THE COUNT DE CHARNY proceeded to the royal post to have horses put to his carriage. While they were being harnessed, he went into the house of the agent, asked for pen, ink, and paper, and wrote to the countess a letter, which he bade the domestic who returned with his horses to give her.
The countess, half asleep on the sofa placed in the corner, and having a small stand before her, was occupied in reading this letter, when Weber entered.
“Monsieur Weber,” said the femme de chambre, opening the door.
The countess folded up her letter quickly, as if Weber had come to take it from her, and placed it in her bosom.
The purport of Weber's message was that the queen wished to see the countess in the evening.
Andree simply replied that she would obey her majesty.
When Weber was gone, the countess closed her eyes for a moment, as if for the purpose of expelling all bad ideas and every evil thought, and not until she had succeeded in perfectly recovering herself did she think herself able to finish the letter.
When she had read it, she kissed it tenderly, and placed it on her heart.
“May God keep you, soul of my life! I do not know where you are, but only that my prayers will ascend to God.”
Then, as she could not possibly know why she was sent for, without impatience and without fear, she awaited the hour for her visit to the Tuileries.
This was not the case with the queen. A kind of prisoner in the palace, under the influence of impatience, she wandered from the pavilion of Flora to that of Warsaw.
Monsieur requested her to pass an hour. Monsieur had come to the Tuileries to ascertain how the king had received De Favras.
The queen, who was ignorant of the journey of Charny, and wished to keep this route of safety open, promised more for the king than he had promised for himself, and told Monsieur that when the time came it would be adopted.
Monsieur, too, was in high spirits. The loan he had effected from the Genoese banker amounted to two millions, of which he could only induce De Favras to accept one hundred louis, which De Favras needed to freshen the devotion of two persons on whom he could rely, and who were to aid in the royal escape.
De Favras wished to inform Monsieur about these two men, But Monsieur, ever prudent, refused either to see them or to hear their names.
Monsieur was to appear to be ignorant of what was going on. De Favras had belonged to his household, and therefore he gave him the money, but he did not care what he did with it.
Besides, as we have said, in ease of the king's departure. Monsieur remained, and therefore could not be concerned in the plot. Monsieur declaimed against the flight of his family, and as he had contrived to make himself very popular in France, it was probable, as Louis XVI. said to the Count de Charny, that Monsieur would be appointed regent.
If the flight were abortive, Monsieur knew nothing, would deny everything, and remain in France, or, with the eighteen hundred thousand francs he retained of the money he had borrowed, would join the Count d'Artois and the Princess of Conde, at Turin.
The return of the baker, his wife, and the shop-boy to Paris had not had the expected effect. Flour and bread still were scarce. Every day there was a crowd around the baker's doors, causing great disorders. How, though, was this to be prevented? The right of reunion was provided for in the declaration of the rights of man.
The Assembly was ignorant of all that. Its members were not obliged to make a part of the tail from the baker's door; and when by accident one of the members became hungry daring the session, he was always sure to find within a hundred yards a nice white roll at the shop of a baker named Francois, who lived in the Rue du Marche-Palu, in the district of Notre Dame. He baked five or six times a day, and always reserved one baking for the Assembly.
The lieutenant of police was communicating to Louis XVI. his fears relative to these disorders, which some day might become an outbreak, when Weber at the door of the little cabinet, and in a low voice, said:
“Madame la Comtesse de. Charny.”
Though the queen herself had sent for Andree, and though she expected her to be announced, she trembled in every limb at Weber's words; she hesitated a moment, not knowing by what name she should address the white apparition which passed from the shadow of the door into the half-lighted room. At last, giving her hand to her old friend, she said:
“Welcome, Andree, to-day as ever.”
“Is it necessary for me to tell your majesty,” said Andree, adopting the question with frankness, “to say that had she always spoken to me as she just has, it would not have been necessary to send for me out of the place she dwells in?”
“Alas!” said the queen, “Andree, you, so chaste and pure, whose heart has been corrupted by no hatred, should know that tempest clouds often may cover and cause a star to disappear, but which, when the wind sweeps the firmament, reappears more brilliant. All women, even in the most exalted ranks, have not your serenity—I, especially, who have asked of you assistance, which you have so generously granted.”
“The queen speaks of things and days I had forgotten, and I fancied so had she.”
“The reply is severe, Andree,” said the queen, “yet I have deserved it, and you were right to make it to me; not, it is true, because when I was happy I did not remember your devotion, though no royal, and, perhaps, not even divine power, could adequately reward you. Yon have thought me ungrateful, when, perhaps, I was only powerless.”
“I would have the right to accuse you, madame, if I had ever asked you anything, and if you had opposed my wish and refused my request. How can your majesty, though, expect me to complain when I have never asked for anything?”
“Well, let me tell you, dear Andree, it is just this kind of indifference to the things of the world which terrifies me in you. Yes, to me you seem a superhuman being, a creature of another world, borne hither by the wind, and cast among us, like stone purified by fire, coming none know whence. The consequence is, one becomes terrified at one's own weakness, when in the face of one who has never failed. They say, though, that supreme indulgence is a quality of supreme perfection. The soul must he washed in the purest stream, and in a season of deep grief, before one does as I do—seek out that super-human being whose censure we fear, but whose consolation we long for.”
“Alas, madame!” said Andree, “if you ask that of me, I fear you will be disappointed in your expectation.”
“Andree, you forget in what a terrible situation you once consoled me.”
Andree grew pale, visibly. The queen, seeing her tremble and close her eyes, as if she had lost her strength, moved her arms and hands to draw her to the same sofa with herself. Andree, however, resisted, and still stood erect.
“Madame,” said she, “if your majesty would but pity your faithful servant, and spare memories she has thought she had almost forgotten: one who does not ask for consolation, for she thinks God even unable to console certain griefs.”
The queen looked closely and long at Andree.
“Certain sorrows! Then,” said she, “have you any other sorrows than those you have confided to me?”
“Let us understand each other,” said the queen. “The time for a full explanation has come. You love M. de Charny?”
The countess became pale as death, but was silent.
“You love M. de Charny?” repeated the queen.
The queen uttered the cry of a wounded lioness. “Oh!” said she, “I thought so; and how long have you loved him?”
“Since the first time I ever saw him.”
The queen drew back in terror before this marble statue, which owned that it had a soul.
“Oh!” said she, “and you are dying.”
“You know that, madame, better than any one else.”
“Because I have seen that you love him.”
“Mean you to say that you love him better than I, because I have not seen anything?”
“Ah!” said Andree, with bitterness, “you saw nothing, because he loved you.”
“Yes, and you mean to say that I see now, because he loves me no more? Is that it?”
“Answer me,” said the queen, seizing, not her hand, but her arm; “own that he loves me no longer.”
Andree neither spoke nor made the least expression, either with her eyes or with her hands.
“Indeed,” said the queen, “this is death. Kill me, though, at once, by saying that he does not love me. Now he loves me not.”
“The love or indifference of M. de Charny are his secrets. It is not for me to unveil them.”
“His secrets! they are not his alone; for I presume he has made you his confidant.”
“The Count de Charny never whispered a word, either of his love or indifference to me.”
“I did not see M. de Charny this morning.”
The queen looked at the countess with a penetrating glance, as if she would seek the very inmost part of her heart.
“Do you mean to say that you are ignorant of the count's departure?”
“How could you know, if you have not seen him?”
“Ah,” said the queen, “he wrote.”
As Richard III. in an important moment exclaimed, “My kingdom for a horse!” Marie Antoinette was ready to say, “My kingdom for that letter!”
Andree saw the queen's anxiety, but could not resist the temptation of leaving her to revel for a time in anguish and vexation.
“I am sure you have the letter the count wrote at the very moment of his departure now upon your person?”
Taking the letter, heated by the fever of her heart and embalmed by its perfume, from her bosom, she gave it to the queen.
Marie Antoinette trembled as she took it, clapped it for a moment in her fingers, and seemed to hesitate if she should read or return it. She looked at Andree between her eye-lashes, and at last, casting aside all hesitation, opened and read the following letter:
“I quit Paris in an hour, in obedience, to the king's order. I cannot tell you whither I go, or why, nor how long I will be absent. These things concern you but little, vet I regret that I am not authorized to tell you.
“I at first intended to present myself to you to inform you, in person, of my departure. I did not dare to do so, however, without your leave.”
The queen knew all that she wished to know, and was about to return the letter to Andree, but the latter, as if it were her part to obey and not to command, said: “Read, madame, to the end.” The queen resumed her reading:
“I had refused, recently, the mission to Turin, because, fool as I was, I thought something of sympathy yet existed between us and retained me at Paris. I have proof to the contrary, and gladly accepted an occasion to tear myself from one who is indifferent to me.
“If, during my journey, I shall die, as my poor brother Georges did, all steps are taken to inform you first of the blow which has stricken me, and of the liberty restored to you. Then only, madame, you will know the deep admiration which your profound devotion, so badly rewarded by him to whom you have sacrificed youth, beauty, and happiness, has excited in my heart.
“Then, madame, all I ask of God and yourself, is that you will think sometimes of the unfortunate wretch who, too late, discovered the value of the treasure he possessed.
“With all the devotion of my heart,
The queen gave the letter to Andree, who took it, and suffered it to fall by her side. She uttered a deep and almost inanimate sigh.
“Well, madame,” murmured Andree, “are you betrayed? I will not say, have I broken my promise, for I never made one, but the confidence reposed in me—
“Excuse me, Andree, but I have suffered so much.”
“You have suffered? dare you, before me, say you have suffered? What, then, shall I say? I will not say I have suffered, for I will not use a word another woman has employed to convey the same idea—no, I must have a new, unheard of word, to express at once the sum of all agony and torture. You have suffered, madame!—you have not seen the man you loved, indifferent to you, turn on his knees, with his heart in his hand, to another woman; you have not seen your brother, jealous of that other woman, whom he worshipped as a pagan worships his God, fight with the man you loved; you have not heard the man you loved, and who was wounded by your brother, it was thought fatally, in his hour of delirium call for that other woman, whose confidant you were; you have not seen her glide, like a phantom, down a corridor, where you yourself were, to catch the accents of that madness, which proved that if mad love does not survive life, at least it accompanies it to the tomb; you have not seen that man, restored to life by a miracle of nature and science, rise from his bed to cast himself at her feet—at the feet of your rival, madame—of your rival, madame, for in love, magnitude of love is the measure of rank. In your despair, you did not then, at the age of twenty-five, retire into a convent, and seek at the icy foot of the cross to extinguish the love which devoured you. One day, after a year passed in prayer, fasting and vigils, you hoped, if not to have extinguished, at least to have repressed the flame which devoured you; you have not seen your old friend, now your rival, who had known nothing of your feelings, seek out your retreat, to ask, what?—that in the name of old friendship, which suffering had not changed, in the name of her honour as a wife, of the safety of her sovereign's ruined honour, she would become, what?—the wife of the man whom for three years you had adored—become a wife without a husband, a veil between the eye of the public and another's happiness, like a pall to hide the coffin from the public gaze. You succeeded, madame, not from pity, for jealousy is pitiless, but from duty, and knowing this, you accepted the sacrifice. You have not heard the priest ask if you would take one to be your husband who never could be your husband; you have not felt that man press the ring over your finger, and make the symbol of eternal union an empty ornament; you did not leave your husband an hour after your marriage, never to see him again but as the lover of your rival. Madame, the three years that have passed have been three long years of agony.”
The queen, with a trembling hand, felt for Andree's.
“I promised nothing, and have done all I should. You, madame,” said the fair arraigner, “promised me two things.”
“Andree! Andree!” said the queen.
“You promised me not to see M. de Charny again—a promise the more sacred as I did not ask it of you.
“Then you promised me, and this was in writing, that you would treat me as a sister. A promise the more sacred because it was not solicited.”
“Must I remind you of the terms of the promise you made me, of the solemn promise, when I sacrificed to you my life, my love? that is to say, my happiness in this world, and my salvation in the next. Yes, my salvation in the next; for who can say if God will forgive my mad desires and wishes? Well, madame, at the moment I was about to sacrifice everything for you, this note was handed to me. I see now every letter glaring before my eyes. It runs thus:
“'Andree! you have saved me; I owe you my life, my honour. In the name of that honour, which cost you so dearly, I swear you may call me sister. Do so, and I will not blush. I give you this note; it is the token of my gratitude, it is the dower I give you.
“Your heart is the noblest of hearts, and will appreciate the present I give you.
“Yes, I see, because I burnt this note you fancied I had forgotten it? No, madame; you see that I have remembered every word, every letter, though you might not seem to think of it. Ah! I remember more.”
“Pardon, pardon me, Andree; I thought he loved you.”
“You thought, then, it was a love of the human heart; that he loved another, because he loved you less.”
Andree had suffered so much, that she too became cruel.
“You, also, then, have seen that he loved me less?” said the queen, with an exclamation of grief.
Andree did not reply; she only looked at the despairing queen, and a smile played on her lips.
“But what must be done to retain this love, which is my very life? Oh! if you know that, Andree, my friend, my sister, tell me, I beg and conjure you.”
“Can I, whom he has never loved, madame, know that?”
“Hut he may love you. Some day, on his knees, he may make atonement for the past; ask your pardon for what he has made you suffer. Sufferings, too, are so soon forgotten in the arms of one we love; pardon is so soon granted him who has made us suffer.”
“Well! if such should be the case—if this misfortune befall, and it may be a misfortune to all—do you forget that before I become Charny's wife I have a terrible secret, an awful confidence, to impart, which perhaps will turn his love into hate? Do you forget I must tell him what I have told you?”
“You will tell him that you were violated by Gilbert? Tell him that you have a child?''
“Oh! madame, what do you take me to be, to entertain any doubt about the matter?”
“Then,” said she, “you will do nothing to attract M. de Charny to you?”
“I will do no more, madame, in the future, than I have done in the past.”
“You will not tell him, nor let him suspect, that you love him?”
“Not until he tells me that he loves me.”
“And if he come to tell you so, if you tell him that you love him, swear—”
“Madame .'“ said Andree, interrupting the queen.
“Oh!” said the queen, “Andree, my sister, my friend, you are right, and I am cruel, wrong, exacting. But oh, when all abandon me, friends, power, reputation, I would at least wish love to remain.”
“And now, madame,” said Andree, with the icy coldness which had never abandoned her, except during the few moments when she spoke of the tortures inflicted on her, “have you aught else to ask, any order to give?”
“No, thank you, none. I wished to restore you my friendship, but you reject it. Andree, adieu, and accept at least my gratitude.”
Andree made a gesture with her hand, which seemed to repel this sentiment, as she had repelled the offer of friendship, and left calmly and silently as a ghost.
“Oh! you are right, body of ice, heart of diamond, soul of fire, to accept neither my gratitude nor my friendship, for I feel it, and ask that God pardon me for it, that I hate you as I have hated none; for if he does not love you now, I am sure some, day he will.”
Then, calling Weber, she said: “Tell my ladies that I will go to bed to-night without them, and that, as I am suffering and fatigued, I wish to rest until ten o'clock. The first and only person I will see will he M. Gilbert.”
