Ange Pitou by Alexandre Dumas part three

“Do you believe,” said he, laughingly, “that after having shown these to the king, I will undergo the fatigue of carrying them back to Paris?”

“What will you do with them, then?” asked one of the electors.

“What will I do with them?” said Bailly. Why, I will give them to you, or I will throw them into some ditch at the foot of a tree.”

“Take good care not to do that!” cried the elector, completely horrified. “Do you not know that these keys re the same which the city of Paris offered to Henry IV. after the siege? They are very precious; they are inestimable antiquities.”

“You are right,” rejoined Bailly; “the keys offered to Henry IV., the conqueror of Paris, and which are now to be offered to Louis XVI., heh? Why, I declare, now,” said the worthy mayor to himself, “this would be a capital antithesis in my speech.”

And instantly he took a pencil and wrote above the speech he had prepared the following exordium:—

“Sire, I present to your Majesty the keys of the good city of Paris. They are the same which were offered to Henry IV. He had re-conquered his people; to-day the people have re-conquered their king.”

The phrase was well turned, and it was also true. It implanted itself in the memories of the Parisians; and all the speeches, all the works of Bailly, this only survived.

As to Louis XVI., he approved it by an affirmative d, but coloring deeply at the same time; for he felt epigrammatic irony which it conveyed, although concealed beneath a semblance of respect and oratorical flourishes.

“Oh! Marie Antoinette,” murmured Louis XVI. to self, “would not allow herself to be deceived by this tended veneration of Monsieur Bailly, and would reply a very different manner from that which I am about to do to the untoward astronomer.”

And these reflections were the cause why Louis XVI., who had paid too much attention to the commencement of the speech, did not listen at all to the conclusion of it, nor to that of the president of the electors, Monsieur Delavigne, of which he heard neither the beginning nor the end.

However, the addresses being concluded, the king, fearing not to appear sufficiently delighted with their efforts to say that which was agreeable to him, replied in a very noble tone, and without making any allusion to what the orators had said, that the homage of the city of Paris and of the electors was exceedingly gratifying to him.

After which he gave orders for the procession to move on towards the Hôtel de Ville.

But before it recommended its march, he dismissed his body-guard, wishing to respond by a gracious confidence to the half-politeness which had been evinced to him by the municipality through their organs, the president of the electors and Monsieur Bailly.

Being thus alone, amid the enormous mass of National Guards and spectators, the carriage advanced more rapidly.

Gilbert and his companion Billot still retained their posts on the right of the carriage.

At the moment when they were crossing the Place Louis XV., the report of a gun was heard, fired from the opposite side of the Seine; and a white smoke arose, like a veil of incense, towards the blue sky, where it as suddenly vanished.

As if the report of this musket-shot had found an echo within his breast, Gilbert had felt himself struck, as by a violent blow. For a second his breath failed him, and he hastily pressed his hand to his heart, where he felt a sudden and severe pain.

At the same instant a cry of distress was heard around the royal carriage; a woman had fallen to the ground, shot through the right shoulder.

One of the buttons of Gilbert’s coat, a large steel button, cut diamond-fashion, as they were worn at the period, had just been struck diagonally by that same ball.

It had performed the office of a breastplate, and the ball had glanced off from it; this had caused the painful shock which Gilbert had experienced.

Part of his waistcoat and his frill had been torn off by the ball.

This ball, on glancing from the button, had killed the unfortunate woman, who was instantly removed from the spot, bleeding profusely.

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