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?”
“Who has said that, Madame?”
“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.”
“Madame!”
“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.”
The queen reflected.
“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.”
Gilbert bowed a second time.
But as he saw that the queen remained, he remained also.