O Richard, O my King.
For, alas, neither is the Townhall itself without misgivings. The
Nether Sansculottic world has been suppressed hitherto: but then
the Upper Court-world! Symptoms there are that the Œil-de-Bœuf is
rallying.
More than once in the Townhall Sanhedrim; often enough, from
those outspoken Bakers’-queues, has the wish uttered itself: O
that our Restorer of French Liberty were here; that he could see
with his own eyes, not with the false eyes of Queens and Cabals,
and his really good heart be enlightened! For falsehood still
environs him; intriguing Dukes de Guiche, with Bodyguards; scouts
of Bouillé; a new flight of intriguers, now that the old is
flown. What else means this advent of the _Regiment de Flandre;_
entering Versailles, as we hear, on the 23rd of September, with
two pieces of cannon? Did not the Versailles National Guard do
duty at the Château? Had they not Swiss; Hundred Swiss;
_Gardes-du-Corps_, Bodyguards so-called? Nay, it would seem, the
number of Bodyguards on duty has, by a manœuvre, been doubled:
the new relieving Battalion of them arrived at its time; but the
old relieved one does not _depart!_
Actually, there runs a whisper through the best informed
Upper-Circles, or a nod still more potentous than whispering, of
his Majesty’s flying to Metz; of a Bond (to stand by him therein)
which has been signed by Noblesse and Clergy, to the incredible
amount of thirty, or even of sixty thousand. Lafayette coldly
whispers it, and coldly asseverates it, to Count d’Estaing at the
Dinner-table; and d’Estaing, one of the bravest men, quakes to
the core lest some lackey overhear it; and tumbles thoughtful,
without sleep, all night.[230] Regiment Flandre, as we said, is
clearly arrived. His Majesty, they say, hesitates about
sanctioning the Fourth of August; makes observations, of chilling
tenor, on the very Rights of Man! Likewise, may not all persons,
the Bakers’-queues themselves discern on the streets of Paris,
the most astonishing number of Officers on furlough, Crosses of
St. Louis, and such like? Some reckon “from a thousand to twelve
hundred.” Officers of all uniforms; nay one uniform never before
seen by eye: green faced with red! The tricolor cockade is not
always visible: but what, in the name of Heaven, may these
_black_ cockades, which some wear, foreshadow?
Hunger whets everything, especially Suspicion and Indignation.
Realities themselves, in this Paris, have grown unreal:
preternatural. Phantasms once more stalk through the brain of
hungry France. O ye laggards and dastards, cry shrill voices from
the Queues, if ye had the hearts of men, ye would take your pikes
and secondhand firelocks, and look into it; not leave your wives
and daughters to be starved, murdered, and worse!—Peace, women!
The heart of man is bitter and heavy; Patriotism, driven out by
Patrollotism, knows not what to resolve on.
The truth is, the Œil-de-Bœuf has rallied; to a certain unknown
extent. A changed Œil-de-Bœuf; with Versailles National Guards,
in their tricolor cockades, doing duty there; a Court all flaring
with tricolor! Yet even to a tricolor Court men will rally. Ye
loyal hearts, burnt-out Seigneurs, rally round your Queen! With
wishes; which will produce hopes; which will produce attempts!
For indeed self-preservation being such a law of Nature, what can
a rallied Court do, but attempt and endeavour, or call it
_plot_,—with such wisdom and unwisdom as it has? They will fly,
escorted, to Metz, where brave Bouillé commands; they will raise
the Royal Standard: the Bond-signatures shall become armed men.
Were not the King so languid! Their Bond, if at all signed, must
be signed without his privity.—Unhappy King, _he_ has but one
resolution: not to have a civil war. For the rest, he still
hunts, having ceased lockmaking; he still dozes, and digests; is
clay in the hands of the potter. Ill will it fare with him, in a
world where all is helping itself; where, as has been written,
“whosoever is not hammer must be stithy;” and “the very hyssop on
the wall grows there, in that chink, because the whole Universe
could not prevent its growing!”
But as for the coming up of this Regiment de Flandre, may it not
be urged that there were Saint-Huruge Petitions, and continual
meal-mobs? Undebauched Soldiers, be there plot, or only dim
elements of a plot, are always good. Did not the Versailles
Municipality (an old Monarchic one, not yet refounded into a
Democratic) instantly second the proposal? Nay the very
Versailles National Guard, wearied with continual duty at the
Château, did not object; only Draper Lecointre, who is now Major
Lecointre, shook his head.—Yes, Friends, surely it was natural
this Regiment de Flandre should be sent for, since it could be
got. It was natural that, at sight of military bandoleers, the
heart of the rallied Œil-de-Bœuf should revive; and Maids of
Honour, and gentlemen of honour, speak comfortable words to
epauletted defenders, and to one another. Natural also, and mere
common civility, that the Bodyguards, a Regiment of Gentlemen,
should invite their Flandre brethren to a Dinner of welcome!—Such
invitation, in the last days of September, is given and accepted.
Dinners are defined as “the _ultimate_ act of communion;” men
that can have communion in nothing else, can sympathetically eat
together, can still rise into some glow of brotherhood over food
and wine. The dinner is fixed on, for Thursday the First of
October; and ought to have a fine effect. Further, as such Dinner
may be rather extensive, and even the Noncommissioned and the
Common man be introduced, to see and to hear, could not His
Majesty’s Opera Apartment, which has lain quite silent ever since
Kaiser Joseph was here, be obtained for the purpose?—The Hall of
the Opera is granted; the Salon d’Hercule shall be drawingroom.
Not only the Officers of Flandre, but of the Swiss, of the
Hundred Swiss, nay of the Versailles National Guard, such of them
as have any loyalty, shall feast: it will be a Repast like few.
And now suppose this Repast, the solid part of it, transacted;
and the first bottle over. Suppose the customary loyal toasts
drunk; the King’s health, the Queen’s with deafening vivats;—that
of the Nation “omitted,” or even “rejected.” Suppose champagne
flowing; with pot-valorous speech, with instrumental music; empty
feathered heads growing ever the noisier, in their own emptiness,
in each other’s noise! Her Majesty, who looks unusually sad
tonight (his Majesty sitting dulled with the day’s hunting), is
told that the sight of it would cheer her. Behold! She enters
there, issuing from her State-rooms, like the Moon from the
clouds, this fairest unhappy Queen of Hearts; royal Husband by
her side, young Dauphin in her arms! She descends from the Boxes,
amid splendour and acclaim; walks queen-like, round the Tables;
gracefully escorted, gracefully nodding; her looks full of
sorrow, yet of gratitude and daring, with the hope of France on
her mother-bosom! And now, the band striking up, _O Richard, O
mon Roi, l’univers t’abandonne_ (O Richard, O my King, and world
is all forsaking thee)—could man do other than rise to height of
pity, of loyal valour? Could featherheaded young ensigns do other
than, by white Bourbon Cockades, handed them from fair fingers;
by waving of swords, drawn to pledge the Queen’s health; by
trampling of National Cockades; by scaling the Boxes, whence
intrusive murmurs may come; by vociferation, tripudiation, sound,
fury and distraction, within doors and without,—testify what
tempest-tost state of vacuity they are in? Till champagne and
tripudiation do their work; and all lie silent, horizontal;
passively slumbering, with meed-of-battle dreams!—
A natural Repast, in ordinary times, a harmless one: now fatal,
as that of Thyestes; as that of Job’s Sons, when a strong wind
smote the four corners of their banquet-house! Poor ill-advised
Marie-Antoinette; with a woman’s vehemence, not with a
sovereign’s foresight! It was so natural, yet so unwise. Next
day, in public speech of ceremony, her Majesty declares herself
“delighted with the Thursday.”
The heart of the Œil-de-Bœuf glows into hope; into daring, which
is premature. Rallied Maids of Honour, waited on by Abbés, sew
“white cockades;” distribute them, with words, with glances, to
epauletted youths; who in return, may kiss, not without fervour,
the fair sewing fingers. Captains of horse and foot go swashing
with “enormous white cockades;” nay one Versailles National
Captain had mounted the like, so witching were the words and
glances; and laid aside his tricolor! Well may Major Lecointre
shake his head with a look of severity; and speak audible
resentful words. But now a swashbuckler, with enormous white
cockade, overhearing the Major, invites him insolently, once and
then again elsewhere, to recant; and failing that, to duel. Which
latter feat Major Lecointre declares that he will not perform,
not at least by any known laws of fence; that he nevertheless
will, according to mere law of Nature, by dirk and blade,
“exterminate” any “vile gladiator,” who may insult him or the
Nation;—whereupon (for the Major is actually drawing his
implement) “they are parted,” and no weasands slit.[231]