DE CHARNY and Gilbert rushed downstairs.
“In the name of the king!” cried the one.
“In the name of the queen!” cried the other.
But this order was not executed quickly enough to prevent the president of the National Assembly from being thrown down in the courtyard and trampled under foot.
Two of the women forming the deputation were wounded close by his side.
Gilbert and De Charny threw themselves into the crowd. These two men—the one proceeding from the highest class of society, the other from the lowest-met, working in the same cause.
The one wishes to save the queen, from his ardent love for the queen; the other wishes to save the king, from his love for royalty.
On the gates being opened, the women rushed into the courtyard, and had thrown themselves into the ranks of the body-guards and those of the Flanders regiment. They threaten; they entreat; they caress. Who could resist women when they implore those whom they address in the name of their sisters, their mothers?
“Room, gentlemen, room for the deputation!” cried Gilbert.
And all the ranks immediately opened to allow Mounier to pass with the unhappy women he was about to present to the king.
The king, having been informed by De Charny, who had hastened to him, waited for the deputation in the room contiguous to the chapel.
It was Mounier who was to speak in the name of the Assembly.
It was Madeleine Chambry, the flower-girl, who had beaten the drum, who was to speak in the name of the women.
Mounier said a few words to the king, and presented to him the young flower-girl.
The latter stepped forward a pace or two and wished to speak, but could only utter these words:—
And she fell fainting to the ground.
Andrée hurried forward, and handed her smelling-bottle to the king.
“Ah, Madame!” said De Charny to the queen, in a reproachful tone.
The queen turned pale and withdrew to her own apartment.
“Prepare the equipages,” said she; “the king and I are going to Rambouillet.”
During this time poor Madeleine Chambry was recovering her senses, and finding herself in the king's arms, who was making her inhale the salts he held in his hand, she uttered a cry of shame, and wished to kiss his hand.
“My lovely child,” said he, “allow me to embrace you; you are well worth the trouble.”
“Oh, Sire, Sire! since you are so kind,” said the young girl, “give an order—”
“What order?” inquired the king.
“An order to have wheat sent to Paris, so that famine may cease.”
“My dear child,” said the king, “I will willingly sign the order you request, but in truth I am afraid it will not be of much service to you.”
The king seated himself at a table and began to write, when suddenly a single musket-shot was heard, followed by a tolerably brisk fire of musketry.
“Ah, good God! good God!” exclaimed the king, “what can have happened? See what it is, Monsieur Gilbert.”
A second charge upon another group of women had been made; and this charge had brought about the isolated musket-shot and the volley which had been heard.
The isolated musket-shot had been fired by a man in the crowd, and had broken the arm of Monsieur de Savonnière, a lieutenant in the guards, at the moment when that arm was raised to strike a young soldier, who was behind a sentry-box, and who, with uplifted and unarmed hands, was protecting a woman who was on her knees behind him.
This musket-shot was replied to on the part of the guards by five or six shots from their carbines.
Two of the shots told. A woman fell dead.
Another was carried off seriously wounded.
The people became irritated; and in their turn two of the body-guards fell from their horses.
At the same instant, cries of “Room! room!” are heard; they were the men from the Faubourg St. Antoine, who were arriving, dragging with them three pieces of artillery, with they formed a battery opposite to the principal gate of the palace.
Fortunately the rain was falling in torrents; the match is uselessly applied to the touch-holes of these guns; the priming, completely sodden by the rain, does not ignite.
At this moment a voice whispers into the ear of Gilbert:—
“Monsieur de Lafayette is coming; he cannot be more than half a league from Versailles.”
Gilbert in vain attempts to discover who has given him this information; but from whomsoever it might come, it was valuable.
He looks around him, and sees a horse without a rider; it belonged to one of the two guards who had just been killed.
He leaps into the saddle, and sets off at a gallop on the road towards Paris.
The second horse without a rider follows him; but he has scarcely gone twenty paces over the square when he is stopped by the bridle. Gilbert believes his intention has been divined, and that some one wishes to pursue him; he casts a look behind him as he rides off.
They were not thinking of him at all; but they were hungry. They think of nothing but obtaining food, and the poor horse is instantly butchered by a hundred knives.
In a moment it is cut into a hundred pieces.
During this time the king had been informed, as Gilbert had been, that General de Lafayette was about to arrive.
He had signed, at the request of Mounier, his acceptance of the Rights of Man.
He had signed, at the request of Madeleine Chambry, the order for corn to be sent to Paris.
Furnished with this decree and this order, which it was thought would have tranquillized all minds, Maillard, Madeleine Chambry, and a thousand of the women had set out on their return to Paris.
Just beyond the first houses of Versailles they met Lafayette, who, pressed by Gilbert, was riding at full speed, having ordered the National Guards to follow him as quickly as possible.
“Long live the king! “cried Maillard and the women, waving the decrees above their heads.
“What was it, then, you were saying to me of the dangers to which his Majesty is exposed?” said Lafayette, with astonishment.
“Come on, General, come on!” cried Gilbert, continuing to urge him onwards; “you shall yourself judge of them.”
And Lafayette spurred on his horse.
The National Guards entered Versailles with drums beating and colors flying.
At the first sounds of the drum which penetrated the palace, the king felt that some one was respectfully touching his arm.
He turned round; it was Andrée.
“Ah! is it you, Madame de Charny?” said he, “What is the queen doing?”
“Sire, the queen sends to entreat that you will leave Versailles, that you will not wait for the Parisians. At the head of your guards and the soldiers of the Flanders regiment, you can go anywhere.”
“Are you of that opinion, Monsieur de Charny?” inquired the king.
“Yes, Sire, if you at once determine on passing the frontier; but if not—”
“It would be better to remain here.
His Majesty remains, not because he has the courage to remain, but because he has not firmness to decide on going.
“A fugitive king! a fugitive king!”
“Go and tell the queen to set out alone.”
Andrée left the room to execute her mission.
Ten minutes afterwards, the queen came in and seated herself by the king's side.
“For what purpose have you come here, Madame?” asked Louis XVI.
“To die with you, Sire,” replied the queen.
“Ah!” murmured De Charny, “it is now that she is truly beautiful.”
The queen shuddered; she had heard him.
“I believe, indeed, it would be better that I should die than live,” said she, looking at him.
At that moment the march of the National Guards was heard under the windows of the palace.
Gilbert rapidly entered the room.
“Sire,” said he to the king, “you have nothing further to apprehend; Monsieur de Lafayette is below.”
The king did not like Monsieur de Lafayette; but he did not carry his feelings farther than dislike.
With regard to the queen, it was a very different matter. She frankly hated him, and took no pains to conceal her hatred.
The result of this was that Gilbert received no reply, although he had believed that the intelligence he had communicated was the most favorable he could have brought at such a moment.
But Gilbert was not a man to allow himself to be intimidated by royal silence.
“Your Majesty has heard?” cried he to the king, in a firm tone. “Monsieur de Lafayette is below, and places himself at your Majesty's orders.”
The king made an effort to restrain his feelings.
“Let some one go and tell him that I thank him, and invite him, in my name, to come upstairs.”
An officer bowed and left the room.
The queen drew back a step or two.
But the king, with a gesture that was almost imperative, made her resume her position.
The courtiers formed themselves into two groups.
De Charny and Gilbert, with two or three others, remained near the king.
All the rest retreated behind the queen's chair, and arranged themselves in a half-circle round her.
The footsteps of a man, ascending the staircase alone, were heard, and Monsieur de Lafayette appeared in the doorway.
In the midst of the silence which his appearance produced, a voice, issuing from the group surrounding the queen, pronounced these words:—
“Cromwell would not have presented himself alone to Charles I.,” said he.
Louis XVI. turned frowningly towards these terrible friends who wished to make an enemy of a man who had hastened to his assistance.
“Count,” said he, “I shall remain. Monsieur de Lafayette being here, I have nothing more to fear. Order the troops to withdraw to Rambouillet. The National Guards will be posted at the exterior ditches, the body-guards at those immediately near the palace.”
“Come with me, General; I have to speak with you.”
And as Gilbert was taking a step towards the door:
“No, Doctor,” cried the king, “you will not be one too many; come with us.”
And showing the way to Lafayette and Gilbert, he went into a cabinet, into which they both followed him.
The queen followed them with her eyes, and when the door had closed behind them:—
“Ah!” cried she, “it was to-day that we ought to have escaped from this. To-day there was still time. To-morrow, perhaps, it will be too late.”
And she, in her turn, left the room, to withdraw to her own apartments.
A great light, similar to that of an extensive conflagration, illuminated the windows of the palace.
It was an immense bonfire, at which the Parisians were roasting the different joints of the horse they had killed.
