The Royal Life Guard; or, the flight of the royal family.

by Alexandre Dumas

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  THE BITTER CUP.

  When the Queen came to her senses she was in her sleeping room in theTuileries. Her favorite bed-chamber women, Lady Misery and Madam Campanwere at hand. Though they told her the Dauphin was safe, she rose andwent to see him: he was in sleep after the great fright.

  She looked at him for a long time, haunted by the words of that awfulman: "I save you because you are needed to hurl the throne over into thelast abyss." Was it true that she would destroy the monarchy? Were herenemies guarding her that she might accomplish the work of destructionbetter than themselves? But would this gulf close after swallowing theKing, the throne and herself? Would not her two children go down in italso? In religions of the past alone is innocence safe to disarm thegods?

  Abraham's sacrifice had not been accepted, but it was not so inJephthaph's case.

  These were gloomy thoughts for a Queen, gloomier still for a mother.

  She shook her head and went slowly back to her rooms. She noticed thedisorder she was in and took a bath and was attired more fitly.

  The news awaiting her was not so black as she had feared; all threeLifeguards had been saved from the mob, mainly by Petion who screened agood heart under his rough bark. Malden and Valory were in the palace,bruised, wounded, but alive. Nobody knew where Charny was in refugeafter having been snatched from the ruffians.

  At these words from Madam Campan, such a deadly pallor came over theQueen's countenance that the Lady thought it was from anxiety about thecount and she hastened to say:

  "But there need be no alarm about his coming back to the palace; thecountess has a town house and of course he will hasten there."

  This was just what she feared and what made her lose color.

  She wanted to dress, as if she would be allowed to go out of the palaceprison to inquire about his fate, when he was announced as present inthe other room.

  "Oh, he is keeping his word," muttered the Queen which her attendantsdid not understand.

  Her toilet hastily completed, she ordered the count to be introducedinto her sitting room, where she joined him.

  He had also dressed for the reception, for he wore the naval uniform inwhich she had first seen him. Never had he been calmer, handsomer andmore elegant, and she could not believe that this beau was the man whomshe had seen the mob fall upon a while before.

  "Oh, my lord, I hope you were told how distressed I was on your behalfand that I was sending out for tidings?"

  "Madam, you may be sure that I did not go away till I learned that youwere safe and sound," was his rejoinder. "And now that I am assured bysight, and hearing of the health of your children and the King, I thinkit proper to ask leave to give personal news to my lady the countess."

  The Queen pressed her hand to her heart as if to ascertain if this blowhad not deadened it, and said in a voice almost strangled by the drynessof her throat:

  "It is only fair, my lord, and I wonder how it is that you did not askbefore this."

  "The Queen forgets my promise not to see the countess without herpermission."

  "I suppose, though, in your ardor to see the lady again, you could dowithout it?"

  "I think the Queen unjust to me," he replied. "When I left Paris Ibelieved it was to part from her forever. During the journey I did allthat was humanly possible to make the journey a success. It is not myfault that I did not lose my life like my brother or was not cut topieces on the road or in the Tuileries Gardens. Had I the honor toconduct your Majesty across the frontier, I should have lived in exilewith you, or if I were fated to die, I should have died without seeingthe countess. But, I repeat, I cannot, being again in town, give thelady this mark of indifference, not to show her I am alive, particularlyas I no longer have my brother Isidore as my substitute; at all events,either M. Barnave is wrong or your Majesty was of the same opinion onlyyesterday."

  The Queen glided her arm along the chair-arm and following the movementwith her body said:

  "You must love this woman fondly to give me this pain so coldly?"

  "Madam, at a time when I did not think of such a thing, as there wasbut one woman the world for me--it will soon be six years--this womanbeing placed too high above me for me to hope for her, as well as underan indissoluble bond--you gave me as wife Mdlle. Andrea Taverney,imposed her on me! In these six years my hand has not twice touchedhers; without necessity I have not spoken a word to her and our glanceshave not met a dozen times. My life has been occupied by another love,the thousand tasks, cares and combats agitating man's existence in campand court. I have coursed the King's highways, entangling the threadthe master gave me in the intrigues of fatality. I have not counted thedays, or months or years, for time has passed most rapidly from my beingenwrapt in these tasks.

  "But not so has fared the Countess of Charny. Since she has had theaffliction of quitting your Majesty, after having displeased you, Isuppose, she has lived lonely in the Paris summerhouse, accepting theneglect and isolation without complaining, for she has not the sameaffections as other women from her heart being devoid of love. But shemay not accept without complaint my forgetting the simplest duty and themost commonplace attentions."

  "Good gracious, my lord, you are mightily busy about what the countessthinks of you according to whether you see her or not! Before worryingyourself it would be well to know whether she does think of you in thehour of your departure or in that of your return."

  "I do not know about the hour of my return but I do know that shethought about me when I departed."

  "So you saw her before you went?"

  "I had the honor of stating that I had not seen the countess since Ipromised the Queen not to see her."

  "Then she wrote to you? confess it!" cried Marie Antoinette.

  "She confided a letter for me to my brother Isidore."

  "A letter which you read? what does she say? but she promised me--butlet us hear quickly. What does she say in this letter? Speak, see younot that I am on thorns?"

  "I cannot repeat what it says as I have not read it."

  "You destroyed it unread?" exclaimed she delightedly, "you threw it inthe fire? Oh, Charny, if you did that, you are the most true of loversand I was wrong to scold--for I have lost nothing."

  She held out her arms to lure him to his former place, but he stoodfirm.

  "I have not torn it or burnt it," he replied.

  "But then, how came you not to read it?" questioned she, sinking back onthe chair.

  "The letter was to be given me if I were mortally wounded. But alas! itwas the bearer who fell. He being dead, his papers were brought to meand among them was this, the countess's letter."

  She took the letter with a trembling hand and rang for lights. Duringthe brief silence in the dusk, her breathing could be heard and thehurried throbbing of her heart. As soon as the candlesticks were placedon the mantle shelf, before the servant left the room, she ran to thelight. She looked on the paper twice without ability to read it.

  "It is flame," she said, "Oh, God!" she ejaculated, smoothing herforehead to bring back her sight and stamping her foot to calm her handby force of will. In a husky voice utterly like her own, she read:

  "This letter is intended not for me but for my brother Count Charny,or to be returned to the countess. It is from her I had it with thefollowing recommendation. If in the enterprise undertaken by the count,he succeeds without mishap, return the letter to the countess."

  The reader's voice became more panting as she proceeded.

  "If he is grievously hurt, but without mortal danger, his wife prays tobe let join him."

  "That is clear," said the Queen falteringly and in a scarcelyintelligible voice she added: "'Lastly, if he be wounded to the death,give him the letter or read it to him if he cannot, in order that heshould know the secret contained before he dies.'

  "Do you deny it now, that she loves you?" demanded the Queen, coveringthe count with a flaming look.

  "The countess love me? what are you saying?" cried Char
ny.

  "The truth, unhappy woman that I am!"

  "Love me? impossible!"

  "Why, for I love you?"

  "But in six years the countess has never let me see it, never said aword!"

  The time had come for Marie Antoinette to suffer so keenly that she feltthe need to bury her grief like a dagger in the depth of his heart.

  "Of course," she sneered, "she would not breathe a word, she would notlet a token show, and the reason is because she was well aware that shewas not worthy to be your wife."

  "Not worthy?" reiterated Charny.

  "She cherished a secret which would slay your love," continued theother, more and more maddened by her pain.

  "A secret to kill our love?"

  "She knew you would despise her after she told it."

  "I, despise the countess? tut, tut!"

  "Unless one is not to despise the girl who is a mother without being awife."

  It was the man's turn to become paler than death and lean on the back ofthe nearest chair.

  "Madam, you have said too much or too little, and I have the right foran explanation."

  "Do you ask a queen for explanations?"

  "I do," replied Charny.

  The door opened, and the Queen turned to demand impatiently:

  "What is wanted?"

  It was a valet who announced Dr. Gilbert, come by appointment. Sheeagerly bade him send him in.

  "You call for an explanation about the countess," she continued to thecount: "well, ask it of this gentleman, who can give it, better thananybody else."

  Gilbert had come in so as to hear the final words and he remained on thethreshold, mute and standing.

  The Queen tossed the letter to Charny and took a few steps to gain herdressing room when the count barred her passage and grasped her wrist.

  "My lord, methinks that you forget I am your Queen," said MarieAntoinette, with clenched teeth and enfevered eye.

  "You are an ungrateful woman who slanders her friend, a jealous womenwho defames another, and that woman the wife of a man who has for threedays risked his life a score of times for you--the wife of George Countof Charny. Justice must be rendered in face of her you have calumniatedand insulted! Sit down and wait."

  "Well, have it so," railed the Queen. "Dr. Gilbert," she pursued,forcing a shallow laugh, "you see what this nobleman desires."

  "Dr. Gilbert, you hear what the Queen orders," rebuked Charny with atone full of courtesy and dignity.

  "Oh, madam," said Gilbert, sadly regarding the Queen as he came forward."My Lord Count," he went on to the gentleman, "I have to tell youof the shame of a man and the glory of a woman. A wretched earthwormfell in love with his lord's daughter, the Lady of Taverney. One day,he found her in a mesmeric trance, and without respect for her youth,beauty and innocence, this villain abused her and thus the maid becamea woman, the mother before marriage. Mdlle. Taverney was an angel--LadyCharny is a martyr!"

  "I thank Dr. Gilbert," said the count, wiping his brow. "Madam," heproceeded to the Queen, "I was ignorant that Mdlle. Taverney was sounfortunate--that Lady Charny was so worthy of respect; otherwise,believe me, six years would not have elapsed before I fell at her feetand adored her as she deserves."

  Bowing to the stupefied Queen, he stalked forth without the baffled onemaking a move to detain him. But he heard her shriek of pain when thedoor closed between them. She comprehended that over those portals thehand of the demon of jealousy was writing the dread doom:

  "Leave hope behind who enter here."