POOR CATHERINE.
The scene was slightly changed in aspect.
The little princess could not resist the weariness and she was put abed
beside her brother, where both slumbered.
Lady Elizabeth stood by, leaning her head against the wall.
Shivering with anger the Queen stood near the fireplace, looking
alternatively at the King, seated on a bale of goods, and on the four
officers deliberating near the door.
An old woman knelt by the children and prayed; it was the attorney's
grandmother who was struck by the beauty of the children and the Queen's
imposing air.
Sausse and his colleagues had gone out, promising that the horses should
be harnessed to the carriage.
But the Queen's bearing showed that she attached little faith to the
pledge, which caused Choiseul to say to his party:
"Gentlemen, do not trust to the feigned tranquility of our masters;
the position is not hopeless and we must look it in the face. The
probability is that at present, Marquis Bouille has been informed, and
will be arriving here about six, as he ought to be at hand with some of
the royal Germans. His vanguard may be only half an hour before him; for
in such a scrape all that is possible ought to be performed. But we must
not deceive ourselves about the four or five thousand men surrounding
us, and that the moment they see the troops, there will be dreadful
excitement and imminent danger.
"They will try to drag the King back from Varennes, put him on a
horse and carry him to Clermont, threaten and have a try at his life
perhaps--but this will only be a temporary danger," added Choiseul, "and
as soon as the barricades are stormed and our cavalry inside the town,
the route will be complete. Therefore we ten men must hold out as many
minutes; as the land lays we may hope to lose but a man a minute, so
that we have time enough."
The audience nodded; this devotion to the death's point, thus plainly
set down, was accepted with the same simplicity.
"This is what we must do," continued the count, "at the first shot we
hear and shout without, we rush into the outer room, where we kill
everybody in it, and take possession of the outlets: three windows,
where three of us defend. The seven others stand on the stairs which
the winding will facilitate our defending as one may face a score. The
bodies of the slain will serve as rampart; it is a hundred to one that
the troops will be masters of the town, before we are killed to the last
man, and though that happens, we will fill a glorious page in history,
as recompense for our sacrifice."
The chosen ones shook hands on this pledge like Spartans, and selected
their stations during the action: the two Lifeguards, and Isidore, whose
place was kept though he was absent, at the three casements on the
street; Choiseul at the staircase foot; next him, Damas, and the rest of
the soldiers.
As they settled their arrangements, bustle was heard in the street.
In came a second deputation headed by Sausse, the National Guards
commander Hannonet, and three or four town officers. Thinking they
came to say the horses were put to the coach, the King ordered their
admittance.
The officers who were trying to read every token, believed that Sausse
betrayed hesitation but that Hannonet had a settled will which was of
evil omen.
At the same time, Isidore ran up and whispered a few words to the Queen
before he went out again. She went to the children, pale, and leaned on
the bed.
As the deputation bowed without speaking, the King pretended to infer
what they came upon, and said:
"Gentlemen, the French have merely gone astray, and their attachment
to their monarch is genuine. Weary of the excesses daily felt in my
capital, I have decided to go down into the country where the sacred
flame of devotion ever burns; I am assured of finding the ancient
devotion of the people here, I am ready to give my loyal subjects the
proof of my trust. So, I will form an escort, part troops of the line
and part National Guards, to accompany me to Montmedy where I have
determined to retire. Consequently, commander, I ask you to select the
men to escort me from your own force, and to have my carriage ready."
During the silence, Sausse and Hannonet looked at each other for one to
speak. At last the latter bowed and said,
"Sire, I should feel great pleasure in obeying your Majesty, but an
article of the Constitution forbids the King leaving the kingdom and
good Frenchmen from aiding a flight."
This made the hearer start.
"Consequently," proceeded the volunteer soldier, lifting his hand to
hush the King, "the Varennes Council decide that a courier must take the
word to Paris and return with the advice of the Assembly before allowing
the departure."
The King felt the perspiration damp his brow, while the Queen bit her
pale lips fretfully, and Lady Elizabeth raised her eyes and hands to
heaven.
"Soho, gentlemen," exclaimed the sovereign with the dignity returning
to him when driven to the wall. "Am I no longer the master to go my own
way? In that case I am more of a slave than the meanest of my subjects."
"Sire," replied the National Guardsman, "you are always the ruler;
but all men, King or citizens, are bound by their oath; you swore to
obey the law, and ought to set the example--it is also a noble duty to
fulfill."
Meanwhile Choiseul had consulted with the Queen by glances and on her
mute assent he had gone downstairs.
The King was aware that he was lost if he yielded without resistance to
this rebellion of the villages, for it was rebellion from his point of
view.
"Gentlemen," he said, "this is violence; but I am not so lonely as you
imagine. At the door are forty determined men and ten thousand soldiers
are around Varennes. I order you to have my horses harnessed to the
coach--do you hear, I order!"
"Well said, Sire," whispered the Queen, stepping up; "let us risk life
but not injure our honor and dignity."
"What will result if we refuse your Majesty?" asked the National Guards
officer.
"I shall appeal to force, and you will be responsible for the blood
spilt, which will be shed by you."
"Have it so then," replied Hannonet, "call in your hussars--I will let
my men loose on them!"
He left the room.
The King and the Queen looked at one another, daunted; they would
perhaps have given way had it not been for an incident.
Pushing aside her grandmother, who continued to pray by the bedside,
Madam Sausse walked up to the Queen and said with the bluntness and
plain speech of the common people:
"So, so, you are the Queen, it appears?"
Marie Antoinette turned, stung at being accosted thus.
"At least I thought so an hour ago," she replied.
"Well, if you are the Queen, and get twenty odd millions to keep your
place, why do you not hold to it, being so well paid?"
The Queen uttered an outcry of pain and said to the King:
"Oh, anything, everything but such insults!"
She took up the sleeping prince off the couch in her arms, and running
to open the window, she cried:
"My lord, let us show ourselves to the people, and learn whether they
are entirely corrupted. In that case, appeal to the soldiers, and
encourage them with voice and gesture. It is little enough for those who
are going to die for us!"
The King mechanically followed her and appeared on the balcony. The
whole square on which fell their gaze presented a scene of lively
agitation.
Half Choiseul's hussars were on horseback; the others, separated from
their chargers, were carried away by the mob, having been won over; the
mounted men seemed submissive yet to Choiseul, who was talking to them
in German but they seemed to point to their lost comrades.
Isidore Charny, with his knife in hand, seemed to be waylaying for some
prey like a hunter.
"The King!" was the shout from five hundred voices.
Had the Sixteenth Louis been regally arrayed, or even militarily,
with sword or sceptre in his hand, and spoken in the strong, imposing
voice seeming still to the masses that of God, he might have swayed the
concourse.
But in the grey dawn, that wan light which spoils beauty itself, he was
not the personage his friends--or even his enemies, expected to behold.
He was clad like a waiting-gentleman, in plain attire, with a powderless
curly wig; he was pale and flabby and his beard had bristled out; his
thick lip and dull eye expressed no idea of tyranny or the family man;
he stammered over and over again: "Gentlemen, my children!"
However, the Count of Choiseul cried "Long live the King!" Isidore
Charny imitated him, and such was the magic of royalty that spite of his
not looking to be head of the great realm, a few voices uttered a feeble
"God save the King!"
But one cheer responded, set up by the National Guards commander, and
most generally repeated, with a mighty echo--it was:
"The Nation forever!" It was rebellion at such a time, and the King and
the Queen could see that part of their German hussars had joined in with
it.
She uttered a scream of rage, and hugging her son to her, ignorant
of the grandeur of passing events, she hung over the rail, muttering
between her teeth and finally hurling at the multitude these words:
"You beasts!"
Some heard this and replied by similar language, the whole place being
in immense uproar.
Choiseul, in despair, was only wishful to get killed.
"Hussars," he shouted, "in the name of honor, save the King!"
But at the head of twenty men, well armed, a fresh actor came on the
stage. It was Drouet, come from the council which he had constrained to
stay the King from going.
"Ha," he cried, stepping up to the count, "you want to take away the
King, do ye? I tell you it will not be unless dead."
Choiseul started towards him with his sword up.
"Stand, or I will have you shot," interrupted the National Guards
commander.
Just then a man leaped out of the crowd, who could not stop him. It was
Isidore Charny who was watching for Drouet.
"Back, back," he yelled to the bystanders, crushing them away from
before the breast of his horse, "this wretch belongs to me."
But as he was striking at Drouet with his short sword, two shots went
off together: a pistol and a gun--the bullet of the first flattened on
his collarbone, the other went through his chest. They were fired so
close to him that the unfortunate young noble was literally wrapt in
flame and smoke.
Through the fiery cloud he was seen to throw up his arms as he gasped:
"Poor Catherine!"
Letting his weapon drop, he bent back in the saddle, and slipped from
the crupper to the ground.
The Queen uttered a terrible shriek. She nearly let the prince fall, and
in her own falling back she did not see a horseman riding at the top of
his pace from Dun, and plunging into the wake Isidore had furrowed in
the crowd.
The King closed the window behind the Queen.
It was no longer almost but all voices that roared "The Nation forever!"
The twenty hussars who had been the last reliance of royalty in
distress, added their voices to the cheer.
The Queen sank upon an armchair, hiding her face in her hands, for she
still saw Isidore falling in her defense as his brother had been slain
at her door at Versailles.
Suddenly there was loud disturbance at the door which forced her to lift
her eyes. We renounce describing what passed in an instant in her heart
of Queen and loving woman--it was George Charny, pale and bloody from
the last embrace of his brother, who stood on the threshold!
The King seemed confounded.