WHILE GILBERT withdrew, a prey to an unknown terror in relation, not to the revolution, but to the invisible and mysterious course of events, the Marquis de Favras was introduced, as we have said in the preceding chapter, to Louis XVI.
As Doctor Gilbert had done, he paused at the door; the king beckoned him to draw near.
Favras advanced and bowed, waiting respectfully to be spoken to.
Louis XVI. fixed on him that glance of anxious inquiry which seems to be a part of the education of kings, and which is measured in profundity by him that employs it.
“You are the Marquis de Favras, sir?” said the king.
“Yes, sire,” said the marquis.
“You wished to be presented to me?”
“I expressed to his royal highness the Count de Provence my warm desire to offer the king my homage to majesty.”
“My brother has great confidence in you?”
“I think he has, and I wish that good opinion to be shared by your majesty.”
“My brother has known you long, M. de Favras.”
“But your majesty does not, I understand. Interrogate me, however, but ten minutes, and your majesty will know me as well as your august brother.”
“Speak, marquis,” said Louis XVI., looking at the picture of Charles Stuart, which he could not entirely eradicate from his mind or from his glance. “Speak, marquis, I listen to you.”
“Your majesty wishes to know—”
“Who you are and what you have done.”
“Who I am, sire, the announcement of my name tells you. I am Thomas Mahi, Marquis de Favras; I was born at Blois, in 1745; I entered the mousquetaires at fifteen, and served in that corps the campaign of 1761. I was then captain and aide-major in the regiment of Belzunce, and afterwards lieutenant of the Swiss of the guard of the Count de Provence.”
“In 1775, sire, to go to Vienna to have my wife recognised as the only and legitimate daughter of the Prince of Anbalt-Schauenberg.”
“Has your wife ever been presented?”
“No, sire; but at this moment she has the honour of being, with my eldest son, received by the queen.”
The king made an uneasy movement which seemed to say, “Ah! the queen has something to do with it.”
After a momentary silence, during which he walked up and down the room, and glanced again and again at the picture of Charles I., “And then?” said the king.
“Then, for three years during the insurrection against the Stadtholder, I commanded a legion, and, in a degree, contributed to the re-establishment of authority. Then, as I looked at France, and saw the evil spirit which appeared to pervade it, I returned to Paris to place my life and sword at the service of the king.”
“You have indeed had trouble.”
“Yes, sire; I saw the sad days of the 5th and 6th of October.” The king seemed to wish to change the subject.
“And you say, marquis,” continued he, “that my brother, the Count de Provence, had such confidence in you that he confided to your care the charge of a large sum of money?”
At this unexpected question a third person would have had his nerves severely shaken by witnessing the nervous tremor of a curtain which half closed the alcove of the room, as if some one were hidden behind it, and at the agitation of M. de Farms, like that of a man who, expecting one question, has another altogether different addressed to him.
“Yes, sire; if it be a mark of confidence to confide the charge of money to a nobleman, his royal highness has done so to me.”
The king looked at Favras as if the direction the conversation had assumed offered his curiosity a greater interest than the course it had hitherto taken.
The marquis then continued, but like a man who has been disappointed: “His royal highness, being deprived of his revenues by the various measures of the Assembly, and thinking that the time was come when, for their own safety, it was necessary for the princes to have a large sum at their disposal, gave me the contracts.”
De Favras hesitated to reply to the king: the conversation appeared to have assumed a scope widely different from that he expected—looking into private rather than general interests, and sinking from politics into police.
“I asked,” said the king, “who lent the money?”
“Ah!” said Louis XVI., “an Italian.”
“At Sevres, just opposite the place where,” said Favras, who hoped by thus spurring his horse in the face of the king to excite the foundered animal to some vigour,—“where the coach of your majesty, stopped by the cut-throats under the conduct of Marat, Verriers, and the Duke d'Aiguillon, forced the hair-dresser of the queen to dress the heads of Varicourt and Deshuttes.”
He grew pale, and had he at that moment looked towards the alcove, he would have seen that the curtain was more violently agitated than it had previously been.
It was evident that the conversation annoyed him, and that he wished he had not engaged in it. He resolved to end it as soon as possible. He said: “It is evident, sir, that you are a faithful subject of royalty, and when the time comes, I promise not to forget you.”
He bowed, and when princes do that, it means, “You may go.”
Favras understood him perfectly.
“Excuse me, sire, your majesty had one other thing to ask me.”
“No,” said the king, as if he wondered what the matter could be, or what new question he was expected to ask. “No, marquis, this is all I wished to know.”
“You are mistaken, sire,” said a voice which made both the king and marquis turn towards the alcove. “You wished to know what course the ancestor of the marquis adopted to save King Stanislaus at Dantzic, and how he escorted him in safety to the frontier.”
They both uttered an exclamation of surprise. The third person who thus suddenly mingled in the conversation was the queen, pale, and with quivering lips, who, not satisfied with what Favras had told her, and fancying that the king, if left to himself, would dare to act decidedly, had come by the secret stairway and corridor to participate in the conversation.
Favras at once appreciated the means offered him to unfold his plan, and, though none of his ancestors had ever contributed to the escape of the Polish monarch, he hastened to bow, and replied: “Your majesty, doubtless, refers to my cousin, General Steinflicht, who owes the illustration of his name to the services he rendered his monarch; services which were doubly important, as, in the first place, he wrested him from the hands of his enemies, and, subsequently, by means of a lucky accident, made him one of your majesty's progenitors.”
“That is true, sire,” said the queen, eagerly; while Louis XVI. looked at the portrait of Charles I. and sighed deeply.
“Well,” said Favras, “your majesty is aware that King Stanislaus, though nominally free in Dantzic, was strictly watched by the Muscovite army, and was almost lost, if he did not determine on a prompt escape.”
“He was entirely, you may say entirely lost, M. de Favras,” added the queen.
“Madame,” said Louis XVI., with severity, “Providence watches over kings, and they are never utterly lost.”
“Ah, sire,” said the queen, “I have as full, or as religious a faith in Providence as you have, but I think we should do something for ourselves.”
“Such was the opinion of the King of Poland, sire,” added De Favras, “for he publicly declared, that no longer thinking his position tenable, and knowing his life to be in danger, he wished various plans of escape to be submitted to him. In spite of the difficulty, three were proposed. I say in spite of the difficulty, because your majesty will remark that it was more difficult for the King of Poland to escape than for yourself. For instance, if your majesty should fancy to leave Paris with a post-carriage, if your majesty wished to do so quietly, you could, in a day or night, gain the frontier; or if your majesty wished to leave Paris as a king, give an order to some gentlemen to collect thirty thousand men and seize on the Tuileries,—in either case success would be sure.”
“Sire,” said the queen, “M. de Favras tells your majesty nothing but the truth.”
“Yes,” said the king; “but my situation is far from being desperate, as was that of my cousin Stanislaus. Dantzic was surrounded by the Muscovites, as the marquis says: the fort of Weichselmund, its last defence, had capitulated; while I—”
“While you,” interrupted the queen, with impatience, “are surrounded by the people of Paris, who took the Bastille on the 14th of July, and who, on the night of the 5th and 6th of October, sought to murder you, and who on the 6th brought you with insults back to Paris. Ah! it is a far better condition than that of Stanislaus.”
“King Stanislaus was exposed only to death or imprisonment, while we—”
A glance from the king made her pause.
“But you are the master, and must decide.”
She, in her impatience, sat in front of the picture of Charles I.
“M. de Favras,” said she, “I have seen the marchioness and your eldest son. I found them both brave and full of courage, as the wife and son of a brave nobleman should be. And in case anything befall them, they may rely on the Queen of France, who will not abandon them. She is the daughter of Marie Therese, and can appreciate and reward courage.”
The king, as if he were excited by this boutade, said: “You say, sir, three modes of escape were proposed?”
“Yes, sire. The first, the disguise of a peasant. The Countess Chapoka, Palatine of Pomerania, who spoke German, her native tongue, offered, confiding in a man she knew to be well acquainted with the country, to disguise herself as a peasant woman, and pass him off as her husband. This was the method I just now spoke of to the King of France as so easy in case he wished to fly incognito, and at night.”
“The second?” said Louis XVI., impatiently, as if he disliked the situation of Stanislaus being compared with his own.
“The second was to take a thousand men and cut through the Muscovites; this I suggested just now to the King of France, observing that he had not one, but thirty thousand at his service.”
“You saw how valuable those thirty thousand men were on the 14th of July, M. de Favras. Now for the third.”
“The third, which Stanislaus decided on, was to disguise himself as a peasant, not with a woman, who might encumber him on the road, not with a thousand men, every one of whom might be killed without cutting through the enemy, but with two or three sure men who had travelled much. This last was suggested by M. Monsi, and approved by General Steinflicht.”
“Yes, sire; and if a king finding or thinking himself in the situation of the King of Poland should determine to adopt it, and grant me the confidence your kinsman granted General Steinflicht, I think I would answer with my head that, where the roads are free, as they are in France, and the king as bold a rider as your majesty—
“Certainly,” said the queen. “But on the night of the 5th and 6th of October the king swore never to form a plan of escape without me. He promised, sir, and will keep his word.”
“Madame,” said Favras, “that makes the journey more difficult, but not impossible; and had I the honour of conducting such an expedition, I would promise to carry the king and queen to Montmedy or Brussels, or lose my head.”
“Do you hear, sir? I think there is all to gain and nothing to lose with a man like M. de Favras.”
“So, too, do I, madame; but the moment is not yet favourable.”
“Very well, sire,” said the queen; “wait, as did he whose portrait you study so. The sight of that, I thought, would have given you better counsel. Wait until we are forced into a contest, until a battle shall have been lost, until a scaffold shall have been erected beneath your window, and then, instead of saying as you do to-day, 'It is too soon,' you will say, 'It is too late.'”
“At all events, and under all circumstances, the first word of the king will find me ready,” said De Favras, bowing; for he was afraid that his presence, having brought on a kind of contest between the king and queen, fatigued the latter. “I can only offer my life to my king; and I should not say I offer, for the right of using it is his.”
“It is well, sir; and in case of need I renew to you the offer the queen made in relation to the marquise and your children.”
This was a real dismissal, which the marquis was forced to take, and finding no other encouragement than a glance from the queen he left the room.
The queen looked after him until the tapestry hid him.
“Ah, sire,” said she, and she pointed to wards the picture by Vandyck, “when I hang that picture hung in your room I fancied it would inspire you.”
Haughty, and disdaining to pursue the conversation, she advanced towards the door of the alcove; all at once, pausing, she said, “Sire, confess that the Marquis de Favras is not the only person you have seen to-day.”
“Yes, madame, I saw Doctor Gilbert.”
“Ah!” said she, “so I thought; and the doctor—”
“Agrees with me, that we should not leave France.”
“Thinking, then, we should not leave it, he has suggested some way to enable us to live here.”
“Yes, one which, unfortunately, if not bad, is impracticable.”
“That we purchase the services of Mirabeau for one year.”
The queen's face was deeply pensive.
“Perhaps,” said she, “that might be a way.”
“Yes, but it is a thing you would refuse to do, madame.”
“I say neither yes nor no,” said the queen, with the expression the angel of evil might assume when sure of his triumph: “my advice is to think of it.” She added in a lower tone, as she left, “And I will think of it.”
The king was alone, on his feet, and for an instant motionless. Then, as if he feared that the retreat of the queen was feigned, he went to the door through which she had gone, opened it, and looked into the corridor and antechambers.
Seeing none of the servants, he said in a half voice, “Francois!”
A valet, who had risen when the door of the king's apartments opened, was immediately told to draw near.
“Francois,” said Louis XVI., “do you know the rooms of M. de Charny?”
“Find M. de Charny; I wish to see him.”
The valet de chambre left, and closing the door behind him, went to the room of M. de Charny, whom he found with his head resting on his hand, and his eyes gazing on that ocean of roofs which lost itself in an horizon of tiles and slates.
The valet knocked twice without succeeding in arousing the count. Charny was lost in reflection, and at last the valet determined, as the key was in the door, to enter.
“Ah, M. Hue, is it you? Are you come to me from the queen?”
“From the king!” echoed Charny, wondering what he could want with him. “Very well; say to his majesty that I obey,”
The valet de chambre retired with the formula prescribed by etiquette, while the count, with that courtesy which the old and true nobility entertained for any one coming from the king, whether wearing a gold chain or a livery, went with him to the door.
When alone, Charny for a moment rested his head on his hands, as if to arrange his ideas, put on his sword, which lay on a chair, took up his hat and went downstairs.
He found Louis XVI. in his chamber, sitting with his back to the picture by Vandyck, and awaiting him.
The desk was covered with charts, works on geography, English papers, and journals, among which were discovered manuscripts of Louis XVI., recognisable by the fact that he wrote so closely that scarcely any margin was to be seen.
Charny looked particularly at none of the objects which lay around, and waited respectfully for the king to speak.
The king, however, in spite of the confidence he had previously exhibited, seemed to experience a certain hesitation.
In the first place, and to acquire courage, he opened a drawer in his desk, and a secret compartment within this drawer, whence he extracted several papers in envelopes, which he placed on the table.
“M. de Charny,” said he, “I have observed one thing—”
He paused, looking fixedly at Charny, who waited respectfully to hear what he had to say.
“On the night of the 5th and 6th of October, having to select between the care of the queen and myself, I saw that you placed her under the charge of your brother, while you remained by me.”
“Sire,” said Charny, “I am the head of my family, as you are the chief of the state; I had, therefore, the right to die by your side.”
“This made me think,” said Louis XVI., “that if I had ever a secret mission, at once secret, difficult, and dangerous, I could trust it to your loyalty as a French noble, to your devotion as a friend.”
“Oh, sire!” said Charny, “exalt me as high as you please, and I will ever be grateful. I cannot do more.”
“M. de Charny, though scarcely thirty-six, you are a thoughtful man. You have not passed through the events which are transpiring around us without extracting profit from them. What think you of my situation, and were you prime minister, what would you suggest to improve it?”
“Sire,” said Charny, with more hesitation than embarrassment, “I am a military man—a sailor; such questions I am incompetent to answer.”
“Monsieur,” said the king, giving Charny his hand, with a dignity which seemed suddenly to spring from the very situation in which they were placed, “you are a man, and I am another, who, thinking you his friend, asks you simply what, if you were in his situation, you would do.”
“Sire,” said Charny, “in a situation not less grave than the present, the queen did me the honour, as the king does now, to ask my opinion; I speak of the capture of the Bastille. She wished to use against the hundred thousand Parisians in arms, rolling like a hydra of fire and steel along the Boulevards, her eight or ten thousand foreign soldiers. Had I been less known to the queen, had she been less familiar with my devotion and respect, my reply would doubtless have made trouble between us. Alas, sire! may I not fear that my reply to-day will offend the king?”
“What did you say to the queen?”
“That, if not strong enough to enter Paris as a conqueror, you must enter it as a father!”
“Well, sir, did not I follow that advice?”
“Now it remains to see whether I have acted correctly or not. Tell me, now, have I entered Paris as a king or as a prisoner?”
“Sire,” said the count, “does the king permit me to speak to him frankly?”
“Do so, sir! When I ask your advice, I also ask your opinion.”
“Sire, I disapproved of the banquet at Versailles, and begged the queen not to go to the theatre without you. Sire, I despaired when I saw the queen trample on the national cockade, and put on that of Austria.”
“Think you, count, that was the true cause of the events of the 5th and 6th of October?”
“No, sire; it was at least the pretext. Sire, you are not unjust to the people; the people is good, and loves you, for it is royalist; the people, though, suffers; it is cold and hungry, and has in, around, and above it, bad counsellors, who urge it on. It advances, urges onward, overturning everything, and is ignorant of its own power. When once loosed, once released, turned forth and in motion, it is either a conflagration or a deluge. It either burns or overwhelms.”
“But, M. de Charny, suppose one wishes neither to be burned nor drowned. This is very natural; what then must I do?”
“Give no pretext for the inundation to burst, for the conflagration to spread. Sire, you have seen this people of Paris, so long without sovereigns, so anxious to see them again. You have seen it murdering, burning, and assassinating at Versailles, or rather you thought so; at Versailles you did not see the people; you saw it, at the Tuileries, saluting beneath the balcony, the queen, the royal family; penetrating into your apartments, by means of deputations, from the market, of the civic guard, of the municipal corps; those who had not the happiness of entering your apartments and exchanging words with you, pressed close around the windows of the dining-room, through which the women sent sweet kisses to their illustrious guests, the kisses of their children.”
“Yes,” said the king, “I saw all that, and thence comes my hesitation. I ask what is the true people, that which burns and caresses, or that which caresses and demands?”
“The last, sire, the last, sire. Confide in that which will defend you against the other.”
“Count, you say to me now, exactly what Doctor Gilbert said two hours ago.”
“Then, sire, how, having consulted a man so profound, so learned, so grave as the doctor, can you deign to consult a mere soldier like myself?”
“I will tell you, M. de Charny,” said Louis XVI.; “I think there is a great difference between you. You are the friend of the king, and Doctor Gilbert is only the friend of royalty.”
“I mean that if the principle of royalty were deserted, he would willingly abandon the king, that is to say, the man.”
“Then your majesty is right. For to me, sire, you will ever be both the king and the impersonation of royalty. Thus I wish you to use me.”
“Some time since, M. de Charny, I wished to know to whom you would address yourself in this calm, which perhaps intervenes between two storms—to efface all memory of the past, and conjure up better prospects of the future.”
“Had I the honour and misfortune, sire, of royalty, I would remember the shouting around my carriage on the return from Versailles, and I would give my right hand to Lafayette and my left to Mirabeau.”
“Count, how can you say this, when you hate the one and detest the other?”
“Sire, feelings, now, we have nothing to do with. The fate of the king and kingdom are at stake.”
“Just what Gilbert said,” the king said to himself.
“Sire,” said Charny, “I am happy to find so distinguished a person agree with me.”
“Think you then, count, that the union of these two men would restore the nation to calm and to peace?”
“With God's aid, sire, I would expect much from the union of these two men.”
“But if I lent myself to this union, if I consented to the compact, and if, in spite of my desire, the ministerial combination should fail, what then should I do?”
“Then, having exhausted all the means placed by Providence in your hands, having fulfilled all the duties imposed by your position, it would be time for you to think of your own safety,' and of that of your family.”
“Then you propose that I should fly?”
“I would advise your majesty to retire, with those of your regiments on which you think you can rely, to some strong place, like Metz, Nancy, or Strasbourg.”
The face of the king lighted up.
“Ah,” said he; “and among all the generals who have given me proof of devotion, tell me, Charny—for you know them all—to whom would you confide the duty of carrying the king away?”
“Sire, it is a grave responsibility to guide a king in such a choice. I, however, recognise my ignorance, my weakness, my impotence. Sire, I cannot.”
“Well, I will place you at ease. I have already made my choice, and I wish to send you to that man. Here is the letter I wish you to give him. Any name you may suggest will have no other influence on my determination than to point out one faithful servant more, who doubtless will have an opportunity to show his fidelity. M. de Charny, had you to confide your king to the prudence, valour, and fidelity of any one, whom would you select?”
“Sire,” said Charny, after a moment's reflection, “not, I swear to your majesty, on account of friendship or family, which unite us, do I say this. In the army, however, there is a man known for his great devotion to the king; a man who, as governor of the Windward Isles, efficiently protected the Antilles, and even took several from the English, who since has had many important commands, and who is now, I think, governor of the city of Metz. This man, sir, is the Marquis de Bouille. If a father, I would trust my son to him; had I a father, I would confide him to Bouille; as a subject, I would confide my king to him.”
So dull was Louis XVI., that he heard with evident anxiety the words of the count. One might have seen his face either lighten or become bedimmed, as he seemed to recognise or not the person of whom Charny spoke. “When he heard the name, he could not repress an exclamation of joy.
“Look, count, at the address of this letter: Does not Providence itself induced me to write to him?”
Charny took the letter, and read the address:
Tears of joy and pride gushed from Charny's eyes. He said: “Sire, after this, I have but one thing to say, that I will live and die for your majesty.”
“And after what has passed, I will say, I do not think that I have any longer a right to keep any secrets from you, provided that you and I are placed on a good footing; now, to you alone I will confide my own person, that of my queen and my children. Listen to me, then; this has been proposed to me and rejected.”
Charny bowed in deep attention to the king.
“This is not the first time, monsieur, that the idea of a plan like that we speak of has occurred to myself and those around me. Daring the night of the 5th and 6th, I had wished to effect the queen's escape; a carriage was to have taken her to Rambouillet, where I would have joined her on horseback. Thence we easily could have reached the frontier, the surveillance which now surrounds us not haying then been awakened. The project failed, because the queen would not go without me.”
“Sire, I was present when the pious oath was exchanged between the king and the queen, or, rather, between the husband and wife.”
“Since, M. de Breteuil has opened negotiations with me through the Earl of Innisdale, and to-day I received a letter from Soleure.”
The king paused, when he saw the count was motionless.
“You do not answer, count,” said he.
“Sire, I know the Count de Breteuil is in the Austrian influence, and I am afraid to disturb his majesty's legitimate sympathies with his wife, and the Emperor Joseph II., his brother-in-law.”
The king seized Charny's hand, and, leaning towards him, said in a whisper: “Do not be afraid, count: I like Austria no better than you do. This was not the only plan of escape offered me. Do you know the Marquis de Favras?”
“The old captain of the regiment of Belzunce? The old lieutenant of the guards of Monsieur? Yes, sire.”
“That is it,” said the king, repeating, “'the old lieutenant of the guards of Monsieur.' What think you of him?”
“Well, he is a brave soldier and a gentleman, ruined by accidents, a thing which makes him the more unhappy, and implore him to mad attempts and foolish plans. He is, however, a man of honour, and will die rather than shrink from aught he has undertaken. He is a man on whom your majesty might rely for a coup-de-main, but whom I would fear to make the leader of an enterprise.”
“Then,” the king said, with something of bitterness, “the leader is not he, but Monsieur. Monsieur, the man who makes money, prepares everything. Monsieur, who purposes to remain in France when I shall have left it!”
Charny made a movement expressive of alarm.
“Well! what mean you, count? This is not an Austrian plot, but a movement of the princes, of the noblesse, of the emigres.”
“Sire, excuse me. I doubt neither the honour, nor the courage, nor the loyalty of M. de Favras. If he promised to take your majesty anywhere, he will do so, or will die in your defence. Why, though, does not Monsieur go with your majesty? Why docs he remain here?”
“From devotion, I tell you; and perhaps—if it should become necessary to depose one king and appoint a regent—the people, wean of the search for a king, would not have far to look for a regent.”
“Sire,” said Charny, “this says terrible things.”
“I tell you what everybody knows, dear count, what your brother wrote yesterday. In the last council of the princes at Turin, it was proposed to depose me and to appoint a regent; M. de Conde, my cousin, proposed to march upon Lyons. You see then, I can neither accept the offer of Breteuil nor of Favras, neither of Austria nor of the princes. This, count, I have told no one, and I wish no one, not even the queen, to know of it.” Louis XVI. emphasised the words we have italicised. “As in no one, not even the queen, have I reposed such confidence, you should be more devoted to me than to any one else.”
“Sire,” said Charny, “must the secret of my journey be kept from everyone?”
“It matters not, count, that the people know whither, if they do not know why you go-”
“And the object must be revealed to M. de Bouille alone?”
“To him alone, and not until you shall have ascertained his feelings. The letter I give is simply one of introduction. You know my position, my fears, better than either M. Necker, my minister, my counsellor. Act accordingly. I put the thread and shears in your hands. Untwine or cut.”
He then gave the count an open letter.
“Palace of the Tuileries, Oct. 29.
“I trust, sir, you continue to be satisfied with your position as governor of the palace of Metz. The Count de Charny, who passes through Metz, will ask you if I can serve you in any other manner. If so, it would delight me to please you, and seize the opportunity to assure you of my esteem for you.—Louis.”
“And now, M. de Charny,” said the king, “go; you have full power to make any promise to M. de Bouille, if you think any necessary; only promise nothing that I cannot keep.”
Charny kissed it with an emotion which made all new protestations useless, and left the room, leaving the king convinced, as was the case, that he had by this confidence won the count's heart more completely than if he had heaped on him all the riches and favours in his bestowal during his omnipotence.
