A DEGREE of calmness had succeeded at Versailles to the terrible moral and political agitations which we have placed before the eyes of our readers.
The king breathed again, and although he could not help reflecting on the suffering his Bourbon pride had endured during his journey to Paris, he consoled himself with the idea of his reconquered popularity.
During this time Monsieur de Necker was organizing, and by degrees losing his.
As to the nobility, they were beginning to prepare their defection or their resistance.
The people were watching and waiting.
During this time the queen, thrown back as it were on the resources of her own mind, assured that she was the object of many hatreds, kept herself in the background, almost dissembled; for she also knew that although the object of hatred to many, she was at the same time the object of many hopes.
Since the journey of the king to Paris she had scarcely caught a glimpse of Gilbert.
Once, however, he had presented himself to her in the vestibule which led to the king's apartments.
And there, as he had bowed to her very humbly and respectfully, she was the first to begin a conversation with him.
“Good-day, sir,” said she to him; “are you going to the king?”
And then she added, with a smile, in which there was a slight tinge of irony:—
“Is it as counsellor, or as physician?”
“It is as his physician, Madame,” replied Gilbert.” I have to-day an appointed service.”
She made a sign to Gilbert to follow her. The doctor obeyed.
They both of them went into a small sitting-room, which led to the king's bedroom.
“Well, sir,” said she, “you see that you were deceiving me when you assured me the other day, with regard to the journey to Paris, that the king was incurring no danger.”
“Who,—I, Madame I” cried Gilbert, astonished.
“Undoubtedly! was not the king fired at?”
“Everybody, sir; and above all, those who saw the poor woman fall almost beneath the wheels of the king's carriage. Who says that? Why, Monsieur de Beauvau and Monsieur d'Estaing, who saw your coat torn and your frill perforated by the ball.”
“The ball which thus grazed you, sir, might have killed the king, as it killed that unfortunate woman; for, in short, it was neither you nor that poor woman that the murderers wished to kill.”
“I do not believe in such a crime,” replied the doctor, hesitating.
“Be it so; but I believe in it, sir,” rejoined the queen, fixing her eyes on Gilbert.
“At all events, if there was intentional crime, it ought not to be imputed to the people.”
The queen gave Gilbert a searching look.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, “to whom, then, must it be attributed Speak!”
“Madame,” continued Gilbert, shaking his head, “for some time past I have been watching and studying the people. Well, then, the people, when they assassinate in Revolutionary times,—the people kill with their hands; they are then like the furious tiger, the irritated lion. The tiger and the lion use no intermediate agent between their fury and their victim; they kill for killing's sake: they spill blood to spill it; they like to dye their teeth, to steep their claws in it.”
“Witness Foulon and Berthier, you would say. But was not Flesselles killed by a shot from a pistol? I was so told, at least; but after all,” continued the queen, in a tone of irony, “perhaps it was not true; we crowned heads are so surrounded by flatterers.”
Gilbert, in his turn, looked intently at the queen.
“Oh! as to him,” said he, “you do not believe more than I do, Madame, that it was the people who killed him. There were people who were interested in bringing about his death.”
“In fact,” she replied, “that may be possible.”
“Then?” said Gilbert, bowing, as if to ask the queen if she had anything more to say to him.
“I understand, sir,” said the queen, gently, stopping the doctor with an almost friendly gesture; “however that may be, let me tell you that you will never save the king's life so effectually by your medical skill as you did three days ago with your own breast.”
But as he saw that the queen remained, he remained also.
“I ought to have seen you again, sir,” said the queen, after a momentary repose.
“Your Majesty had no further need of me,” said Gilbert.
“I wish I were not so, Madame.”
“Because, being less modest, I should be less timid, and consequently better able to serve my friends or to frustrate enemies.”
“Why do you make that distinction? You say, my friends, but do not say my enemies.”
“Because, Madame, I have no enemies; or rather, because I will not, for my part at least, admit that I have any.”
The queen looked at him with surprise.
“I mean to say,” continued Gilbert, “that those only are my enemies who hate me, but that I on myside hate no one.”
“Because I no longer love any one, Madame.”
“Are you ambitious, Monsieur Gilbert?”
“At one time I hoped to become so, Madame.”
“And that passion proved abortive, as did every other.”
“There is one, however, that still remains in your heart,” said the queen, with a slight shade of artful irony.
“In my heart? And what passion is that, good Heaven?”
“Oh, that is true!” said he. “I adore my country, and for it I would make every sacrifice.”
“Alas!” said the queen, with undefinable melancholy, “there was a time when a good Frenchman would not have expressed that thought in the terms you now have used.”
“What does the queen mean to say?” respectfully inquired Gilbert.
“I mean to say, sir, that in the times of which I speak, it was impossible for a Frenchman to love his country, without at the same time loving his queen and king.”
Gilbert blushed; he bowed, and felt within his heart one of those electric shocks, which, in her seducing intimacies, the queen produced on those who approached her.
“You do not answer, sir,” she said.
“Madame!” cried Gilbert, “I may venture to boast that no one loves the monarchy more ardently than myself.”
“Are we living in times, sir, when it is sufficient to say this; and would it not be better to prove it by our acts “
“But, Madame,” said Gilbert, with surprise, “I beg your Majesty to believe that all the king or queen might command—”
“In doing which, sir,” said the queen, resuming, in spite of herself, a slight degree of her accustomed haughtiness, “you would only be fulfilling a duty.”
“God, who has given omnipotence to kings,” continued Marie Antoinette, “has released them from the obligation of being grateful to those who merely fulfil a duty.”
“Alas, alas, Madame,” rejoined Gilbert, “the time is approaching when your servants will deserve more than your gratitude, if they will only fulfil their duty.”
“I mean to say, Madame, that in these days of disorder and demolition, you will in vain seek for friends where you have been accustomed to find servants. Pray, pray to God, Madame, to send you other servants, other supporters, other friends than those you have.”
“ See now, Madame; I who now speak to you,—I was your enemy but yesterday.”
“My enemy! and why were you so?”
“Because you ordered that I should be imprisoned.”
“To-day, Madame,” replied Gilbert, bowing, “I am your servant.”
“The object for which you have become my servant. It is not in your nature, sir, to change your opinion, your belief, your affections, so suddenly. You are a man, Monsieur Gilbert, whose remembrances are deeply planted; you know how to perpetuate your vengeance. Come, now, tell me what was the motive of this change?”
“Madame, you reproached me but now with loving my country too passionately.”
“No one can ever love it too much, sir; the only question is to know how we love it. For, myself, I love my country.” (Gilbert smiled.) “Oh, no false interpretations, sir! my country is France. A German by blood, I am a Frenchwoman in my heart. I love France; but it is through the king. I love France from the respect due to God, who has given us the throne. And now to you, sir.”
“Yes, it is now for you to speak. I understand you, do I not? To you it is quite another matter. You love France merely and simply for France herself.”
“Madame,” replied Gilbert, bowing, “I should fail in respect to your Majesty, should I fail in frankness.”
“Oh,” exclaimed the queen, “frightful, frightful period I when all people who pretend to be people of worth, isolate two things which have never been separated from each other; two principles which have always gone hand in hand,—France and her king. But have you not a tragedy of one of your poets, in which it is asked of a queen who has been abandoned by all, 'What now remains to you?' and to which she replies, 'Myself' Well, then, like Medea, I also will say, 'Myself!' and we shall see.”
And she angrily left the room, leaving Gilbert in amazement.
She had just raised to his view, by the breath of her anger, one corner of the veil behind which she was combining the whole work of the counter-revolution.
“Come, come!” said Gilbert to himself, as he went into the king's room, “the queen is meditating some project.”
“Well,” said the queen to herself, as she was returning to her apartment, “decidedly, there is nothing to be made of this man. He has energy, but he has no devotedness.”
Poor princes! with whom the word devotednesss” is synonymous with “servility.”
