
Switzers might be buried in the useless old body, the rampart of the
able man. Include them among your foes, for they have been relating in
the chimney corner for ever so many years, what affronts their mothers
endured, the poverty of the estates over which the nobles hunted, the
shame of their caste humbled under feudal privileges. When the sons
took up the gun, they found it loaded with the curses of the aged as
well as with powder and shot. In Paris now, women and children as well
as the men are cheering for liberty and independence. Count them all as
eight hundred thousand warriors."
"Three hundred Spartans vanquished Xerxes' army," retorted the Queen.
"Yes, but the Spartans are nearly a million and it is your army that is
Xerxes."
"Oh, I would rather be hurled from the throne," she cried, as she rose
with clenched fists and face flaming with shame and ire, "I would
rather your Parisians hewed me to pieces, than hear from a Charny, one
of my supporters, such speech as this!"
"Charny would not so address your Majesty unless every drop of blood in
his veins were worthy of his sires and given to you."
"Then let us march upon Paris and let us die together!"
"Shamefully, without any battle," said the noble. "We shall not fight
but disappear entirely like Philistines. March on Paris? when, as soon
as we enter within her walls, all the houses will tumble down upon
us, like the Red Sea waves overwhelming Pharaoh, and you will leave a
cursed name, and your children will be hunted down like wolf-cubs."
"How must I fall, pray tell me, count?" demanded the sovereign
haughtily; "teach me."
"As a victim," was the answer, "like a Christian queen, smiling and
forgiving those who strike you. If I had five hundred thousand like
myself, I might say, Let us have at them this night, and to-morrow you
would sleep in the Tuileries, the throne conquered!"
"Woe is me! you despair on whom was set my final hope."
"I despair because all France thinks like Paris, and your army if
victorious in the capital, will be engulfed by the other towns. Have
courage enough, my lady, to sheathe the sword."
"Is this why I have gathered brave men around me? why I breathed
courage into them?" wailed the Queen.
"If you are not of my opinion, madam, order, and we march at once to
Paris! Speak."
So much devotion was in this offer that the hearer was appalled. She
threw herself disconsolate on a sofa, where she struggled for a long
time with her pride.
"Count," she said at length, "I shall remain inactive as you desire. I
am not cross, though I have one thing to scold you for. I only learn by
chance that you have a brother in the military service."
"Valence is in Bercheny's Hussars, yes, madam."
"Why have you never spoken of the young man? he deserves a higher grade
in the regiment."
"He is young and inexperienced; he is not fit to command. If your
Majesty deigned to lower your view upon me, a Charny, that is no reason
for me to elevate my family at the expense of brave gentlemen worthier
than brothers of mine."
"You have other brothers?"
"Isidore is another; two ready to die for your Majesty."
"Does he need nothing?"
"Nothing; we are lucky enough to place not merely life but wealth at
your Majesty's feet."
As he spoke, the Queen thrilled with this delicate probity; a moan from
the next room aroused them.
Rising, the Queen ran to the door, opened it and screamed loudly. She
saw a woman writhing on the carpet in dreadful spasms.
"It is the countess, your wife," she faltered. "Can she have overheard
us?"
"No," said he, "otherwise, she would have let us know that she could
hear us."
He sprang towards Andrea and caught her up in his arms. Two paces off,
the Queen stood, pale and cold, but trembling with anxiety.