Ange Pitou by Alexandre Dumas part three

And yet all these poor fanatics, whom God had doomed to ruin, were so insensate that when George de Charny presented to them this black cockade, those who wore the white cockade threw it from them; those who had the tricolored one trampled it beneath their feet.

And then the excitement became so great that unless they had wished to be stifled with their kisses, or to trample under foot those who threw themselves on their knees before them, the august hosts of the Flanders regiment felt obliged to retreat towards their apartments.

All this might have been considered as a sample of French folly, which the French are always ready enough to pardon, if these orgies had not gone beyond the point of enthusiasm; but they soon went much farther.

Good royalists, when eulogizing the king, must necessarily somewhat ill-treat the nation.

That nation, in whose name so much vexation had been offered to the king that the bands had undoubtedly the right to play:—

“Pent on affliger ce qu’on aime?”

“Can we afflict those whom we love?”

It was while this air was being played that the king, the queen, and the dauphin withdrew.

They had scarcely left the theatre when, exciting each other, the boon companions metamorphosed the banqueting-room into a town taken by assault.

Upon a signal given by Monsieur de Perseval, aide-de-camp to the Count d’Estaing, the trumpets sounded a charge.

A charge, and against whom Against the absent enemy.

Against the people!

A charge! music so enchanting to French ears that it had the effect of transforming the stage of the Opera-House at Versailles into a battle-field, and the lovely ladies who were gazing from the boxes at the brilliant spectacle were the enemy.

The cry “To the assault!” was uttered by a hundred voices, and the escalade of the boxes immediately commenced. It is true that the besiegers were in a humor which inspired so little terror that the besieged held out their hands to them.

The first who reached the balcony was a grenadier in the Flanders regiment. Monsieur de Perseval tore a cross from his own breast and decorated the grenadier with it.

It is true that it was a Limbourg cross,—one of those crosses which are scarcely considered crosses.

And all this was done under the Austrian colors, with oud vociferations against the national cockade.

Here and there some hollow and sinister sounds were uttered.

But, drowned by the howling of the singers, by the hurrahs of the besiegers, by the inspiring sounds of the trumpets, these noises were borne with threatening import to the ears of the people, who were, in the first place, astonished, and then became indignant.

It was soon known outside the palace, in the square, and afterwards in the streets, that the black cockade had been substituted for the white one, and that the tricolored cockade had been trampled under foot. It was also known that a brave officer of the National Guard, who had, in spite of threats, retained his tricolored cockade, had been seriously wounded even in the king’s apartments.

Then it was vaguely rumored that one officer alone had remained motionless, sorrowful, and standing at the entrance of that immense banqueting-room converted into a circus, wherein all these madmen had been playing their insensate pranks, and had looked on, listened to, and had shown himself, loyal and intrepid soldier as he was, submissive to the all-powerful will of the majority, taking upon himself the faults of others, accepting the responsibility of all the excesses committed by the army, represented on that fatal day by the officers of the Flanders regiment; but the name of this man, wise and alone amid so many madmen, was not even pronounced; and had it been, it would never have been believed that the Count de Charny, the queen’s favorite, was the man, who, although ready to die for her, had suffered more painfully than any other from the errors she had committed.

As to the queen, she had returned to her own apartments, completely giddy from the magic of the scene.

She was soon assailed by a throng of courtiers and flatterers.

“See,” said they to her, “what is the real feeling of your troops; judge from this whether the popular fury or anarchical ideas, which has been so much spoken of, would withstand the ferocious ardor of French soldiers for monarchical ideas.” And as all these words corresponded with the secret desires of the queen, she allowed herself to be led away by these chimeras, not perceiving that De Charny had remained at a distance from her.

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