Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 32

MAMMA QUEEN.

"Every thing pa.s.ses over, every thing has an end; one must only have courage and think of that," said Marie Antoinette, with a gentle smile, as on the morning after her arrival in Paris, she had risen from her bed and drunk her chocolate in the improvised sitting-room.

"Here we are installed in the Tuileries, and have slept, while we yesterday were thinking we were lost, and that only death could give us rest and peace again."

"It was a fearful day," said Madame de Campan, with a sigh, "but your majesty went through it like a heroine."

"Ah, Campan," said the queen, sadly, "I have not the ambition to want to be a heroine, and I should be very thankful if it were allowed me from this time on to be a wife and mother, if it is no longer allowed me to be a queen."

At this instant the door opened; the little dauphin, followed by his teacher, the Abbe Davout, ran in and flew with extended arms to Marie Antoinette.

"Oh, mamma queen!" cried he, with winning voice, "let us go back again to our beautiful palace; it is dreadful here in this great, dark house."

"Hush, my child, hush!" said the queen, pressing the boy close to her. "You must not say so; you must accustom yourself to be contented everywhere."

"Mamma queen," whispered the child, tenderly nestling close to his mother, "it is true it is dreadful here, but I will always say it so low that n.o.body except you can hear. But tell me, who owns this hateful house? And why do we want to stay here, when we have such a fine palace and a beautiful garden in Versailles?"

"My son," answered the queen with a sigh, "this house belongs to us, and it is a beautiful and famous palace. You ought not to say that it does not please you, for your renowned great-grandfather, the great Louis XIV., lived here, and made this palace celebrated all over Europe."

"Yet I wish that we were away from here," whispered the dauphin, casting his large blue eyes with a prolonged and timid glance through the wide, desolate room, which was decorated sparingly with old-fashioned, faded furniture.

"I wish so, too," sighed Marie Antoinette, to herself; but softly as she had spoken the words, the sensitive ear of the child had caught them.

"You, too, want to go?" asked Louis Charles, in amazement. "Are you not queen now, and can you not do what you want to?"

The queen, pierced to the very heart by the innocent question of the child, burst into tears.

"My prince," said the Abbe Davout, turning to the dauphin, "you see that you trouble the queen, and her majesty needs rest. Come, we will take a walk."

But Marie Antoinette put both her arms around the child and pressed its head with its light locks to her breast.

"No," she said, "no, he does not trouble me. Let me weep. Tears do me good. One is only unfortunate when she can no longer weep; when-- but what is that?" she eagerly asked, rising from her easy-chair.

"What does that noise mean?"

And in very fact in the street there were loud shouting and crying, and intermingled curses and threats.

"Mamma," cried the dauphin, nestling close up to the queen, "is to- day going to be just like yesterday?" [Footnote: The very words of the dauphin.--See Beauchesne, vol. i.]

The door was hastily opened, and the king entered.

"Sire," asked Marie, eagerly advancing toward him, "are they going to renew the dreadful scenes of yesterday?"

"On the contrary, Marie, they are going to bring to their reckoning those who occasioned the scenes of yesterday," answered the king. "A deputation from the Court of Chatelet have come to the Tuileries, and desire of me an authorization to bring to trial those who are guilty, and of you any information which you can give about what has taken place. The mob have accompanied the deputation hither, and hence arise these cries. I am come to ask you, Marie, to receive the deputation of Chatelet."

"As if there were any choice left us to refuse to see them,"

answered Marie Antoinette, sighing. "The populace who are howling and crying without are now the master of the men who come to us with a sneer, and ask us whether we will grant them an audience. We must submit!"

The king did not answer, but shrugged his shoulders, and opened the door of the antechamber. "Let them enter," he said to the chamberlains there.

The two folding doors were now thrown open, and the loud voice of an officer announced, "The honorable judges of Chatelet!"

Slowly, with respectful mien and bowed head, the gentlemen, arrayed in their long black robes, entered the room, and remained humbly standing near the door.

Marie Antoinette had advanced a few steps. Not a trace of grief and disquiet was longer to be seen in her face. Her figure was erect, her glance was proud and full of fire, and the expression of her countenance n.o.ble and majestic. She was still the queen, though not surrounded by the solemn pomp which attended the public audiences at Versailles. She did not stand on the purple-carpeted step of the throne, no gold-embroidered canopy arched over her, no crowd of brilliant courtiers surrounded her, only her husband stood near her; her son clung to her side, and his teacher, the Abbe Davout, timidly withdrew into the background. These formed all her suite. But Marie Antoinette did not need external pomp to be a queen; she was so in her bearing, in every look, in every gesture. With commanding dignity she allowed the deputation to approach her, and to speak with her. She listened with calm attention to the words of the speaker, who, in the name of the court, gave utterance to the deep horror with which the treasonable actions of the day before had filled him. He then humbly begged the queen to give such names of the rioters as might be known to her, that they might be arrested, but Marie Antoinette interrupted him in his address.

"No, sir," she cried, "no, never will I be an informer against the subjects of the king." [Footnote: Marie Antoinette's own words.--See Goncourt, "Marie Antoinette," pp. 196, 197.]

The speaker bowed respectfully. "Then let me at least beg of you, in the name of the High-Court of the Chatelet, to give us your order to bring the guilty parties to trial, for without such a charge we cannot prosecute the criminals who have been engaged in these acts."

"Nor do I wish you to bring any one to trial," cried the queen, with dignity. "I have seen all, known all, and forgotten all! Go, gentlemen, go! My heart knows no vengeance; it has forgiven all those who have wounded me. Go!" [Footnote: Ibid]

With a commanding gesture of her hand, and a gentle nod of her head, she dismissed the deputation, who silently withdrew.

"Marie," said the king, grasping the hand of his wife with unwonted eagerness, and pressing it tenderly to his lips, "Marie, I thank you in the name of all my subjects. You have acted this hour not only as a queen, but as the mother of my people."

"Ah, sir," replied the queen, with a sad smile, "only that the children will not believe in the love of their mother--only that your subjects do not consider me their mother, but their enemy."

"They have been misguided," said the king. "Evil-minded men have deceived them, but I hope we shall succeed in bringing the people back from their error."

"Sire," sighed Marie Antoinette, "I hope for nothing more; but,"

added she, with still firmer voice, "I also fear nothing more. The worst may break over me--it shall find me armed!"

The side-door now opened, and Madame de Campan entered.

"Your majesty," said she, bowing low, "a great number of ladies from the Faubourg St. Germain are in the small reception-room. They wish to testily their devotion to your majesty."

"I will receive them at once," cried Marie Antoinette, with an almost joyful tone. "Ah, only see, husband, the consolations which misfortune brings. These ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain formerly cut me; they could not forget that I was an Austrian. To-day they feel that I am the Queen of France, and that I belong to them.

Pardon me, sire, for leaving you."

She hastened away with a rapid step. The king looked after her with an expression of pain. "Poor queen," he whispered to himself, "how much she is misjudged, how wrongly she is calumniated! And I cannot change it, and must let it be."

He sank with a deep sigh, which seemed much like a groan, into an arm-chair, and was lost in painful recollections. A gentle touch on his hand, which rested on the side-arm of the chair, restored him to consciousness. Before him stood the dauphin, and looked gravely and thoughtfully out of his large blue eyes up into his father's face.

"Ah, is it you, my little Louis Charles?" said the king, nodding to him. "What do you want of me, my child?"

"Papa king," answered the boy, timidly, "I should like to ask you something--something really serious!"

"Something really serious!" replied the king. "Well, what is it? Let me hear!"

"Sire," replied the dauphin, with a weighty and thoughtful air, "sire, Madame de Tourzel has always told me that I must love the people of France very much, and treat every one very friendly, because the people of France love my papa and my mamma so much, and I ought to be very grateful for it. How comes it then, sire, that the French people are now so bad to you, and that they do not love mamma any longer? What have you both done to make the people so angry, because I have been told that the people are subject to your majesty, and that they owe you obedience and respect? But they were not obedient yesterday, and not at all respectful, your subjects, were they? How is this, papa?"

The king drew the little prince to his knee, and put his arm around the slight form of the boy. "I will explain it to you, my son," he said, "and listen carefully to what I say to you."

"I will, sire," answered the boy eagerly, "I at least am an obedient subject of my king, for the Abbe Davout has told me that I am nothing but a subject of your majesty, and that, as a son and a subject, I must give a good example to the French people, how to love and obey the king. And I love you very much, papa, and I am just as obedient as I can be. But it seems as though my good example had made no difference with the other subjects. How comes that about, papa king?"

"My son," answered Louis, "that comes because there are bad men who have told the people that I do not love them. We have had to have great wars, and wars cost a deal of money. And so I asked money of my people--just as my ancestors always did."

"But, papa," cried the dauphin, "why did you do that? Why did you not take my purse, and pay out of that? You know that I receive every day my purse all filled with new francs, and--but then," he interrupted himself, "there would be nothing left for the poor children, to whom I always give money on my walks. And, oh! there are so many poor children, so very many, that my purse is empty every day, when I return from my walk, and yet I give to each child only one poor franc-piece. So your people have money, more money than you yourself?"