THE ARMY OF WOMEN.
The Queen was reposing after the day of felicitation. She had her
janissaries around her, her cohort of young bravoes, and having
reckoned up her foes, she was wishful for the onslaught.
Had she not the defeat of the Fourteenth of July, the Loss of the
Bastile, to avenge?
She treated Andrea with the former friendship for a time deadened in
her bosom. But Charny? she only looked where he was when she was forced
to give him an order. But this was no spite against the family, for it
was noticed that she paid special attention to young Valence Charny,
the hussar who had been given her Austrian rosette at the officers'
dinner.
Indeed, as he was crossing the gallery to announce to the Master of the
Buckhound's that the King would go hunting that day, Marie Antoinette
who came out of the chapel, perceived him and greeted him.
"The King goes hunting?" she repeated; "what a mistake when the weather
is threatening--is it not, Andrea?"
"Yes," answered the lady of honor absently.
"Where will the chase be?"
"In Meudon Wood, my lady."
"Well, accompany him and watch over him."
At this moment the head of the Charnys appeared. He smiled to Andrea
and remarked:
"That is advice which my brother will bear in mind during the dangers
to the King as well as during his pleasures."
At the sound of the voice, for she had not seen him coming, Marie
Antoinette started and rejoined with studied rudeness:
"I should have been astonished if that speech had come from any but
your lordship, for it contains a foreboding."
Andrea saw her husband blanch, but he bowed without retort. He noticed
her surprise that he bore it so patiently, for he quickly said:
"I am most unhappy that I can no longer speak to the Queen without
offense."
"The 'No longer' was spoken with a fine actor's due stress on the
important words in a line.
"Speech is only bad when the intention is so," snapped the Queen,
through her teeth, locked with anger.
"The ear hears hostilely when the mind is hostile," was the repartie of
Charny, more aptly than politely.
"I shall wait to reply till the Count of Charny is happier in his
attacks," went on the Queen.
"And I shall wait to attack till the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty is
more happy in servitors than lately."
Andrea grasped her husband's hand hastily and prepared to go out of
the gallery with him, when a glance from her mistress retained her.
"In short, what does _your husband_ have to say to me?" she inquired.
"Sent to Paris yesterday by the King, I found it in great turmoil."
"Yes, the Parisians are going to pull down the Bastile! The Dutch have
taken Holland! Anything fresher, my lord?"
"It is true that they are pulling down the prison, but that affords
them nothing but stones and they want for bread."
"Let them be hungry," said the Queen. "What are we to do in the matter
since others rule the roost?"
"There was a day when the Queen was the first to be compassionate in
times of general distress," said the count; "when she went up into the
garrets and the prayers of those she helped rose from the garrets unto
God."
"Yes, and I have been nicely repaid for this pity for others," returned
the lady bitterly. "One of my worst miseries came from my going into a
garret."
She alluded, of course, to the incident of the "Queen's Necklace,"
already described in this series.
"Because your Majesty was once deceived, is all humanity to be measured
by that bushel? Oh, how our gracious lady was loved at that period!"
She darted a flaming look at him.
"To be brief," she said, "what is happening in the capital? Only tell
me what you have actually seen, for I want to depend on the accuracy of
your words."
"I saw people packed on the waterside waiting for the flour boats;
others crowding the bakers' doors, waiting for bread. A famishing
people--husbands watching their wives sadly, mothers mourning over
their babes. Their fists were clenched and shaken in the direction
of Versailles. Alas, I fear that the dangers which my brothers and
I are ready to brave, and under which we may die, will not long be
forthcoming----"
The Queen had leaned on a window sill and with a view of expressing
unconcern, she looked out instead of towards the count. They saw her
start, and she exclaimed:
"Andrea, who is this rider?--he seems by his speed to bear news in hot
haste."
Andrea went up, but almost instantly retreated, turning pale, and
gasped in reproach:
"To call me to see him?"
Charny had looked also, and he said:
"It is Dr. Gilbert."
"So it is," said Marie Antoinette in such a tone that it was not
possible to tell whether she had or had not visited on Andrea her
personal spite.
Gilbert arrived with the sequel to the ominous scenes which Charny
described. The famished women had started for Versailles; they were
escorted by ragamuffins willing to be shielded by their petticoats and
ripe for any deeds.
"Seven or eight thousand women," repeated the Queen when Gilbert had
delivered his message of coming woe. She spoke with scorn.
"But they have been reinforced to double that number on the way. They
are hungry and come to ask bread of the King."
"Just what I feared," said Charny.
"What is to be done?"
"Prepare the King to receive them," suggested Gilbert.
"Why expose him?" she expostulated, with that bravery and personal
consciousness of her traits and of her husband's weakness which ought
not to be exhibited before strangers.
But were Charny and Gilbert strangers--one destined to guard the King,
the other the Queen?
The count replied for both, having resumed all his command, for he had
sacrificed his pride.
"Madam, Dr. Gilbert is right; the King is still loved, he will make a
speech and disarm these furies."
"But who will apprise the King? he is in Meudon Woods and the ways may
be blocked."
"Will your Majesty see in me not the courtier but the man of war?"
returned the Count, simply. "A soldier is made to be slain."
He did not wait for an answer or to hear the sigh, but rapidly went
out and, mounting a guardman's horse, sped away for Meudon.
The sky was menacing and rain began to dot the dust, but Versailles was
filling with people who had heard a noise like approaching thunder.
The soldiers took up their muskets slowly and the horseguards got into
the saddle with the hesitation of the soldier when his adversaries are
beneath his notice.
What could be done against women who had thrown down their weapons on
the road and had scarce the power to drag themselves into the town?
Half way they had divided eight loaves found at Sevres--thirty-two
pounds of bread among seven thousand!
Maillard had accompanied them and induced the last who were armed to
lay aside their weapons at the first houses of the place. He suggested
that they should sing "Long live Henry Fourth!" to show that they had
no ill feelings against royalty. They sang in a feeble whine.
Great was the amazement at the palace, where the harpies and Furies
were expected, to see the tottering singers, hunger giving the
giddiness of intoxication, pressing their haggard, thinned, livid,
blotched and dusty faces against the gilded bars of the gates, and
hanging on by their bony hands. From the weird groups came wails and
howls while the dull eyes emitted sparks.
Now and again the hands let go the bars to be brandished in threat or
held out imploringly.
It was a gloomy sight.
"What do you want?" challenged St. Priest, Minister of Paris.
"Bread," was the cry.
"When you had but one master you were never hungry," he replied
testily; "you see how you stand since you have twelve hundred."
He came away, yelled at while he ordered the gates to be kept closed.
But they had soon to be opened to a deputation from Parliament which
Maillard had obtained. Unfortunately, Valence Charny with the guards
had ridden against the mob. Two women of the twelve with the deputation
were wounded, to whom Charny who had returned to announce the arrival
of the King, and Gilbert rushed to assist.
"Open the doors," called out the King. "A palace is a sanctuary--it
must receive all callers."
"An asylum for all but the kings and queens," muttered Marie Antoinette.
Deputy Mounier spoke for the deputation while a flowergirl who had
started this woman's war by beating the "fall in" on a drum, undertook
to address the King. Unfortunately she was so weak that she fainted
after gasping:
"Bread, my lord!"
"Help," cried the King.
Andrea ran up with her smelling bottle and Charny gave the Queen a
reproachful glance for not having thought of this act.
Turning pale, she retired to her own rooms.
"Get the coaches ready," she said: "the King and I are going to
Rambouillet."
Meanwhile the flowergirl, finding herself in the King's arms on coming
to her senses, screamed with bashfulness and tried to kiss his hand.
"I will give you a kiss, my pretty one," he said; "you are well worth
it."
"Oh, how good you are! so you will give the order that the grain shall
come into Paris to stop the famine?"
"I will sign the order, my child," the King said, "though I am afraid
it will do no good."
Sitting at a table he was about to write when a discharge of fire arms
followed a solitary shot.
A second charge of cavalry had been made on the women and a man of
their supporters had fired a gun to break the arm of Lieutenant
Savonnieres of the Guards. He was going to strike a young soldier who
was defending with naked hands a woman who had dropped behind him for
protection. The bullets from the Lifeguards' carbines had killed one
woman; the mob replied and two soldiers were knocked off their horses.
At the same time shouts of "Make room for the Guns!" were heard as the
Men of St. Antoine's Ward dragged up three field-pieces which they
levelled at the palace gates. Luckily the rain had damped the priming
powder and the match.
Suddenly a whisper came to Gilbert without his knowing who spoke.
"General Lafayette is half an hour's march away and coming."
It was a valuable hint.
Gilbert ran and caught one of the horses of the dismounted guards,
and as he dashed off the other followed his stable-companion. Hearing
the hoofs, Gilbert thought he was pursued and looked back over his
shoulder. He saw the animal caught by the reins and his throat cut;
then the people fell on the carcase with knives and cut it up.
While Gilbert was racing to meet Lafayette, who arrived with the
National Guards, the King was signing the acceptation of "the
Resolution of the Rights of Man," for Mounier, and the older to let
grain pass into Paris for Louison Champry the flowergirl.
As the first drum beats were heard of the National Guards entering
Versailles, the King felt his arm respectfully touched: it was by
Andrea.
"Sire, the Queen supplicates your Majesty not to wait for the
Parisians, but take the head of your Lifeguards and the Flanders
Regiment which will cut their way through."
"Is this your advice, Count Charny?"
"Yes, Sire, if without stopping, you cross the frontier; otherwise, you
should stay."
The King shook his head; he stayed, not from having courage but because
he had not strength to go.
"A runaway King," he muttered. "Tell the Queen to depart alone," he
said to Andrea who went on her errand.
Five minutes afterwards the Queen came and stood by her husband's side.
"I have come to die with you," she said unaffectedly.
"How handsome she is now;" muttered Charny, but she heard him for she
started.
"I believe, in all truth, that it is better to die than live!"
"Sire," said Dr. Gilbert, running in, "fear nothing now--General
Lafayette is here."
The King did not like Lafayette, but there his feelings stopped, while
the Queen hated him and let her hate be seen. She took three steps
back, but the King stayed her with an imperative gesture.
The courtiers formed two groups; Charny and Gilbert stood next the
King. Steps were heard up to the door of many persons, but all alone
General Lafayette entered. As he did so, some voice exclaimed:
"Here comes Cromwell."
"No, sir," said the marquis smiling, "Cromwell would not have walked
unguarded into the presence of Charles First!"
Louis XVI. turned to those imprudent friends who had made an enemy of
the man hurrying to his relief.
"Count," he said to Charny, "I remain. Now that General Lafayette is
here, there is nothing to fear. Retire the troops on Rambouillet. The
National Guards will take the outposts and the Lifeguards the palace.
Come, general," he said to Lafayette, "I have to confer with you. Come
with us, Doctor." he added to Gilbert.
"We must get away to-day," thought the Queen, "to-morrow it will be too
late."
As she was going to her own rooms, she was lighted by a red glare
outside the palace; the mob had made a barbecue of the soldiers horses.