GILBERT cast a glance on the several personages whom we have placed on the stage, and advancing respectfully towards Marie Antoinette:—
“Will the queen permit me,” said he, “in the absence of her august husband, to communicate to her the news of which I am the bearer?”
“Speak, sir!” said Marie Antoinette. “On seeing you coming at so rapid a pace, I summoned up all my fortitude, for I felt well assured that you were bringing me some fearful news.”
“Would the queen have preferred that I should have allowed her to be surprised Forewarned, the queen, with that sound judgment, that elevated mind by which she is characterized, would advance to meet the danger; and then perhaps the danger might retreat before her.”
“Let us see, sir; what is this danger?”
“Madame, seven or eight thousand women have set out from Paris, and are coming armed to Versailles.”
“Seven or eight thousand women?” cried the queen, with an air of contempt.
“Yes; but they will, most likely, have stopped on the way; and perhaps, on arriving here, their numbers will amount to fifteen or twenty thousand.”
“And for what purpose are they coming?”
“They are hungry, Madame, and they are coming to ask the king for bread.”
The queen turned towards De Charny.
“Alas, Madame,” said the count, “that which I predicted has now happened.”
“What is to be done?” asked Marle Antoinette.
“The king should, in the first place, be informed of it,” said Gilbert.
The queen turned quickly towards him.
“The king! oh, no!” she cried, “what good purpose would it answer to expose him to such a meeting?”
This cry burst forth from the heart of Marie Antoinette almost involuntarily. It was a convincing manifestation of the intrepidity of the queen, of her consciousness of possessing a firmness which was altogether personal to her, and at the same time of her consciousness of her husband's weakness, which she cared not to admit even to herself, and, more particularly, to reveal to strangers.
But was De Charny a stranger and Gilbert, was he a stranger?
No; did not those two men, on the contrary, appear to be elected by Providence, the one to be the safeguard of the queen, the other to protect the king?
De Charny replied at once to the queen and to Gilbert; he recovered all his self-control, for he had made the sacrifice of his pride.
“Madame,” said he, “Monsieur Gilbert is right; it is necessary that the king should be informed of this occurrence. The king is still beloved; the king will present himself to these women. He will harangue them; he will disarm them.”
“But,” observed the queen, “who will undertake to give this information to the king? The road between this and Meudon is no doubt already intercepted, and it would be a dangerous enterprise.”
“The king is in the forest of Meudon?”
“Yes; and it is probable the roads—”
“Your Majesty will deign to consider me as a military man,” said De Charny, unostentatiously; “a soldier, and one whose duty it is to expose his life—”
And having said these words, he did not wait for a reply; he listened not to the sigh which escaped the queen, but ran rapidly down the staircase, jumped upon one of the guards' horses, and hastened towards Meudon, accompanied by two cavaliers.
He had scarcely disappeared, and had replied by a sign to a farewell gesture which Andrée addressed to him from the window, when a distant noise, which resembled the roaring of the waves in a storm, made the queen listen anxiously. This noise appeared to proceed from the farthest trees on the Paris road, which, from the apartment in which the queen was, could be seen towering above the fog at some distance from the last houses of Versailles.
The horizon soon became as threatening to the eye as it had been to the ear; a hail-shower began to checker the dark gray haze.
And yet notwithstanding the threatening state of the heavens, crowds of persons were entering Versailles.
Messengers arrived continually at the palace.
Every messenger brought intelligence of numerous columns being on their way from Paris; and every one thought of the joys and the easy triumphs of the preceding days,—some of them feeling at heart a regret that was akin to remorse, others an instinctive terror.
The soldiers were anxious, and, looking at one another, slowly took up their arms. Like drunken people, who demoralized by the visible uneasiness of their soldiers and the murmurs of the crowd, with difficulty breathed in this atmosphere, impregnated as it was with misfortunes which were about to be attributed to them.
On their side, the body-guards—somewhere about three hundred men—coldly mounted their horses, and with that hesitation which seizes men of the sword when they feel they have to deal with enemies whose mode of attack is unknown to them.
What could they do against women, who had set out threatening and with arms, but who had arrived disarmed, and who could no longer raise even their hands, so enervated were they with fatigue, so emaciated were they by hunger?
And yet, at all hazards, they formed themselves into line, drew their sabres, and waited.
At last the women made their appearance; they had come by two roads. Halfway between Paris and Versailles, they had separated, one party coming by St. Cloud, the other by Sèvres.
Before they separated, eight loaves had been divided among them; it was all that could be found at Sèvres.
Thirty-two pounds of bread for seven thousand persons!
On arriving at Versailles, they could scarcely drag themselves along. More than three fourths of them had scattered their weapons along the road. Maillard had induced the remaining fourth to leave their arms in the first houses they came to in Versailles.
Then, on entering into the town:—
“Come, now,” said he, “that they may not doubt that we are friends to royalty, let us sing, 'Vive Henri Quatre!'“
And in a dying tone, and with voices that had not strength enough to ask for bread, they chanted the royal national air.
The astonishment was therefore great at the palace when, instead of shouts and threats, they heard them singing the loyal air; when, above all, they saw the female choristers staggering (for hunger has somewhat the effect of drunkenness) and these wretched women leaning their haggard, pale, and livid faces, begrimed with dirt, down which the rain and perspiration were streaming, against the gilded railings,—faces which appeared to be more than doubled by the number of hands which grasped those railings for support.
After a time, would now and then escape from these horribly fantastic groups lugubrious howling; in the midst of these agonized faces would appear eyes flashing lightning.
Also, from time to time, all these hands, abandoning the railings which sustained them, were thrust through the space between them, and stretched forth towards the palace.
Some of them were open and trembling; these were soliciting.
Others were clinched and nervously agitated; these were threatening.
Oh, the picture was a gloomy one!
The rain and mud,—so much for the heavens and earth.
Hunger and threatening gestures,—so much for the besiegers.
Pity and doubt,—such were the feelings of the defenders.
While waiting the return of Louis XVI., agitated but firmly resolved, the queen gave orders for the defence of the palace. By degrees, the courtiers, the officers, and the high dignitaries of the State grouped themselves around her.
In the midst of them she perceived Monsieur de Saint Priest, the minister for Paris.
“Go and inquire, sir,” said she to him, “what it is these people want.”
Monsieur de Saint-Priest immediately went down the staircase, crossed the courtyard, and approached the railing.
“What is it that you demand?” said he to the women.
“Bread! bread! bread!” simultaneously cried a thousand voices.
“Bread!” replied Monsieur de Saint-Priest, impatiently; “when you had but one master, you never were in want of bread. Now that you have twelve hundred, you see to what they have reduced you.”
And Monsieur de Saint-Priest withdrew amid the threatening shouts of these famished creatures, giving strict orders that the gates should be kept closed.
But a deputation advances, before which it is absolutely necessary that the gates should be thrown open.
Maillard had presented himself to the National Assembly in the name of the women; he had succeeded in persuading them that the president with a deputation of twelve women should proceed to the palace to make a statement to the king as to the position of affairs.
At the moment when the deputation, with Mounier at its head, left the Assembly, the king returned to the palace at full gallop, entering it by the stable-yard.
De Charny had found him in the forest of Mendon.
“Ah! it is you, sir,” cried the king, on perceiving him. “Is it I whom you are seeking?”
“What, then, has happened? You seem to have ridden hard.”
“Sire, there are at this moment ten thousand women at Versailles, who have come from Paris, and who are crying for bread.”
The king shrugged his shoulders, but it was more from a feeling of compassion than of disdain.
“Alas!” said he, “if I had bread for them, I should not have waited their coming from Paris to ask it of me.”
But without making any farther observation, he cast a mournful look towards the place where the hounds were continuing their chase of the stag which he was obliged to abandon.
“Well, then, sir, let, us go to Versailles,” said he.
And he rode off towards Versailles.
He had just arrived there, as we have said, when frightful cries were heard proceeding from the Place d'Armes.
“What is the meaning of that?” inquired the king.
“Sire,” cried Gilbert, entering the room, pale as death, “they are your guards, who, led on by Monsieur George de Charny, are charging upon the president of the National Assembly, and a deputation which he is leading here,”
“Impossible!” exclaimed the king.
“Listen to the cries of those whom they are assassinating! Look! look at the people who are flying in terror!”
“Let the gates be thrown open!” cried the king. “I will receive the deputation.”
“But, Sire!” exclaimed the queen.
“Let the gates be opened,” said Louis XVI.; “the palaces of kings ought to be considered as asylums.”
“Alas! excepting perhaps for kings themselves,” said the queen.
