“In what way, Sire?”
“The people were right in undoing what we and our friends had done, witness my poor Doctor Gilbert. Adieu, Madame; trust me that after signalling the danger, I shall have the courage to prevent it. Pleasant dreams, Antoinette.”
And the king moved towards the door.
“À propos,” said he, turning round, “warn Madame de Charny that she has to make her peace with the doctor if it is not now too late. Adieu.”
He slowly retired, shutting the doors himself with all the satisfaction of the mechanic when his locks work well under the pressure of his fingers.
The king had not taken half a dozen steps in the corridor, when the countess issued from the boudoir, ran to the doors and bolted them, and to the windows and drew the curtains. She seemed to be excited with all the energy of rage and madness. Then, having assured her- self that she could neither be seen nor heard, she returned to the queen with a heart-rending cry, fell on her knees, and exclaimed,—”Save me, Madame; for Heaven’s sake, save me!” Then, after a pause followed by a long sigh, she added:
“And I will tell you all.”
END OF VOL. I.
Chapter I
What the Queen’s Thoughts were, during the Night from July 14 to July 15, 1789
How long the interview between Andrée and the queen lasted, it would be impossible for us to say; but it was certainly of considerable duration, for at about eleven o’clock that night the door of the queen’s boudoir was seen to open, and on the threshold Andrée, almost on her knees, kissing the hand of Marie Antoinette. After which, having raised herself up, the young woman dried her eyes, red with weeping, while the queen, on her side, re-entered her room.
Andrée, on the contrary, walked away rapidly, as if she desired to escape from her own thoughts.
After this, the queen was alone. When the lady of the bedchamber entered the room, to assist her in undressing, she found her pacing the room with rapid strides, and her eyes flashing with excitement. She made a quick movement with her hand, which meant to say, “Leave me.”
The lady of the bedchamber left the room, without offering an observation.
The queen again found herself alone. She had given orders that no one should disturb her, unless it was to announce the arrival of important news from Paris.
Andrée did not appear again.
As for the king, after he had conversed with Monsieur de la Rochefoucault, who endeavored to make him comprehend the difference there was between a riot and a revolution,—he declared himself fatigued, went to bed, and slept as quietly as if he had returned from a hunt, and the stag (a well-trained courtier) had suffered himself to be taken in the grand basin of the fountain called the Swiss.
The queen, however, wrote several letters, went into an adjoining room, where her two children slept under the care of Madame de Tourzel, and then went to bed, not for the sake of sleeping, like the king, but merely to meditate more at ease.
But soon after, when silence reigned around Versailles, when the immense palace became plunged in darkness, when there could no longer be heard in the gardens aught but the tramp of the patrols upon the gravel-walks, and in the long passages nothing but the ringing of muskets on the marble pavement, Marie Antoinette, tired of repose, felt the want of air, got out of bed, and putting on her, velvet slippers and a long white dressing-gown, went to the window to inhale the ascending freshness of the cascades, and to seize in their flight those counsels which the night winds murmur to heated minds and oppressed hearts.
Then she reviewed in her mind all the astounding events which this strange day had produced.
The fall of the Bastille, that visible emblem of royal power, the uncertainties of Charny, her devoted friend, that impassioned captive who for so many years had been subjected to her yoke, and who during all those years had never breathed anything but love, now seemed for the first time to sigh from regret and feelings of remorse.