THE QUEEN AND HER LADIES
A more beautiful woman than Marie Antoinette was not to be found in all
Paris. Above the medium height, splendidly proportioned, and graceful in
all her movements, she possessed a presence that was more than queenly.
In her first youth she had been gentle, caressing, and so “pure
womanly.” Then her simplicity had been a cause of complaint with the
royal family. But time, and the cares of her regal station, had deepened
these qualities into the elegant repose of assured power; added to that,
anxious lines had begun to reveal themselves faintly on her beautiful
forehead, and around a mouth that had at one time known nothing but
smiles.
On the day we present her again to the reader she was at her toilet,
surrounded by the ladies of her household, beautiful, stately, and given
up to the strict etiquette of the court, as if they had never seen a
Swiss cottage, or dreamed that butter could be made with human hands.
“This young person has seen us at our play, where she, in reality, had
no right to know the persons she met. She must be made to feel that the
dairy-maid, whose life she saved, is a creature to be forgotten, or we
shall have those vile prints in Paris touching up the scene with malice
for their Paris readers.”
“Ah! it was, perhaps, imprudent to admit her,” said the Duchess de
Polignac. “Just now your highness cannot be too careful. This
demoiselle, modest as she seems, may be nothing but a spy of the
people.”
“She is not that,” answered the queen, with generous warmth. “No one can
look upon her face and believe ill of her. She is a brave, noble young
creature, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude that shall be right
generously paid.”
“As all your majesty’s debts are,” murmured the grateful little Madame
Campan, who loved the queen with all her heart.
The queen turned a bright look on the fair, plump face turned upon her,
and replied with a beaming smile,
“Your flattery always comes from the heart, my Campan, and we find it
pleasant.”
All this time the queen was standing among her ladies half-dressed;
garment after garment had been handed to her by the lady in waiting of
highest rank; and now she stood with her neck and shoulders exposed, her
white arms folded over her bosom, ready for the robe which was to
complete her toilet, and a little impatient of the etiquette which
prolonged her hour of dressing. Directly the robe of crimson velvet was
looped back from her white brocade underskirt, and with exquisite yellow
lace falling from her elbows and around her bosom, she walked out of her
dressing-room a queen in every look and movement.
In the audience-chamber, attached to her own apartments, she found the
king, who had been aroused to keener admiration and deeper tenderness by
her late danger. He approached her with smiles of welcome, and pressed
his lips upon her hand as if she had been a goddess, and he her slave;
happiness gave grace and quick intelligence to his face; for when Louis
the Sixteenth thought from his heart, the result was always correct and
full of tenderness.
“We have been waiting your presence, almost with impatience,” he said.
“My heart will never rest till it has done something to reward the man
who saved me and France from a great calamity. This person is now in the
outer room.”
“But there is another, sire; a young girl, fair as a lily, and as
modest. She must not be forgotten.”
“We forget nothing which relates to our wife and queen. No one ever
gives her help or pleasure unthought of. The demoiselle is also in
attendance—shall they come in at once?”
The ladies of the household had ranged themselves behind her majesty
with more than usual regard to appearances. Some of the king’s gentlemen
were present; in fact, it might have been some foreign ambassador that
their majesties were about to receive, rather than a poor girl and a
working man from the city.
The queen gave a smiling glance at her mistress of ceremonies. Directly
the door opened, and Marguerite was led into the room by the young Duke
de Richelieu, who seemed as proud of his charge as if she had been one
of the highest born ladies in the land. Behind him Monsieur Jacques
walked alone, his head just visible over the broad shoulders of Dame
Tillery, who spread her enormous fan as she crossed the threshold, and
performed a courtesy so low and profound that she came near falling
headlong at the queen’s feet, in a bungling effort to recover herself.
The mistress of ceremonies, terribly shocked, made a dignified motion
that Dame Tillery should draw back; but the good woman placed herself at
Marguerite’s side, shook out her skirts, and settled into position,
smiling broadly upon the mistress of ceremonies as if a mutual
understanding on all subjects of court etiquette had existed between
themselves from the cradle up.
The queen, who sometimes enjoyed the discomfiture of her own hard
task-mistress, where etiquette was concerned, cast a quick, mischievous
glance on her ladies, and allowed a faint smile to quiver on her lips.
But for that smile, Marguerite would have been completely bewildered.
She saw the same faces that had met her the day before, but so changed
in expression, so rigidly proud, that their very identity seemed
doubtful. The long, trailing robes, the elaborate head-dresses, the
floating masses of yellow lace were so unlike the short, rustic dresses
in which she had seen the same persons only a few hours before, that she
could not realize her position.
The queen saw her embarrassment, and hastened to relieve it. With a
gentle smile, she extended her hand.
Marguerite fell upon one knee, and touched the hand reverently with her
lips, then, with a gesture of exquisite humility, looked up to the
beautiful face bent over her, and clasping her hands, broke forth in a
voice so sweet and pathetic, that it thrilled every heart within
hearing.
“Oh! sweet lady! you promised to pardon my father. He has been in the
Bastille since I was a little child. Only as a beautiful shadow can I
remember him—but you will set him free. I shall look in the eyes which
they tell me were always soft with infinite tenderness. I shall come
here some day when you show yourself to the people in your carriage, or
on the balcony, and together we will look upon the benefactress who has
brought him back to life. Then his grateful heart will give you
blessings, while I, oh, lady! I will work for you, pray for you, die for
you! Indeed, indeed I will!”
“My good little girl, you were very near doing that yesterday,” said the
queen, taking those two quivering hands in her own, and pressing them,
while her fine eyes filled with tears; “but it is the king who grants
pardons. We shall soon learn if he can withhold anything from the person
who was so ready to come in between his wife and a great peril.”
As she spoke, Marie Antoinette gently raised the girl from her kneeling
position, and led her to the king. The poor girl would have knelt at his
feet also, for no homage seemed sufficient for the great boon she was
asking; but Louis received her hand from that of the queen with such
kindness, that the impulse of humiliation was lost.
“Tell us,” he said, “all that relates to the father you would have us
pardon. This is the first time that we ever heard his name, or knew of
his incarceration.”
Marguerite gave her father’s name, and told so much of his history as
was known to herself. She spoke low and rapidly; her eyes were suffused,
her voice was full of tears. The name uttered more than once, reached
the queen. She was seized with a nervous dread; she seated herself; the
whiteness of her face alarmed the persons who surrounded her, but before
any one of her ladies could approach, Dame Tillery swept forward, opened
her fan, and planting herself directly in front of the queen, commenced
fanning her with both hands so vigorously that all the lace and ribbons
on the royal dress fluttered as if a high wind were passing over them.
The queen looked up. The consternation of her ladies at the ponderous
attentions of the dame, struck her with a sense of the ridiculous so
exquisite, that all the superstition which had shaken her nerves fled at
once; she leaned back in her chair and laughed outright.