Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 41

"No, do not sing it!" roared the others; "we will not hear the air."

And suddenly, above the cries of the contestants, rose a loud, yelling voice:

"I forbid the singer Clairval ever again singing this air. I forbid it in the name of the people!"

It was Marat who spoke these words. Standing on the arm-chair of the Princess de Lamballe, and raising his long arms, and directing them threateningly toward the stage, he turned his face, aglow with hate and evil, toward the queen.

Marie Antoinette, who had turned her head in alarm in the direction whence the voice proceeded, met with her searching looks the eyes of Marat, which were fixed upon her with an expression equally stern and contemptuous. She shrank back, and, as if in deadly pain, put her hand to her heart.

"0 G.o.d!" she whispered to herself, "that is no man, that is an infernal demon, who has risen there to take the place of my dear, sweet Lamballe. Ah, the good spirit is gone, and the demon takes its place--the demon which will destroy us all!"

"Long live Marat!" roared Santerre, and his comrades. "Long live Marat, the great friend of the people, the true patriot!"

Marat bowed on all sides, stepped down from the easy-chair, and seated himself comfortably in it.

Clairval had stopped in the air; pale, confused, and terrified, he had withdrawn, and the director whispered to the orchestra and the singers to begin the next number.

The opera went on, and the public again appeared to give itself during some scenes to the enjoyment of the music. But soon this short quiet was to be disturbed again. One of the singers, Madame Dugazont, a zealous royalist, wanted to give the queen a little triumph, and show her that, although Clairval had been silenced, the love and veneration of Dugazont were still alive and ready to display themselves.

Singing as the attendant of Alceste, Dugazont had these words to give in her part: "Ah! comme faime la reine, comme faime ma maitresse!"

She advanced close to the footlights, and turning her looks toward the royal box, and bowing low, sang the words: "Comme faime la reine, comme j'aime ma maitresse!"

And now, as if this had been the battle-cry of a new contest, a fearful din, a raging torrent of sound began through the whole house. At first it was a mixed and confused ma.s.s of cries, roars, hisses, and applause. Now and then single voices could be heard above the horrid chaos of sounds. "We want no queen!" shouted some.

"We want no mistress!" roared others; and mingled with those was the contrary cry, "Long live the queen! Long live our mistress!"

"Hi!" said Marat, full of delight, twisting his bony form up into all kinds of knots--" hi! this is the way they shout in h.e.l.l. Satan himself would like this!"

More and more horrible, more and more wild became the cries of the rival partisans. Already embittered and exasperated faces were confronting each other, and here and there clinched fists were seen, threatening to bring a shouting neighbor to silence by the use of violence.

The queen, trembling in every limb, had let her head fall powerlessly on her breast, in order that no one might see the tears which ran from her eyes over her death-like cheeks.

"0 G.o.d," whispered she, "we are lost, hopelessly lost, for not merely our enemies injure us, and bring us into danger, but our friends still more. Why must that woman turn to me and direct her words to me? She wanted to give me a triumph, and yet she has brought me a new humiliation." Suddenly she shrank back and raised her head. She had caught the first tones of that sharp, mocking voice, which had already pierced her heart, the voice of that evil demon who now occupied the place of the good Princess Lamballe.

The voice cried: "The people of Paris are right. We want no queen!

And more than all other things, no mistress! Only slaves acknowledge masters over them. If the Dugazont ventures to sing again, 'I love my queen, I love my mistress,' she will be punished as slaves are punished--that is, she will be flogged!"

"Bravo, Marat, bravo!" roared Santerre, with his savage rabble.

"Bravo, Marat, bravo!" cried his friends in the boxes; "she shall be flogged!"

Marat bowed on all sides, and turned his eyes, gleaming with scorn and hatred, toward the royal box, and menaced it with his clinched fists.

"But not alone shall the singer be flogged," cried he, with a voice louder and sharper than before--"no, not alone shall the singer be flogged, but greater punishment have they deserved who urge on to such deeds. If the Austrian woman comes here again to turn the heads of sympathizing souls with her martyr looks, if she undertakes again to move us with her tears and her face, we will serve her as she deserves, we will go whip in hand into her box!" [Footnote: Goneourt's "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 365.]

The queen rose from her chair like an exasperated lioness, and advanced to the front of the box. Standing erect, with flaming looks of anger, with cheeks like purple, she confronted them there--the true heir of the Caesars, the courageous daughter of Maria Theresa-- and had already opened her lips to speak and overwhelm the traitor with her wrath, when another voice was heard giving answer to Marat.

It cried: "Be silent, Marat, be silent. Whoever dares to insult a woman, be she queen or beggar, dishonors himself, his mother, his wife, and his daughter. I call on you all, I call on the whole public, to take the part of a defenceless woman, whom Marat ventures to mortally insult.

You all have mothers and wives; you may, perhaps, some day have daughters. Defend the honor of woman! Do not permit it to be degraded in your presence. Marat has insulted a woman; we owe her satisfaction for it. Join with me in the cry, 'Long live the queen!

Long live Marie Antoinette!'"

And the public, carried away with the enthusiasm of this young, handsome man, who had risen in his box, and whose slender, proud figure towered above all--the public broke into one united stirring cry: "Long live the queen! Long live Marie Antoinette!"

Marat, trembling with rage, his countenance suffused with a livid paleness, sank back in his chair.

"I knew very well that Barnave was a traitor," he whispered. "I shall remember this moment, and Barnave shall one day atone for it with his head."

"Barnave, it is Barnave," whispered the queen to herself. "He has rescued me from great danger, for I was on the point of being carried away by my wrath, and answering the monster there as he deserves."

"Long live the queen! Long live Marie Antoinette!" shouted the public.

Marie Antoinette bowed and greeted the audience on all sides with a sad smile, but not one look did she cast to the box where Barnave sat, with not one smile did she thank him for the service he had done her. For the queen knew well that her favor brought misfortune to those who shared it; that he on whom she bestowed a smile was the object of the people's suspicion.

The public continued to shout her name, but the queen felt herself exhausted, and drawing back from the front of the box, she beckoned to her companion. "Come," she whispered, "let us go while the public are calling 'Long live Marie Antoinette!' Who knows whether they will not be shouting in another minute, 'Away with the queen! we want no queen!' It pains my ear so to hear that, so let us go."

And while the public were yet crying, Marie Antoinette left the box and pa.s.sed out into the corridor, followed by Mademoiselle Bugois and the two officers in attendance. But the corridor which the queen had to pa.s.s, the staircase which she had to descend in order to reach her carriage, were both occupied by a dense throng. With the swiftness of the wind the news had spread through Paris that the queen was going to visit the opera that evening, and that her visit would not take place without witnessing some extraordinary outbreak.

The royalists had hastened thither, to salute the queen, and at least to see her on the way. The curious, the idle, and the hostile- minded had come to see what should take place, and to shout as the majority might shout. The great opera-house had therefore not accommodated half who wanted to be present, and all those who had been refused admittance had taken their station on the stairway and the corridor, or before the main entrance. And it was natural that those who stood before the door should, by their merely being there, excite the curiosity of pa.s.sers-by, so that these, too, stood still, to see what was going on, and all pressed forward to the staircase to see every thing and to hear every thing.

But the civil war which was raging within the theatre had given rise 'to battles outside as well; the same cries which had resounded within, pealed along the path of the queen. She could only advance slowly; closer and closer thronged the crowd, louder and louder roared around Marie Antoinette the various battle-cries of the parties, "Long live the queen!" "Long live the National a.s.sembly!

Down with the queen!"

Marie Antoinette appeared to hear neither the one nor the other of these cries. With proudly erected head, and calm, grave looks, she walked forward, untroubled about the crowd, which the National Guard before her could only break through by a recourse to threats and violence, in order to make a pa.s.sage for the queen.

At last the difficult task was done; at last she had reached her carriage, and could rest upon its cushions, and, un.o.bserved by spying looks, could give way to her grief and her tears. But alas!

this consolation continued only for a short time. The carriage soon stopped; the Tuileries, that sad, silent prison of the royal family, was soon reached, and Marie Antoinette quickly dried her tears, and compelled herself to appear calm.

"Do not weep more, Bugois," she whispered. "We will not give our enemies the triumph of seeing that they have forced tears from us.

Try to be cheerful, and tell no one of the insults of this evening."

The carriage door was opened, the queen dismounted, and, surrounded by National Guards and officers, returned to her apartments.

No one bade her welcome, no one received her as becomes a queen. A few of the servants only stood in the outer room, but Marie Antoinette had no looks for them. She had been compelled as a const.i.tutional queen ought, to dismiss her own tried and faithful servants; her household had been reorganized, and she knew very well that these new menials were her enemies, and served as spies for the National a.s.sembly. The queen therefore pa.s.sed them without greeting, and entered her sitting-room.

But even here she was not alone; the door of the ante-room was open, and there sat the officer of the National Guard, whose duty of the day it was to watch her.

Marie Antoinette had no longer the right of being alone with her grief, no longer the right of being alone with her husband. The little corridor which ran from the apartments of the queen to those of the king, was always closed and guarded. When the king came to visit his wife, the guard came too and remained, hearing every word and standing at the door till the king retired. In like manner, both entrances to the apartments of the queen were always watched; for before the one sat an officer appointed by the National a.s.sembly, and before the other a member of the National Guard stood as sentry.

With a deep sigh the queen entered her sleeping-room. The officer sat before the open door of the adjacent room, and looked sternly and coldly in. For an instant an expression of anger flitted over the face of the queen, and her lips quivered as though she wanted to speak a hasty word. But she suppressed it, and withdrew behind the great screen, in order to be disrobed by her two waiting-maids and be arrayed in her night-dress.

Then she dismissed the maids, and coming out from behind the screen, she said, loudly enough to be heard by the officer: "I am weary, I will sleep."

At once he arose, and turning to the two guards, who stood at the door of the anteroom, said:

"The queen is retiring, and the watch in the black corridor can withdraw. The National a.s.sembly has given command to lighten the service of the National Guard, by withdrawing as much of the force as possible. As long as the queen is lying in bed, two eyes are enough to watch her, and they shall watch her well!"

The soldiers left the anteroom, and the officer returned to the entrance of the sleeping-room. He did not, however, sit down in the easy-chair before the door, but walked directly into the chamber of the queen.