THE MIDNIGHT REVEL.
One by one, Louison made these people out, even before she heard their
voices. In the first she saw her great political rival, Theroigne de
Mericourt, of Liege, one of the most influential, audacious, and
beautiful women of the revolution.
Louison recognized this woman with a pang of bitter jealousy. What right
had the Queen of the Cordeliers in the house of Count Mirabeau?
Another woman lifted her face from the goblet she was wreathing, and
demanded more flowers for her garland. Two or three eager hands were
outstretched to a vase, and some one flung her a handful of lilies,
among them was a purple _fleur de lis_. The woman turned pale through
her rouge when she saw the flower; gave a quick, half-frightened glance
at the man who flung it at her, then cast it upon the floor, and
trampled it into the carpet with well simulated indignation.
“I wonder that you dare give me a flower that has become hateful to all
France?” she said, stamping once more on the poor broken blossom. “Nay,
I marvel that it can be found under the roof of so true a patriot as we
all know the count to be. Give me roses, heart’s-ease, anything that
will take this perfume of royalty from the air.”
Louison knew this woman also. She was Madame Du Berry, who, once lifted
from the dregs of the people by the favoritism of a bad king, had gone
back to her original element, taking a certain queenly air even in her
fallen state, which lingered around her as she trod that poor emblem of
royalty under her feet.
“Ah, madame! that is ungrateful in one who owes so much to the
protection of that poor flower.”
“But I owe more to France, and I belong to the people. Do not make me
blush that I ever left them!” cried the hypocrite, busying herself with
the pansies and roses that lay upon the table before her.
Louison watched that face keenly, and read something there which aroused
a vague suspicion of the woman’s sincerity. She caught one brief, quick
glance of the eyes turned upon Mirabeau, and understood at once that
there was some understanding between these two persons. Slowly she drew
back into the shadow of the hall, and watched them, unseen, as the revel
went on.
Mirabeau was sitting at the head of the table, leaning back in his
cushioned seat, with an air of a lord entertaining his vassals. His
dress bore no marks of the foppery which seemed so unnatural in his
guests; being noble, he cared nothing for the appearances of high birth.
Knowing himself powerful, he gloried in a certain individuality that
distinguished him alike from the nobility to which he had belonged, and
the people he had adopted. His massive head wore its own thick, tawny
hair, swept back from his temples and forehead in waving rolls; his coat
of plum-colored velvet, without lace or embroidery, fell away from a
snow-white vest, carelessly buttoned half-way up. Here it revealed the
broad plaited ruffles which shaded his bosom, and fell so carelessly
apart at the throat, that the massive curve of his white neck was
clearly exposed until it swelled into the broad chest. In his powerful
strength and sublime ugliness this man made the grandest figure in that
gorgeous scene. That which the others simulated he felt; and a smile of
pleasant scorn came and went around his mouth, as he sat watching the
awkward assumption of his guests, who, for once, were masquerading as
noblemen.
At first Louison had intended to show herself before these people, and
confront the man who had so suddenly disenthralled himself from her
influence; but the glance which she saw pass so swiftly between him and
Du Berry, changed her mind. She resolved to find some method of
listening to all that passed, and thus make herself mistress of any
secret that might have brought them together.
As she stood within the shelter of a mailed statue, near the grand
stair-case, Louison saw a side-door open, and a little figure steal
softly into the hall, as if afraid of being seen. His face was darker by
far than any shadow could make it, and he moved stealthily across the
floor till a good view of the supper table was obtained; then he
crouched down in the shadow of the stair-case and seemed to disappear.
That moment the door of the saloon was closed.
The mailed statue stood between Louison and this creeping object. She
felt sure that he had not observed her; but a faint light streaming into
the hall through the door he had left ajar, made her position a
difficult one to conceal. She cast wistful glances at this little stream
of light, which came, she was convinced, from some apartment adjoining
the banqueting-saloon. At last, keeping within the shadow of the statue,
she glided toward this opening, and found herself in a small apartment,
lighted only by the faint gleams that came from the hall, and broke
through the side of a panel, which evidently was used as a concealed
door connecting with the saloon. Some antique tapestry fell apart just
before this panel, and under it the woman concealed herself, drawing the
tapestry so close as to obstruct all light from the room. Through the
crevice she commanded a full view of everything that transpired in the
saloon, and could distinctly hear each spoken word. Never had a jealous
woman and a spy better opportunities of observation. Directly in the
line of her vision sat Mirabeau, leaning back in his chair with an
expression of broad, animal enjoyment on his face.
Near him, with the delicate whiteness of her garments clinging around
her superb form, and her bare arm uplifted, stood Theroigne de
Mericourt, waving the goblet she had crowned with flowers over her head,
as she called out,
“To Mirabeau, the god of the people! The man who flung his title
underfoot that the _canaille_ may trample on it. He did not wait for the
people to tear off his coronet.”
A dozen goblets flashed in the air as she spoke, so quickly that the
flowers fell from them bathed in a rain of wine-drops.
“To Mirabeau! Life to him! Destruction to all tyrants!”
The mingled voices of men and women went up simultaneously in this
shout. The crystal light of the goblets rippled around a dozen heads,
while Mirabeau sat still, smiling like a sultan, to whom homage in any
form was an inheritance.
After this riotous toast was given, Theroigne remarked that the host was
drinking pure water instead of wine. Then kissing her goblet, and
bathing her red lips in the perfume of its flowers, she leaned over the
table, and bade them drink to the toast, which should be a crowning one
of the festival.
Mirabeau took the goblet and swung it around his head, as Theroigne
snatched another from the table, and cried out,
“Fill! fill with red wine now! and drain each glass to the dregs, as we
will yet drain the hearts of Louis and his Austrian wife.”
A shout followed, a crash of glasses, and the mellow gurgle of wine, as
it flowed down the thirsty throats of the company.
Theroigne drained her goblet, and drew a deep, long breath; with her
tongue, she lapped the wine from her lips, and muttered in a low voice,
but loud enough for all to hear,
“It has a rare taste of blood!”
Louison from her concealment, saw that two persons in the company lifted
their goblets, but tasted no drop of the wine. Mirabeau touched his lips
to the flowers, but dashed the wine over his shoulder; and while the
rest were drinking, it sunk with a broad, red stain, into the snowy
ground of the carpet.
Du Berry lifted her goblet also, but turned so deadly white that the
rouge upon her face stood out frightfully from its general pallor.
Dropping the glass, she put her hand to her throat, as if a spasm of
pain had seized her, and would have left the table but for a commanding
look from Mirabeau, which warned her of danger.
“They understand each other,” thought Louison; “this is not simply a
carouse. Du Berry and Mirabeau share secrets together; and these idiots,
swaggering in the cast-off garments of some cowardly nobleman, cannot
see it.”
She was mistaken. Theroigne de Mericourt was quick-sighted as herself.
Du Berry had affiliated herself with the revolutionists—but the
extremists always held her in distrust. She was still a beautiful woman,
and a certain prestige lingered in her history, which would have been a
recommendation to the powers that were rising on the waves of the
national revolt, had it not been connected with the old king, whose
memory was hated.
“Turn down your goblets,” said the young amazon, shaking the last drops
from her glass, and tossing the flowers into the face of her _vis-a-vis_
at the table. “I hold the man or woman who has not drained every drop as
an enemy to France.”
Before Du Berry could reach forth her hand, Mirabeau had pushed his
empty goblet toward her, and seized upon hers.
“If I did not drain my glass at once, it was because admiration is
sometimes more powerful than the love of liberty. Having drank to the
death of royalty, let me pour out a libation to the goddess, who knows
so well how to teach Frenchmen their duty.”
Here Mirabeau poured the contents of his glass into a malachite vase
that stood near him, half choked up with flowers.
Theroigne’s dark eyes flashed. She had brought half the leading patriots
of the clubs to her feet; but Mirabeau, up to this time, had kept aloof
from her influence, and she felt her power incomplete without his
subjugation. It was a great step that he had invited her to his house;
but other women were equally honored. Du Berry sat at his right hand—was
there a preference in this?
Du Berry took Mirabeau’s lead and sprang to her feet.
“The women of France are the soul of her revolutions,” she said; “and
Theroigne is their leader. Fill up once more to the first woman of
France.”
“To Mirabeau alone belongs the pleasure of proposing this homage to the
great spirit of the revolution,” answered the host. Amid the confusion
and riot that followed, Du Berry escaped further notice of her
imprudence in refusing to drink to the death of a man and a woman who
had been forbearing and most kind to her when she had deserved so little
consideration at their hands.