A BITTER HUMILIATION ACCEPTED.
Marie Antoinette walked rapidly toward the chateau, revolving the
subject of Mirabeau’s letter in her mind. The advice he gave was bitter
as wormwood to her; and had she stood first in power, it would have been
trampled under her feet. But now she felt that all its gall would be
forced upon her. In his fear of bloodshed, Louis was sometimes almost
pusillanimous. His kind heart was filled with infinite pity and love of
the people, who were hunting him down like bloodhounds, and with his own
hands he sometimes tore away those barriers of dignity which should have
been his defence, and trusted to the magnanimity of a people who could
not comprehend the word.
Would he submit to the humiliation prepared for him? In her heart of
hearts the queen knew that he would; not that he was a coward—no braver
man ever lived; but because he really wished to act rightly, and was
willing to make great sacrifices in atonement for the wrongs his
ancestors had heaped upon a people who had at last been driven frantic
by oppression. She remembered, with a pang of shame, that in a contest
with the people Louis had always been forced to yield, and that yielding
only increased the audacity of their demands. This thought wounded Marie
Antoinette like a poisoned sword. The blood burned hotly in her cheeks.
Oh! if she only had the power to act out the imperial thoughts within
her! The monarchy of France might fall, but it would be with her husband
and herself at the head of a struggling army, and amid the clash of
unsheathed swords, as her mother had fought when she took her child in
her arms and appealed to her Hungarian subjects on the heights of
Presburg. But she was only a woman, and must eat her heart out with vain
wishes. Her mother wore an imperial diadem, while her head ached under a
crown which only gave the power of suffering.
On entering the chateau, she went directly to the cabinet of the
king—this was his work-shop, where he filed iron and made locks with the
assiduity of a blacksmith’s apprentice, for in every palace he
inhabited, a room of this kind was fitted up as a refuge from the perils
and tumults that tore his kingdom like the first heave of an earthquake.
Louis was at the forge, with one hand on the bellows, in the other he
held a spike of iron in a blast of burning coals, where it was reaching
a white heat. The queen laid her hand on his arm. Her face was pale, and
her lips trembled. Was this work for a monarch whose power was
threatened? How calm and serene he seemed toiling there at his useless
locks. If they were only swords, now!
“Louis, leave this heat and smoke awhile—a message has come from Paris.”
The king heaved a deep sigh, dropped his hand from the bellows, and left
the red-hot spike to cool in the embers in which it was buried. Then he
shook the black dust from his hands, and drenched them in a silver bowl
that stood ready, from which they came out delicately white, and heavy
with jewels.
“Come, I will attend you now,” he said, with the voice and look of a
martyr. “Ah, me! if there were no Paris, and no statesmen to annoy me, I
might, perhaps, finish one lock in peace.”
“Sit down here,” said the queen, finding a chair for herself, and
motioning that he should take a seat beside her. “This is the most
private place we can find in a palace haunted with spies.”
Louis declined the seat, and leaned against his work-bench in a weary
attitude.
“Nay, read it to me; I can understand it best so.”
The queen began to read in a low, trembling voice, for the subject was
hateful to her. Once she broke down altogether, and flung the letter
from her in bitter passion.
“I cannot read it,” she said. “My lips refuse to frame the hideous thing
these people demand of us.”
Louis took up the paper, folded it neatly, and laid it on his
work-bench.
“Tell me, for I see you have read the letter. Evil tidings can be told
in a few words,” he said, tenderly. “Is this some new outrage from the
Assembly or the people direct?”
“From both. Louis, they band together in offering us nothing but insult.
This letter is from Mirabeau.”
“Then he, too, forsakes us.”
“No. He professes to be firm in our cause, and I think he is; but his
advice is terrible.”
“In a word, tell me what it is?”
“It is settled that a grand festival will be held in Paris, celebrating
the taking of the Bastille.”
“Ha!”
“Deputies are to come from every district in the kingdom. This hideous
blow, which made the throne totter under us, is to be made the subject
of a grand jubilation.”
A red flush shot over the usually calm features of the king; a little of
that indomitable pride which gave the title of Grand to his
great-grandfather kindled in his bosom.
“These people dare to thus openly insult their king, after all he has
yielded to them!” he exclaimed.
The queen looked up; her eyes kindled. This sudden outburst of energy
gave her hope.
“That is not all; they will demand more.”
“More? Is there no end to their insolent exactions?”
“There never will be an end, so long as you yield, sire.”
“You are right; I have already yielded too much.”
Marie Antoinette shook her head, and sighed heavily.
“In yielding that which is just, sire, you have opened the way to
fearful exactions.”
The king looked down; his troubled eyes sought the floor.
“Tell me,” he said at length, “what do my people clamor for now—more
than you have spoken? I see there is something beyond that.”
The queen arose, pale and trembling with indignation.
“There is to be a carousal—a great national orgie—in Paris, at which all
the traditions that have made France the foremost government in Europe,
are to be trampled under the heels of the _canaille_, and you, sire, you
are selected as high-priest of the occasion. You will be invited to
preside at a celebration which is to bury all the traditions of a long
line of kings under its ashes. This is the news which Count Mirabeau
sends.”
The hot blood of outraged royalty rose, and burned over the king’s face.
“They will not dare ask this thing of me. It is impossible!”
“It is already decided. The clubs have united upon it. The demagogues of
the Assembly snatch at the idea as a means of increasing their
popularity with the people. Mirabeau assures us that he is compelled to
go with the current, but hopes to guide and direct while he seems to
yield. In less than two days a deputation will be here to demand your
sanction to the hideous insult, and your presence while it is
perpetrated.”
“But I will not go.”
The queen’s eyes flashed like diamonds.
“Great heavens! if we only had a loyal army this moment on the frontier,
these traitors might be taken at their sacrilegious work, and crushed
like bees in a hive!”
Louis, who had for a moment stood upright and kingly, settled down to
his original attitude, the color left his face, and he answered
despondingly,
“That would be to spill the blood of Frenchmen. Anything but that!
Anything rather than that!”
“Where a people rise in revolt against a lawful government, there must
be bloodshed, sire, or submission.”
Louis took up Mirabeau’s letter, and began to read it. Marie Antoinette
watched him eagerly, the proud blood burning over her face, and a look
of defiance in her eyes. She dreaded the persuasion, the eloquent
reasoning which divested this gathering of the people of half its
repulsive features.
The king read slowly, and with thoughtful deliberation. In her passion
the queen had hurled all the odious features of this popular design
before him at once; but Mirabeau softened them almost into an intended
concession and compliment to the court. It might be made, he urged, a
means of great popularity throughout the country, while opposition would
be sure to deepen the general discontent. The extremists, he urged, were
already terrified lest the appearance of the royal family at a festival
dedicated to liberty, should undo the slanders so industriously
circulated against it. They only hoped that, by a refusal to preside at
the people’s festival, Louis would embitter the populace more thoroughly
against him.
Mirabeau wrote eloquently and in good faith. Every word made its
impression on the king. Marie Antoinette saw it, and tears of bitter
humiliation rushed to her eyes.
“You take his advice, sire?” she said, almost with a cry of despair.
Louis looked at her a moment, and laid down the paper. It was not in his
character to decide so promptly as that.
“It requires thought.”
“Requires thought for the King of France to resent an insult?”
Louis shook his head, and a low moan broke from his lips.
“Alas! this trouble is great, and I am but one man!” he said, with
pathetic gentleness. “After all, the power of a king lies in the love
and faith of his people.”
Marie Antoinette knew then that the crowning humiliation, against which
her soul had risen so hotly, would, in the end, be consummated. Without
a word she turned away and left the room, pale as a ghost, and bowing
her proud head downward. After a little she remembered that her manner
had been abrupt and lacking in respect; touched to the heart, she turned
back and softly opened the work-room door. The king had fallen forward
upon his bench, and with his face buried in both hands, lay writhing in
silent anguish.
“Ah!” she thought, mournfully, “he has the power to endure, but not the
will to act.” So, with sweet forbearance, she smothered the clamorous
pride in her own bosom, and stealing up to the work-bench, wound her arm
around her husband’s neck.
“Louis!”
The king looked up, and turned his heavy eyes upon the tearful face bent
so lovingly to his.
“Ah!” he said, gently. “An evil fate made me king when France was
falling into convulsions. You should have been the leader, my beloved.”
“Not so,” was the kindly answer. “What have I done but make the people
hate me? I, who would have given my life for their love.”
“For that we must both be ready to make great sacrifices. Oh! if I could
only lay my heart bare before this concourse of Frenchmen, and let them
see how honestly it is theirs, the thing with which they threaten us
would be a blessing.”
The king spoke earnestly, and his eyes filled with tears.
“Shall I write this to Count Mirabeau?” said the queen, touched by this
gentle despondency, and forgetting her first wrath in the intense
sympathy which she felt for her husband.
“I think he is faithful!” said Louis, wistfully! “Let us at least
consider his advice.”
Then the queen knew that she must submit, and without another word of
protest, she went forth to accept the thing she loathed.