THE SMILE AND THE NOD.
As Cagliostro had said and Mirabeau surmised, the King had upset the
scheme.
Without much regret the Queen saw the constitutional platform fall which
had wounded her pride. The King’s policy was to gain time and profit by
circumstances; besides he had two chances of getting away into some
stronghold, which was his favorite plan. These two plans, we know, were
his brother Provence’s, managed by Favras; the other his own, managed by
Charny.
The latter reached Metz in a couple of days where the faithful royalist
Bouille did not doubt him, but resolved to send his son Louis to Paris
to be more exactly informed on the matter. Charny remained as a kind of
hostage.
Count Louis Bouille arrived about the middle of November. At this period
the King was guarded closely by Lafayette whose cousin the young count
was.
To keep him in ignorance of Charny’s negociations, the latter worked to
be presented to the King by his kinsman.
Providence answered the envoy’s prayer for Lafayette, who had been
informed of his coming but swallowed his excuse that it was on a visit
to a sweetheart in Paris, offered to take him with him on his morning
call on the monarch.
All the palace doors opened to the general. The sentinels presented arms
and the footmen bowed, so that Count Louis could see that his relative
was the real King of Paris.
The King was in his forge so that the visitors had to see the Queen
first.
Bouille had not seen her for three years. The sight of her at
thirty-four, a prisoner, slandered, threatened, and hated, made a deep
impression on the chivalric heart of the young noble.
She remembered him at a glance and with the same was sure this was a
friendly face. Without busying about General Lafayette she gave her hand
for the young man to kiss, which was a fault such as she plentifully
committed; without this favor she had won Louis Bouille, and by doing
him it before the general she slighted the latter who had never been so
gratified; she wounded the very man she most wanted as a friend.
Hence with a faltering in the voice but with the courtesy never leaving
him, Lafayette said:
“Faith, my dear cousin, you want me to present you to the Queen: but it
seems to me that you were better fitted to present me.”
The Queen was so enraptured at meeting a friend on whom she could rely,
and as a woman so proud of the effect produced on the young nobleman,
that she turned round on the general with one of the beams of youth
which she had feared forever extinct.
“General,” she said with one of the smiles of her sunnier days, “Count
Bouille is not a severe republican like you: he comes from Metz, not
from America; he does not come to bother about Constitutions but to
present his homage. Do not be astonished at the favor shown him by a
nearly dethroned Queen, which this country squire may esteem a boon----“
She completed her sentence by a playful smile as much as to say: “You
are a Scipio and think nothing of such nonsense.”
“It is a pity for me, and a great misfortune for your Majesty,” returned
Lafayette, “that I pass without my respect and devotion being noticed.”
The Queen looked at him with her clear, searching eye. This was not the
first time that he had spoken in this strain and set her thinking: but
unfortunately, as he had said, she entertained an instinctive repugnance
for him.
“Come, general, be generous and pardon me, my outburst of kindness
towards this excellent Bouille family, which loves me with a whole heart
and of which this youth is the chain of contact. I see his whole family
in him, coming to kiss my hand. Let us shake hands, as the American and
English do, and be good friends.”
The marquis touched the hand coldly.
“I regret that you do not bear in mind that I am French. The night of
the attack on the Royal Family at Versailles ought to remind you.”
“You are right, general,” responded the lady, making an effort and
shaking his hand. “I am ungrateful. Any news?”
Lafayette had a little revenge to take.
“No; merely an incident in the House. An old man of one hundred and
twenty was brought to the bar by five generations of descendants to
thank the Representatives for having made him free. Think of one who was
born a serf under Louis XIV. and eighty years after.”
“Very touching,” retorted the Queen; “but I could not well be there as I
was succoring the widow and child of the baker murdered for supplying
bread to the Assembly.”
“Madam, we could not foresee that atrocity but we have punished the
offenders.”
“That will do her no good, as she is maddened and may give birth to a
still-born babe; if it should live, do you see any inconvenience to
standing godmother to it at the Cathedral of Notre Dame?”
“None: and I take this opportunity of meeting your allusion, before my
kinsman, to your pretended captivity. Nothing prevents your going to
church or elsewhere, and the King may go hunting and out riding, as much
as he likes.”
The Queen smiled, for this permission might be useful as far as it went.
“Good-bye, count,” she said to Bouille; “the Princess of Lamballe
receives for me and you will be welcome any evening with your
illustrious kinsman.”
“I shall profit by the invitation,” said Lafayette, “sure that I should
be oftener seen there and elsewhere by your Majesty if the request had
not been heretofore omitted.”
The Queen dismissed them with a smile and a nod, and they went out, the
one with more bitterness because of the nod, the other with more
adherence because of the smile.