CHAPTER XXII.
THE CENTRE OF CATASTROPHES.
After the repast, the King called the three Lifeguards into council withthe Queen and Lady Elizabeth.
"Gentlemen," he began, "yesterday, M. Petion proposed that you shouldflee in disguise, but the Queen and I opposed the plan for fear itwas a plot. This day he repeats the offer, pledging his honor as arepresentative, and I believe you ought to hear the idea."
"Sire, we humbly beg," replied Charny for the others, "that we may befree to take the hint or leave it."
"I pledge myself to put no pressure on you. Your desires be done."
The astonished Queen looked at Charny without understanding the growingindifference she remarked in his determination not to swerve from hisduty. She said nothing but let the King conduct the conversation.
"Now that you reserve freedom, here are Petion's own words," he went on."Sire, there is no safeguard for your attendants in Paris. Neither I,nor Barnave nor Latour can answer for shielding them even at peril ofour lives, for their blood is claimed by the people.'"
Charny exchanged a look with the other two bodyguards who smiled withscorn.
"Well?" he said.
"M. Petion suggests that he should provide three National Guards suitsand you might in them get away this night."
Charny consulted his brother officers who replied with the same smile.
"Sire," he replied, "our days are set apart for your Majesty, havingdeigned to accept the homage, it is easier for us to die than separate.Do us the favor to treat us as you have been doing. Of all your courtand army and Lifeguards, three have stood staunch; do not rob them ofthe only glory they yearn for, namely to be true to the last."
"It is well, gentlemen," said, the Queen; "but you understand that youare no longer servants but brothers." She took her tablets from herpockets. "Let us know the names of your kinsfolk so that, should youfall in the struggle, we can tell the loved ones how it happened andsoothe them as far as in our power lies."
Malden named his old, infirm mother and Valory his young orphan sister.The Queen stopped in her writing to wipe her eyes.
"Count," she said, turning to Charny, "we know that you have no one tomention as you have lost your two brothers----"
"Yes, they had the happiness to perish for your sake," said the nobleman"but the latter to fall leaves a poor girl recommended in a kind ofwill found upon him. He stole her away from her family which will neverforgive her. So long as I live she and her child never shall want, but,as your Majesty says with her admirable courage, we are all in theface of death, and if death strikes me down, she and her babe will bepenniless. Madam, deign to write the name of this poor country girl, andif I die like the others of the house of Charny, for my august masterand noble mistress, lower your generosity to Catherine Billet and herchild, in Villedovray."
No doubt the idea of George Charny expiring like his brothers was toodreadful a picture for the hearer, for in swaying back with a faint cry,she let the tablets fall and sank giddily on a chair. The two Guardshastened to her while Charny caught up the memo-book and inscribed thename and address.
The Queen recovered and said: "Gentlemen, do not leave me withoutkissing my hand."
The Lifeguards obeyed, but when it came Charny's turn he barely brushedthe hand with his lips. It seemed to him sacrilege when he was carryingAndrea's letter on his heart. The Queen sighed: never had she soaccurately measured the depth of the gulf between her and her lover,widening daily.
As the Guards therefore replied next day to the Committeemen thatthey would not change their attire from what the King authorized themto wear, Barnave had an extra seat placed in front of them with twogrenadiers to occupy it so as to shield them in some degree.
At ten A. M. they quitted Meaux for Paris, from which they had been fivedays absent.
What an unfathomable abyss had deepened in those few days.
At a league beyond Meaux the accompanying sightseers took an aspect morefrightful than before. All the dwellers of the Paris suburbs flocked tothe road. Barnave tried to make the postillions go at a trot but theClaye National Guard blocked the way with their bayonets and it would beimprudent to try to break that dam: comprehending the danger, the Queensupplicated the deputies not to vex the mob--it was a formidable stormgrowling and felt to be coming.
Such was the press that the horses could hardly move at a walk.
It had never been hotter, the air seemed fire.
The insolent curiosity of the people pursued the royal prisoners rightup to the carriage interior. Men mounted upon it and clung to thehorses. It was a miracle that Charny and his comrades were not killedover and over again. The two grenadiers failed to fend off the attacks:appeals in the name of the Assembly were drowned by the hooting.
Two thousand men formed the vanguard, and double that number closed upthe rear. On the flanks rolled an incalculable gathering.
The air seemed to fail as they neared Paris as though that giant inhaledit all. The Queen was suffocating, and when the King begged for a glassof wine it was proposed that he should have a sponge dipped in gall andvinegar.
At Lavillette, the multitude was beyond the power of sight to estimate;the pavement was so covered that they could not move. Windows, walls,doors, all were crammed. The trees were bending under the novel livingfruit.
Everybody wore their hats, for the walls had been placarded:
"Flogging for whoever salutes the King: hanging for him who insultshim."
All this was so appalling that the Commissioners dared not go down St.Martin's Street Without-the-City, a crowded way full of horrors, whereBerthier Savigny had been torn to pieces and other barbaritiescommitted.
So they made the circuit and went by the Champs Elysees.
The concourse of spectators was still more great and broke up the ranksof the soldiery.
It was the third time Louis had entered by this dread entrance.
All Paris rushed hither. The King and the Queen saw a vast sea of heads,silent, sombre and threatening, with hats on. Still more alarming wasthe double row of National Guards, all the way to the Tuileries, theirmuskets held butt up as if at a funeral. It was a funeral processionindeed, for the monarchy of seven centuries!
This slowly toiling carriage was the hearse taking royalty to the grave.
On perceiving this long file of Guards the soldiers of the escortgreeted them with "Long Live the Nation!" and that was the cry burstingout along the line from the barrier to the palace.
All the bystanders joined in, a cry of brotherhood uttered by the wholeof France, but this one family was excluded.
Behind the cab following the royal carriage came a chaise, open butcovered with green boughs on account of the heat; it contained Drouetand two others who had arrested the King. Fatigue had forced them toride.
Billet alone, indefatigable, as if revenge made him bronze, kept onhorseback and seemed to lead the whole procession.
Louis noticed that the statue of his ancestor, on Louis XV. Square, hadthe eyes bandaged; in token of the blindness of rulers, Petionexplained.
Spite of all, the mob burst all bars and stormed the carriage. Suddenlythe Queen saw at the windows those hideous men with implacable speechwho come to the surface on certain days like the sea monsters seen onlyin tempestuous weather.
Once she was so terrified that she pulled down the sash, whereupon adozen furious voices demanded the reason.
"I am stifling," she stammered.
"Pooh, we will stifle you in quite another way, never fear," replied arough voice while a dirty fist smashed the window.
Nevertheless the cortege reached the grand terrace steps.
"Oh, gentlemen, save the Lifeguards," cried the Queen, particularly toBarnave and Petion.
"Have you any preference?" asked the former.
"No," she answered, looking at him full and square.
She required that the King and the royal children should first alight.
The next ten minutes were the
cruelest of her life. She was underthe impression, not that she would be killed--prompt death would benothing--but made the sport of the mob or dragged away into jail whenceshe would issue only after a trial handing her over to ignominiousdeath.
As she stepped forth, under the ceiling of steel made by the swordsand bayonets of the soldiers, Barnave gathered to cover her. Even asa giddiness made her close her eyes, she caught a glimpse down theflashing vista of a face she remembered. This face seemed to be thecentre of the multitudinous eyes of the mob: from his glance wouldcome the cue for her immolation. It was the terrible man who had in amysterious manner at Taverney Manor raised the veil over the future.He whom she had seen at Sevres on returning from Versailles. He whoappeared merely to foretell great catastrophes or to witness theirfulfillment.
And yet if Cagliostro, was he not dead in the dungeons of the Pope?
To be assured that her sight did not deceive her, she darted down thetunnel of steel, strong against realities but not against this sinistervision.
It seemed to her that the earth gave way under her tread; that allwhirled round her, palace, gardens, trees, the countless people; thatvigorous arms seized her and carried her away amid deafening yells. Sheheard the Lifeguards shouting, calling the wrath upon them to turn itaside from its true aim. Opening her eyes an instant, she beheld Charnybetween the pair hurled from the box--pale and handsome, as ever, hefought with ten men at once, with the nobleman's smile of scorn and themartyr's light in his gaze. From Charny her eyes went back to the manwhose myrmidons ruled the storm and swept her out of the maelstrom. Withterror she undoubtedly recognized the magician of Taverney and Sevres.
"You, it is you!" she gasped, trying to repel him with her rigid hands.
"Yes, it is I," he hissed in her ear. "I still need you to push thethrone into its last gulf, and so I save you!"
She could support no more, but screaming, she swooned.
Meanwhile the mob, defrauded of the chief morsel, were tearing theLifeguards to pieces and carrying Billet and Drouet in triumph.
The Royal Life Guard; or, the flight of the royal family. Page 22
