“The king!” continued the queen; “the king in the midst of a revolted city!—the king amidst pitchforks and scythes!—the king among the men who massacred the Swiss, and who assassinated Monsieur de Launay and Monsieur de Flesselles!—the king crossing the square of the Hôtel de Ville, and treading in the blood of his defenders! You must be deprived of your senses, sir, to speak thus. Oh, I repeat it; you are mad!”
Gilbert lowered his eyes like a man who is restrained by feelings of respect; but he did not answer a single word.
The king, who felt agitated to the bottom of his soul, turned about in his seat like a man undergoing torture on the gridiron of the Inquisition.
“Is it possible,” continued the queen, “that such an idea should have found a place in an intelligent mind,-in a French heart? What, sir? Do you not, then, know that you are speaking to the successor of St. Louis,—to the great-grandson of Louis XIV.?”
The king was beating the carpet with his feet.
“I do not suppose, however,” continued the queen, “that you desire to deprive the king of the assistance of his guards and his army, or that you are seeking to draw him out of his palace, which is a fortress, to expose him alone and defenceless to the blows of his infuriated enemies; you do not wish to see the king assassinated, I suppose, Mionsieur Gilbert?”
“If I thought that your Majesty for a single moment entertained an idea that I am capable of such treachery, I should not be merely a madman, but should look upon myself as a wretch. But Heaven be thanked, Madame! you do not believe it any more than I do. No; I came to give my king this counsel, because I think the counsel good, and even superior to any other.”
The queen clinched her hand upon her breast with so much violence as to make the cambric crack beneath its pressure.
The king shrugged up his shoulders with a slight movement of impatience.
“But for Heaven’s sake!” cried he, “listen to him, Madame; there will be time enough to say, no when you have heard him.”
“The king is right, Madame,” said Gilbert, “for you do not know what I have to tell your Majesties. You think yourself surrounded by an army which is, firm, devoted to your cause, and ready to die for you; it is an error. Of the French regiments, one half are conspiring with the regenerators to carry out their revolutionary ideas.”
“Sir,” exclaimed the queen, “beware! You are insulting the army!”
“On the contrary, Madame,” said Gilbert, “I am its greatest eulogist. We may respect our queen and be devoted to the king, and still love our country and devote ourselves to liberty.”
The queen cast a flaming look, like a flash of lightning, at Gilbert. “Sir,” said she to him, “this language—”
“Yes, this language offends you, Madame. I can readily understand that; for, according to all probability, your Majesty hears it now for the first time.”
“We must, nevertheless, accustom ourselves to it,” muttered Louis XVI., with the submissive good sense that, constituted his chief strength.
“Never!” exclaimed Marie Antoinette, “never!”
“Let us see; listen! listen! I think what the doctor says is full of reason.”
The queen sat down, trembling with rage.
Gilbert continued:—
“I was going to say, Madame, that I have seen Paris, ay, and that you have not even seen Versailles. Do you know what Paris wishes to do at this moment?”
“No,” said the king, anxiously.
“Perhaps it does not wish to take the Bastille a second time,” said the queen, contemptuously.
“Assuredly not, Madame,” continued Gilbert; “but Paris knows that there is another: fortress between the people and their sovereign. Paris proposes to assemble the deputies of’ the forty-eight districts of which it is composed, and send them to Versailles.”
“Let them come! let them come!” exclaimed the queen, in a tone of ferocious joy. “Oh, they will be well received here!”
“Wait, Madame,” replied Gilbert, “and beware; these deputies will not come alone.”
“And with whom will they come?”
“They will come supported by twenty thousand National Guards.”