The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

by Alexandre Dumas

  CHAPTER XX.

  WITHOUT HUSBAND--WITHOUT LOVER.

  The Queen was wrong for Charny did not go to his wife's house. He wentto the Royal Post to have horses put to his own carriage. But whilewaiting, he wrote a farewell to Andrea which the servant who took hishorses home, carried to her.

  She was still dwelling over it, having kissed it with profound feeling,when Weber arrived. Her answer to him was simply that she would conformto her Majesty's orders. And she proceeded to the palace without dreadas without impatience.

  But it was not so with the Queen. Feverish, she had welcomed CountProvence coming to see how Favras had been received, and she committedthe King more deeply than he had pledged himself.

  Provence went away delighted, thinking that the King would be removed,thanks to the money he had borrowed from the Genoese banker Zannone, andto Favras and his Hectors. Then he stood a chance of becoming Regent ofthe realm, perhaps foreseeing that he would yet be King as Louis XVIII.

  If the forced departure of the King failed, he would take to flight withwhat was left of the loan, and join his brothers in Italy.

  On his leaving, the Queen went to Princess Lamballe, on whom she made ita habit to pour her woes or her joys in the absence of her otherfavorites, Andrea or the Polignacs.

  Poor martyr! who dares grope in the darkness of alcoves to learn if thisfriendship were pure or criminal, when inexorable History was comingwith feet red-shod in blood, to tell the price you paid for it?

  Then she went to dinner for an hour, where both chief guests were absentin thought, the King thinking of Charny's quest, the Queen of the Favrasenterprise.

  While the former preferred anything to being helped by the foreigners,the Queen set them first: for of course they were her people. The Kingwas connected with the Germans, but then the Austrians are not German tothe Germans.

  In the flight she was arranging she saw no such crimes as she wasafterwards taxed with: she felt justified in calling in the mailed handto avenge her for the slights and insults with which she was deluged.

  The King, as we have shown him, distrusted kings and princes. He reliedon the priests. He approved of all the decrees against nobles andclasses but not of the decree against the priests, which he vetoed. Forthem he risked his greatest dangers. Hence the Pope, unable to make asaint of him, made him a martyr.

  Contrary to her habit, the Queen gave little time to her children thisday; untrue to her husband in heart, she had no claim on theirendearments. Such odd contradictions are known only to woman's heart.

  The Queen retired early to her own rooms, where she shut herself up withWeber as door-ward. She alleged that she had letters to write.

  The King little noticed her going, as some minor events engrossed him;the Chief of Police was coming to confer with him.

  The Assembly had changed the old form in public documents of "King ofFrance and Navarre" to "King of the French": and it was debating on theRights of Man, when it had better be seeing to the Bread Question, morepressing than ever. The arrival of the "Baker" and his family fromVersailles had not fed the famished people and the bakeries had stringsof customers at their doors.

  But the Assemblymen did not have to dance attendance for a loaf, andthey had a special baker, one Francois in Marchepalu Street, who setaside rolls for them out of every baking.

  The head of the police was discussing the bread riots with the rulerwhen Weber ushered Andrea into his mistress's presence.

  Though she expected her, Marie Antoinette started when her visitor wasannounced.

  When they were girls together, at Taverney, they had made a kind ofagreement of love and duties exchanged in which the higher personage hadalways had the advantage.

  Nothing annoys rulers so much as senses of obligation, particularly inmatters of affection.

  While thinking she had reproaches to cast on her friend, the Queen feltunder a debt to her.

  Andrea was always the same: pure and cool as the diamond but cutting andinvulnerable like it, too.

  "Be welcome, Andrea, as ever," said the Queen to this cold, walkingghost.

  The countess shivered for she recognized some of the tone the Queen usedto speak with when the Dauphiness.

  "Needs must I tell your Majesty that she should not have had to send forme without the royal residence, if I had always been spoken to, in thattone?" said the countess.

  Nothing could better help the Queen than this opening: she greeted it asfacilitating her course.

  "Alas, you ought to know that all womankind have not your immutableserenity," she said; "I, above all, who had to ask your aid sogenerously accorded----"

  "The Queen speaks of a time forgotten by me and I believed gone from hermemory."

  "The reply is stern," said the other: "you might naturally hold me asungrateful: but what you took for ingratitude was but impotence."

  "I should have the right to accuse you, if ever I had asked you foranything and my wish were opposed," said the countess, "but how can yourMajesty expect me to complain when I have sought nothing?"

  "Shall I tell you that it is just this indifference which shocks me;yes, you seem a supernatural being brought from another sphere in somewhirlwind, and thrown among us like the crystal aerolites. One isdaunted by her weakness beside the never-weakening; but in the endassurance returns, for supreme indulgence must be in perfection: it isthe purest source in which to lave the soul, and in profound grief, onesends for the superhuman being for consolation, though her blame isdreaded."

  "Alas, if your Majesty sends for me for this, I fear the expectationwill be disappointed."

  "Andrea, you forget in what awful plight you upheld me and comfortedme," said the Queen.

  Her hearer turned visibly paler. Seeing her totter and close her eyesfrom losing strength, the Queen moved to support her but she resistedand stood steady.

  "If your Majesty had pity on your faithful servant, you would spare hermemories which she had almost banished from her: she is a poor comforterwho seeks comfort from nobody, not even heaven, from doubt that evenheaven hath power to console certain sorrows."

  "Then you have others to tell of than what you have entrusted to me? thetime has come for you to explain, and that is why I sent for you. Youlove Count Charny?"

  "I do," replied Andrea.

  "Oh!" groaned the Queen like a wounded lioness. "I thought as much. Howlong since?"

  "Since I first laid eyes on him."

  Marie Antoinette recoiled from this statue which confessed it wasanimated by a spirit.

  "And yet you said nothing?"

  "You perceived it, because you loved him."

  "No; but you mean that you loved him more than I, because you perceivedmy love. If I see it now, it is because he loves me no longer say?" andshe clutched her arm.

  Andrea replied not by word, or sign.

  "This is enough to drive one mad," cried the royal lady. "Why not killme outright by telling me that he loves me not."

  "Count Charny's love or indifference to other women than his wife aresecrets of Count Charny. They are not for me to reveal," observedAndrea.

  "His secrets? I dare say he has made you his bosom friend, indeed,"sneered the Queen with bitterness.

  "The count has never spoken to me of his love or indifference towardsyour Majesty."

  "Not even this morning?" She fixed a soul penetrative glance upon her.

  "Not even this morning. He announced his departure to me by letter."

  "Ah, he wrote to you?" exclaimed the Queen in a burst which, like KingRichard's cry: "My kingdom for a horse!" implied that she would give hercrown for that letter.

  Andrea comprehended her absorbing desire but she wished to enjoy heranxiety for a space, like a woman. At last, drawing the letter from hercorsage, warm and perfumed, she held it out to her royal mistress. Thetemptation was too strong, and the latter opened it and read:

  "MY LADY: I am leaving town on a formal order from the King. I cannot tell even you whither I go, wherefore, o
r how long I am to stay away: these are matters probably little in import to you, but I ought none the less to wish I were authorized to tell you.

  "I had the intention to take farewell of you: but I dared not without your permission----"

  The Queen had learnt what she wanted to know, and was about to returnthe writing, but Andrea bade her read to the end as if she had a claimto command.

  "I refused the last mission offered me because, poor madman! I believed that affection retained me in Paris: but I have unfortunately acquired proof to the contrary, and I accept with joy this opportunity to depart from hearts to which I am indifferent.

  "If, during this journey, that happens me which befel poor Valence, all my measures are taken for you, my lady, to be _the first_ to know of the misfortune visiting me and the liberty restored to you. Then, only, will you learn what profound admiration was born in my heart from your sublime devotion, so poorly recompensed by her to whom you sacrificed youth, beauty and bliss.

  "All I beseech of heaven and you is your according me a remembrance for having too late perceived the treasure he possessed.

  "With all the respect in my heart,

  "GEORGE OLIVER DE CHARNY."

  The reader returned the letter to Andrea, and let her hand fall inert byher side, with a sigh.

  "Have I betrayed you," murmured the countess: "have I failed in thefaith you put me in, for I made no promises?"

  "Forgive me, for I have suffered so much," faltered Marie.

  "You, suffered," exclaimed the ex-lady of honor, "do you dare to talk tome of suffering? what has happened me, then? Oh, I shall not say that Isuffered, for I would not use the word another did for painting the sameidea. I need a new one to sum up all griefs, pangs and pains,--yousuffer? but you have not seen the man you loved indifferent to thatlove, and paying court on his bended knees to another woman! you havenot seen your brother, jealous of this other woman whom he adored insilence as a pagan does his goddess, fight with the man you loved! youhave not heard this man, wounded it was thought mortally, call out inhis delirium for this other woman, whose confidential friend you were:you have not seen this other prowling in the lobbies, where you werewandering to hear the revelations of fever which prove that if a madpassion does not outlive life it may follow one to the grave-brink! youhave not seen this beloved one, returning to life by a miracle of natureand science, rising from his couch to fall at the rival's feet.---- Isay, rival, and one, from the standard of love being the measure ofgreatness of ranks. In your despair you have not gone into the nunneryat the age of twenty-five, trying to quiet at the cold crucifix yourscorching love: then, one day when you hoped to have damped with tearsif not extinguished the flame consuming you, you have not had thisrival, once your friend, come to you in the name of the formerfriendship to ask you to be the wife of this very man whom you hadworshipped for three years--for the sake of her salvation as a wife, herroyal Majesty endangered----!

  "She was to be a wife without a husband, a mere veil thrown between thecrowd and another's happiness, like the shroud between the corpse andthe common eye: overruled by the compulsory duty, not by mercy, forjealous love knows no pity--you sacrificed me--you accepted my immensedevotion. You did not have to hear the priest ask if you took forhelpmate the man who was not to be your husband: you did not feel himpass the ring over your finger as the pledge of eternal love, while itwas a vain and meaningless symbol; you did not see your husband quit youat the church door within an hour of the wedding, to be the gallant ofyour rival! oh, madam, these three years has been of torture!"

  The Queen lifted her failing hand to seek the speaker's but it wasshunned.

  "I promised nothing, but see what I have done," said she. "But youpromised two things--not to see Count Charny, the more sacred as I hadnot asked it; and, by writing, to treat me as a sister, also the moresacred as I never solicited it.

  "Must I recall the terms of that pledge? I burnt the paper but Iremember the words; and thus you wrote:

  "'Andrea: You have saved me! my honor and my life are saved by you. In the name of that reputation which costs you so dear, I vow that you may call me sister; do it, and you will not see me blush. I place this writing in your hands as pledge of my gratitude and the dower I owe you. Your heart is the noblest of boons and it will value aright the present I offer.

  'MARIE ANTOINETTE.'"

  "Forgive me, Andrea, I thought that he loved you."

  "Did you believe it the law of the affections that when one loves awoman less he loves another woman more?"

  She had undergone so much that she became cruel in her turn.

  "So you too perceive his love falling off?" questioned the Queendolefully.

  Without replying Andrea watched the despairing sovereign and somethinglike a smile was defined on her lips.

  "Oh heaven, what must I do to retain this fleeting love? my life thatebbs? Oh, if you know the way, Andrea, my friend and sister, tell me, Isupplicate you!" She held out both hands from which the other recededone step.

  "How am I to know, who have never loved?"

  "Yes, but he may love you. Some day he will come to your arms forforgiveness and to make amends for the past, asking your pardon for allhe has made you suffer: suffering is quickly forgotten, God be thanked!in loving arms, pardon is soon granted to the beloved who gave pain."

  "This misfortune coming--and it would be that for both of us, madam, doyou forget the secret which I confided in you, how--before I became thewife of Count Charny--I was mother of a son?"

  The Queen took breath.

  "You mean you will do nothing to bring Charny back to you?" she asked.

  "Nothing; no more in the future than in the past."

  "You will not tell him--will not let him suspect that you love him?"

  "No, unless he comes to tell me that he loves me."

  "But, if he should----"

  "Oh, madam," interrupted Andrea.

  "Yes, you are right, Andrea, my sister and friend; and I am unjust,exacting and cruel. But when all falls away from me, friends, power andfame, I may wish that at least this passion to which I have sacrificedfriendship, power and reputation, should be left to me."

  "And, now," went on the lady of honor, with the glacial coldness she hadlaid aside only for a moment, when she spoke of the torments she hadundergone, "have you anything more to ask me--or fresh orders totransmit?"

  "No, nothing, I thank you. I wished to restore you my friendship but youwill not accept it. Farewell; at least take my gratitude with you."

  Andrea waved away this second feeling as she had the former, and makinga cold and deep reverence, stole forth silently and slowly as a ghost.

  "Oh, body of ice, heart of diamond and soul of fire, you are right notto wish either my friendship or my gratitude; for I feel--though theLord forgive me! that I hate you as I never hated any one--for if hedoes not love you now, I foresee that he will love you some day."

  She called Weber to ask if Dr. Gilbert was coming next day.

  "At ten in the morning."

  Pleading that she was ailing and wearied, she forbade her ladies todisturb her before ten, the only person she intended to see beingGilbert.