CHAPTER XXI.
ANOTHER DUPE.
On arriving at Dormans, the party had to get out at an inn as nothingwas prepared for them. Either from Petion's orders or from the RoyalFamily's snubbing him on the journey having vexed him, or because theplace was really full, only three garret rooms were available.
Charny got down the first to have the Queen's orders but she gave him alook to imply that he was to keep in the background. He hastened to obeywithout knowing the cause.
It was Petion who entered the hotel, and acted as quarter-master; he didnot give himself the trouble to come out again and it was a waiter whotold the Royals that their rooms were ready.
Barnave was embarrassed as he wanted to offer his arm to the Queen, buthe feared that she who had been wont to rail at exaggerated etiquette,would nevertheless invoke it now. So he waited.
The King stepped out, followed by the Queen, who held out her arms forher son, but he said as if he knew his part to please his mother:
"No, I want to stay with my friend Barnave."
Marie Antoinette submitted with a sweet smile. Barnave let ladyElizabeth pass out with the Princess Royal before he alighted, carryingthe boy in his arms.
Lady Tourzel closed the march, eager to snatch the royal child fromthese plebeian arms but the Queen made her a sign which cooled the ardorof the aristocratic governess. Barnave did not say anything on findingthat the Virtuous Petion had taken the best part of the house, as he setdown the prince on the second landing.
"Mamma, here is my friend Barnave going away," cried he.
"Very right, too," observed the Queen on seeing the attics reserved forher and her family.
The King was so tired that he wished to lie down, but the bed was soshort that he had to get up in a minute and called for a chair. With thecane-bottomed one eking out a wooden one he lengthened the couch.
"Oh, Sire," said Malden, who brought the chair, "can you pass the nightthus?"
"Certainly: besides, if what the ministers say be true, many of mysubjects would be only too glad to have this loft, these chairs and thispallet."
He laid on this wretched bed, a prelude to his miserable nights in theTemple Prison.
When he came in to supper, he found the table set for six: Petion hadadded himself to the Royal Family.
"Why not eight, then, for Messieurs Latour Maubourg and Barnave?" jeeredthe King.
"M. Barnave excused himself, but M. Petion persisted," replied thewaiter.
The grave, austere face of the deputy appeared in the doorway.
The King bore himself as if alone and said to the waiter:
"I sit at table with my own family solely: or without guests. If not, wedo not eat at all."
Petion went away furious, and heard the door bolted after him.
The Queen looked for Charny during the meal, wishing that he haddisobeyed her.
Her husband was rising after finishing supper when the waiter came tostate that the first floor parlors were ready for them. They had beendecked out with flowers, by the forethought of Barnave.
The Queen sighed: a few years before she would have had to thank Charnyfor such attentions. Moreover, Barnave had the delicacy not to appearto receive his reward; just as the count would have acted. How was ita petty country lawyer should show the same attentions and daintinessas the most eminent courtier? There was certainly much in this to set awoman--even a queen, a-thinking. Hence she did ponder over this mysteryhalf the night.
What had become of Count Charny during this interval?
With his duty keeping him close to his masters, he was glad to have theQueen's signal for him to take some leisure for lonely reflection.
After having been so busy for others lately, he was not sorry to havetime for his own distress.
He was the old-time nobleman, more a father than a brother to hisyounger brothers.
His grief had been great at Valence's death, but at least he had acomfort in the second brother Isidore on whom he placed the whole ofhis affection. Isidore had become more dear still since he was hisintermediary with Andrea.
The less Charny saw of Andrea the more he thought of her, and to thinkof her was to love her. She was a statue when he saw her, but when hedeparted she became colored and animated by the distance. It seemed tohim that internal fire sprang up in the alabaster mould and he could seethe veins circulate blood and the heart throb.
It was in these times of loneliness and separation that the wife was thereal rival of the Queen: in the feverish nights Charny saw the tapestrycleft or the walls melt to allow the transparent statue to approach hiscouch, with open arms and murmuring lips and kindled eye: the fire ofher love beamed from within. He also would hold out his arms, callingthe lovely vision, and try to press the phantom to his heart. But, alas!the vision would flee and, embracing vacancy, he would fall from hisbreathless dream into sad and cold reality.
Therefore, Isidore was dearer to him than Valence, and he had not thechance to mourn over him as he had over the cadet of the family.
Both had fallen for the same fatal woman and into the abyss of the samecause full of pitfalls. For them he would certainly fall.
Alone in an attic, shut up with a table which bore an old-fashionedthree-wicked oil lamp, he drew out the bloodstained papers, the lastrelics of his brother. He sighed, raised his head and opened one letter.
It was from poor Catherine Billet. Charny had suspected the connectionsome months before Billet had at Varennes given him confirmation of it.Only then had he given it the importance it should have taken in hismind.
Now he learnt that the title of mistress had become holy by itspromotion to that of mother, and in the simple language Catherine used,all her woman's life was given in expiation of her fault as a girl. Asecond and a third, showed the same plans of love, maternal joys, fearsof the loving, pains and repentance.
Suddenly, among the letters, he saw one whose writing struck him. Tothis was attached a note of Isidore's, sealed with his arms in blackwax. It was the letter which Andrea had enjoined him to give her husbandin case he were mortally hurt or read to him if unable. The noteexplained this and concluded:
"I league to my brother the Count of Charny poor Catherine Billet, nowliving with my boy in the village of Villedovray."
This note had totally absorbed him: but finally he turned his attentionto that from his wife. But after reading the explanation three times, heshook his head and said in an undertone:
"I have no right to open this letter; but I will so entreat her that shewill let me read it."
Dawn surprised him, devouring with his gaze this letter damp withfrequent pressing it with his lips.
Suddenly in the midst of the bustle for the departure, he heard his namecalled and he hurried out on the stairs.
Here he met Barnave inquiring for the Queen and charging Valory to getthe order for the start. It was easy to see that Barnave had had no moresleep than the count. They bowed to each other, and Charny would surelyhave remarked the jealous gleam in the member's eye if he had been ableto think of anything but the letter of his wife which he pressed to hisheart under his arm.
On stepping into the coach once more the royal pair noticed they hadonly the population of the town to stare at them and cavalry to escortthem. This was an attention of Barnave's.
He knew what the Queen had suffered from the squalid and infectedpeasants pressing round the wheels, the severed head, the threats toher guards. He pretended to have heard of an invasion by the Austriansto help Marquis Bouille, and he had turned towards the frontier all theirregularly armed men.
The hatred of the French for the foreign invader was such that it madethem forget for the moment that the Queen was one of them.
She guessed to whom she owed this boon, and thanked him with a look.
As she resumed her place in the conveyance she glanced out to seeCharny, who had taken the outer seat beside the Guards; he wanted tobe in the danger, in hopes that a wound would give him the right toopen his wife's le
tter. He did not notice her looking for him, and thatmade her sigh, which Barnave heard. Uneasy about it, he stopped on thecarriage step.
"Madam," he said, "I remarked yesterday how incommoded we were inhere: if you like I will find room in the other carriage with M.Latour-Maubourg."
While suggesting this, he would have given half his remaining days--notthat many were left him!--to have her refuse the offer.
"No, stay with us," she quickly responded.
At once the Dauphin held out his little hands to draw him to him,saying:
"My friend Barnave! I do not want him to go."
Barnave gladly took his former place. The prince went over to his kneefrom his mother's. The Queen kissed him on his cheek as he passed andthe member looked at the pink spots caused by the pressure like Tantalusat the fruit hanging over his head. He asked leave to kiss the littlefellow and did it with such ardor that the boy cried out. She lost noneof this incident in which Barnave was staking his head.
Perhaps she had no more slept than Charny or the deputy; perhaps theanimation enflaming her eyes was caused by fever; any way, her purpledlips and rosy cheeks, all made her that perilous siren who with onegolden tress would draw her adorers over the whirlpool's edge.
The carriage went faster and they could dine at Chateau Thierry. Beforethey got to Meaux, at evening Lady Elizabeth was overpowered by sleepand laid down in the middle of the vehicle. Her giving way had causedher to lean against Petion, who deposed in his report that she hadtried to tempt him with love and had rested her head on his virtuousshoulder--that pious creature!
The halt at Meaux was in the bishop's palace, a gloomy structure whichstill echoed those sinister wails from Bossuet's study that presaged thedownfall of monarchy.
The Queen looked around for support and smiled on seeing Barnave.
"Give me your arm," she said, "and be my guide in this old palace. Idare not venture alone lest the great voice is heard which one day madeChristianity shudder with the outcry: 'The Duchess Henriette is dead!'"
Barnave sprang forward to offer his arm, while the lady cast a lastglance around, fretted by Charny's obstinate silence.
"Do you seek some one?" he asked.
"Yes; the King."
"Oh, he is chatting with Petion."
Appearing satisfied, the Queen drew Barnave into the pile. She seemeda fugitive, following some phantom and looking neither before her norbehind. She only stopped, breathless, in the great preacher's sleepingchamber, where chance placed her confronting the portrait of a lady.Mechanically looking, she read the label: "Madam Henriette." She startedwithout Barnave understanding why. From the name he guessed.
"Yes," he observed, "not Henrietta Maria of England, not the widow ofthe unfortunate Charles the First but the wife of the reckless Philip ofOrleans; not she who died of cold in the Louvre Palace, but she who diedof poison at St. Cloud and sent her ring to Bossuet. Rather would I haveit her portrait," he said after a pause "for such a mouth as hers mightgive advice, but, alas! such are the very ones death seals up."
"What could Charles the First's widow furnish me in the way of advice?"she inquired.
"By your leave, I will try to say. 'Oh, my sister (Seems to say thismouth) do you not see the resemblance between our fates? I come fromEngland as you from Austria, and was a foreigner to the English as youare to the French. I might have given my husband good counsel, but wassilent or gave him bad; instead of uniting him to his people, I excitedhim to war against them; I gave him the counsel to march on London withthe Irish. Not only did I maintain correspondence with the enemies ofEngland but twice I went over into France to bring back foreign troops'.But why continue the bloody story which you know?"
"Continue," said the Queen, with dark brow and pleated lip.
"The portrait would continue to say: 'Sister, finally the Scotchdelivered up their monarch, so that he was arrested just when he dreamtof escaping into France. A tailor seized him, a butcher led him intoprison, a carter packed the jury, a beer-vendor presided over theassembly, and that nothing should be omitted odious in the trial and thesentence, it was carried out by a masked deaths-man striking off thevictim's head.' This is what the picture of Henrietta Maria would say.God knows that nothing is lacking for the likeness. We have our brewerin Santerre for Cromwell, our butcher in Lengedre, not Harrison, and allthe other plebeians who will conduct the trial; even as the conductor ofthis array is a lowborn peasant. What do you say to the picture?"
"I would say: 'Poor dear princess, you are reading me a page of historynot giving me advice.'"
"If you do not refuse to follow it, the advice would be given you by theliving," rejoined Barnave.
"Dead or living, those who can advise ought to do so: if good, it shouldbe followed."
"Dead or living, one kind alone is given. Gain the people's love."
"It is so very easy to gain your people's love!"
"Why, madam, they are more your people than mine, and the proof is thatthey worshiped you when you first came here."
"Oh, sir, dwell not on that flimsy thing, popularity."
"Madam," returned Barnave, "if I, springing from my obscure sphere,won this popularity, how much easier for you to keep it than I toconquer it? But no," continued he, warming with the theme, "to whomhave you confided this holy cause of monarchy, the loftiest and mostsplendorous? What voices and what arms do you choose to defend it?Never was seen such ignorance of the times and such forgetfulness ofthe characteristics of France! Why, you have only to look at me for oneinstance--who solicited the mission of coming to you with the single endof offering myself, devoting myself----"
"Hush, some one is coming," interrupted the Queen; "we must refer tothis, M. Barnave, for I am ready to listen to your counsel and heedyou."
It was a servant announcing that dinner was waiting.
The two Lifeguards waited at table, but Charny stood in a windowrecess. Though under the roof of one of the first bishops, the meal wasnothing to brag of: but the King ate heartily.
The Dauphin had been asking for strawberries but was told along the roadthat there were none, though he had seen the country lads devouring themby the handsful. So the poor little fellow had envied the rustic urchinswho could seek the fruit in the dewy grass like the birds that revel atnature's bounteous board.
This desire had saddened the Queen, who called Charny in a voice hoarsewith emotion. At the third call he heard her and came, but the dooropened and Barnave appeared on the sill; in his hand was a platter ofthe fruit.
"I hope the King and the Queen will excuse my intruding," he said, "butI heard the prince ask for strawberries several times during the day, sothat, finding this dish on the bishop's table, I made so bold as to takeand bring it."
"Thank you, count," said the Queen to Charny, "but M. Barnave hasdivined my want and I have no farther need of you."
Charny bowed without a word and returned to his place. The Dauphinthanked the member, and the King asked him to sit down between the boyand the Queen to partake of the meal, bad as it was.
Charny beheld the scene without a spark of jealousy. But he said, onseeing this poor moth singe its wings at the royal light:
"Still another going to destruction! a pity, for he is worth more thanthe others." But returning to his thought, he muttered: "This letter,what can be in this letter?"
The Royal Life Guard; or, the flight of the royal family. Page 21
