The daughter of Marie Thérèse could not conceive that at so critical a moment the son of Saint Louis could still remain subject to the material wants of ordinary life.
Marie Antoinette was mistaken; the king was hungry, that was all.
Chapter XXVI
How the King supped on the 14th of July, 1789
ON a word from Marie Antoinette, the king’s supper was served on a small table in the queen’s own cabinet.
But the contrary of what the princess had hoped soon happened. Louis XVI. ordered every one to be silent, but it was only that he might not be disturbed while at supper.
While Marie Antoinette was endeavoring to revive enthusiasm, the king was devouring a Périgord pie.
The officers did not think this gastronomical performance worthy of a descendant of Saint Louis, and formed themselves into small groups, whose observations were not perhaps as respectful as circumstances ought to have demanded.
The queen blushed, and her impatience betrayed itself in all her movements. Her delicate, aristocratic, and nervous nature could not comprehend this domination of matter over mind.
She drew nearer to the king, with a view to bring those nearer to the table who had retired to a more distant part of the room.
“Sire,” said she, “have you no orders to give?”
“Ah! ah!” said the king, his mouth full, “what orders, Madame? Let us see; will you be our Egeria in this difficult moment?”
And while saying these words he bravely attacked a partridge stuffed with truffles.
“Sire,” said the queen, “Numa was a pacific king.
Now it is generally thought that what we need at present is a warlike king; and if you are going to take antiquity for your model, as your Majesty cannot become a Tarquin, you must be a Romulus.”
The king smiled with a tranquillity which almost seemed holy.
“Are these gentlemen warlike also?” asked he.
And he turned towards the group of officers, and his eyes being animated by the cheering influence of his meal, appeared to all present to sparkle with courage.
“Yes, Sire,” they all cried with one voice, “war! we only ask for war!”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said the king, “you do me in truth the greatest pleasure, by proving to me that when occasion may require it I may rely upon you. But I have for the moment not only a council, but also a stomach; the former will advise me what I ought to do, the second advises me to do what I am now doing.”
And he laughed loudly, and handed his plate, full of fragments, to the officer in waiting, in exchange for a clean one.
A murmur of stupefaction and of rage passed like a shudder through the group of gentlemen, who only required a signal from the king to shed their last drop of blood.
The queen turned round and stamped her foot.
The Prince de Lambesq immediately came to her.
“You see, Madame,” said he, “his Majesty no doubt thinks, as I do, that it is better to wait. It is prudence—and although it is not one of mine, unfortunately, prudence is a necessary virtue in the times we live in.”
“Yes, sir, yes; it is a very necessary virtue,” said the queen, biting her lips till they bled.
With a death-like sadness she reclined against the chimney-piece, her eye lost in darkness, and her soul overwhelmed by despair.
The singular contrast between the disposition of the king and that of the queen struck every one with astonishment. The queen could hardly restrain her tears, while the king continued his supper with the proverbial appetite of the Bourbon family.
The room gradually became empty; the various groups melted away as does the snow in a garden before the rays of the sun,—the snow, beneath which the black and desolate earth soon makes its appearance here and there.
The queen, seeing this warlike group, upon which she relied so much, gradually disappear, imagined that all her power was vanishing; as in former times, the breath of the Lord had melted those vast armies of Assyrians or Amalekites, which one single night sufficed to swallow up in its darkness.
She was aroused from this species of torpor by the sweet voice of the Countess Jules, who approached her with Madame Diana de Polignac, her sister-in-law.