Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 43

"Take it away--oh, take it away!" she cried, to Madame de Tourzel.

"It is a dreadful reminder of the past, a terrible prophecy of the future. The stones of the Bastile, which the people destroyed, lie in this box! And the box itself, does it not look like a sarcophagus? And this sarcophagus bears the face of the king! Oh, the sorrow and woe to us unfortunate ones, who can not even receive gifts of love without seeing them obscured by recollections of hate, and who have no joys that have not bitter drops of grief mingled with them! The revolution sends us storm-birds, and we are to regard them as doves bringing us olive-branches. Believe me, I see into the future, and I discern the deluge which will drown us all!"

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER XIX.

JUNE 20 AND AUGUST 10, 1792.

Marie Antoinette was right. The revolution was sending its storm- birds to the Tuileries. They beat with their strong pinions against the windows of the palace; they pulled up and broke with their claws the flowers and plants of the garden, so that the royal family no longer ventured to enter it. But they had not yet entered the palace itself; and within its apartments, watched by the National Guard, the queen was at least safe from the insults of the populace.

No, not even there longer, for the storm-birds of the revolution beat against the windows, and these windows had once in a while to be opened to let in a little sunshine, and some fresh air. Marie Antoinette had long given up her walks in the garden of the Tuileries, for the rabble which stood behind the fence had insulted her so often with cries and acts, that she preferred to give up her exercise rather than to undergo such contemptuous treatment.

The king, too, in order to escape the scornful treatment of the populace, had relinquished his walks, and before long things came to such a pa.s.s that the dauphin was not allowed to visit his little garden. Marat, Santerre, Danton, and Robespierre, the great leaders of the people, had, by their threats against the royalists and their insurrectionary movements among the people, gained such power, that no one ventured to approach the garden of the prince to salute him, and show deference to the son of the king. The little regiment had been compelled, in order to escape the mockery and contempt, the hatred and persecution which followed them, to disband after a few months; and around the fence, when the dauphin appeared, there now stood none but men sent there by the revolutionists to deride the dauphin when he appeared, and shout their wild curses against the king and queen.

One day, when a crowd of savage women stood behind the fence, and were giving vent to their derision of the queen, the poor dauphin could not restrain his grief and indignation. With glowing cheeks and flaming eyes he turned upon the wild throng.

"You lie --oh, you lie!" he cried, with angry voice. "My mamma queen is not a wicked woman, and she does not hate the people. My mamma queen is so good, so good that--"

His tears choked his voice, and flowed in clear streams down over his cheeks. Ashamed, as it were, of this indication of weakness, the dauphin dashed out of the garden, and hastened so rapidly to the palace that the Abbe Davout could scarcely follow him. Weeping and sobbing, the dauphin pa.s.sed through the corridor, but when they reached the broad staircase which led to the apartments where the queen lived, the dauphin stopped, suppressed his sobs, and hastily dried his eyes.

"I will not weep any more," he said, "it would trouble mamma. I beg you, abbe, say nothing to mamma. I will try to be cheerful and merry, for mamma queen likes much to have me so. Sometimes, when she is sad and has been weeping, I make believe not to notice it, and then I laugh and sing, and jump about, and then her beautiful face will clear up, and sometimes she even smiles a little. So, too, I will be right merry, and she shall notice nothing. You would not suspect that I have been weeping, would you?"

"No, my prince, no one would think you had," answered the abbe, looking with deep emotion into the great blue eyes which the dauphin turned up to his with an inquiring look.

"Well, then, we will go to my mamma queen," cried the dauphin, and he sprang forward and opened the door with a smile, and, half concealed behind the curtains, he asked, in a *jesting tone, whether he might have permission to enter her majesty's presence.

Marie Antoinette bade him heartily welcome, and opened her arms to him. The dauphin embraced her and pressed a glowing kiss upon her eyes and upon her lips.

"You are extraordinarily affectionate to-day, my little Louis Charles," said the queen, with a smile. "What is the cause of that?"

"That comes from the fact that to-day I have nothing to give you excepting kisses--not a single flower. They are all withered in my garden, and I do not like to go there any more, for there are no more bouquets to pluck for my dear mamma queen. Mamma, this is my bouquet."

And he kissed and caressed the queen afresh, and brought a glow to her eyes and a smile to her lips.

"Come now, my child, you see that the abbe is waiting, and I believe it is time for the study-hours to begin. "What comes first to-day?"

"We have first, grammar," answered the abbe, laying the needful books upon the little table at which the dauphin always took his lessons in the presence of the queen.

"Grammar!" cried the dauphin; "I wish it were history. That I like, but grammar I hate!"

"That comes because you make so many mistakes in it," said the abbe; "and, certainly, grammar is very hard."

The child blushed. "Oh, it is not on that account," he said. "I do not dislike grammar because it is hard, but merely because it is tedious."

"And I will wager that on that account you have forgotten what we went over in our last grammar hour. We were speaking of the three comparatives. But you probably do not remember them."

"You are mistaken," replied the dauphin, smiling. "In proof, hear me. If I say, 'My abbe is a good abbe,' that is the positive. If I say, 'My abbe is better than another abbe,' that is the comparative.

And," he continued, turning his eyes toward the queen with an expression of intense affection, "if I say, 'My mamma is the dearest and best of all mammas,' that is the superlative." [Footnote: The dauphin's own words.--See Beauchesne's "Louis XVII.," vol. i., p.

133.]

The queen drew the boy to her heart and kissed him, while her tears flowed down upon his auburn curls.

On the next day, at the time of his accustomed walk, the queen went into the dauphin's room to greet him before he went into the garden.

"Mamma, I beg your permission to remain here," said the dauphin. "My garden does not please me any longer."

"Why not, my son," asked Marie Antoinette, "has any thing happened to you?"

"Yes, mamma," he answered, "something has happened to me. There are so many bad people always standing around the fence, and they look at me with such evil eyes, that I am afraid of them, and they scold and say such hard things. They laugh at me, and say that I am a stupid jack, a baker's boy that does not know how to make a loaf, and they call me a monkey. That angers me and hurts my feelings, and if I begin to cry I am ashamed of myself, for I know that it is very silly to cry before people who mean ill to us. But I am still a poor little boy, and my tears are stronger than I. And so I want you, mamma, not to let me go to the garden any more. Moufflet and I would a great deal rather play in my room. Come here, Moufflet, make your compliments to the queen, and salute her like a regular grenadier."

And smiling, he caught the little dog by the fore-paws, and made him stand up on his hind legs, and threatened Moufflet with his hand till he made him stand erect and let his fore feet hang down very respectfully.

The queen looked down with a smile at the couple, and laughed aloud when the dauphin, still waving his hand threateningly to compel the dog to stand as he was, jumped up, ran to the table, caught up a paper cap, which he had made and painted with red stripes, and put it on Moufflet's head, calling out to him: "Mr. Jacobin, behave respectfully! Make your salutations to her majesty the queen!"

After that day, the dauphin did not go into his garden again, and the park of the Tuileries was now the exclusive property of the populace, that took possession of it with furious eagerness.

The songs of the revolution, the wild curses of the haters of royalty, the coa.r.s.e laughter and shouting of the rabble--these were the storm birds which were beating at the windows of the royal apartments.

Marie Antoinette had still one source of enjoyment left to her in her sufferings, her correspondence with her absent friends, and the d.u.c.h.ess de Polignac before all others. Once in a while there was a favorable opportunity to send a letter by the hands of some faithful friend around her, and the queen had then the sad satisfaction at least of being able to express to some sympathizing heart what she was undergoing, without fearing that these complaints would be read by her enemies, as was the case with all letters which were sent by post.

One of these letters to the d.u.c.h.ess de Polignac, which history has preserved, gives a faithful and touching picture of the sorrows and grief of the queen. A translation of it runs thus:

"I cannot deny myself the pleasure of embracing you, my dear heart, but it must be done quickly, for the opportunity is a pa.s.sing one, although a certain one. I can only write a word, which will be forwarded to you with a large package. We are guarded like criminals, and this restraint is truly dreadfully hard to bear!-- constantly too apprehensive for one another, not to be able to approach the window without being loaded with insults; not to be able to take the poor children out into the air without exposing the dear innocents to reproaches, what a situation is ours, my dear heart! And when you think that I suffer not for myself alone, but have to tremble for the king as well, and for our friends who are with us, you will see that the burden is well-nigh unbearable! But, as I have told you before, you absent ones, you keep me up. Adieu, dear heart, let us hope in G.o.d, who looks into our consciences, and who knows whether we are not animated by the truest love for this land. I embrace you!

"P. S.--The king has just come in and wants to add a word."

"I will only say, d.u.c.h.ess, that you are not forgotten, that we regret receiving so few letters from you, and that, whether near or far away, you and yours are always loved. Louis." [Footnote: Beauchesne "Louis XVII," vol. 1., p. 143.]

Not to be able to show one's self near the window without being showered with insults! Yes, and even into the very middle of her room they followed her. Even when sitting far away from the window, she could not help hearing the loud cries which were thundered out on the pavement below, as the hucksters offered to the laughing crowd the infamous pamphlet, written with a poisoned pen, and ent.i.tled "The Life of Marie Antoinette."

At times her anger mastered her, her eyes flashed, her figure was straightened up, and the suffering martyr was transformed for an instant into the proud, commanding queen.

"I will not bear it!" she cried, walking up and down with great strides, "I will speak to them; they shall not insult me without hearing my justification. Yes, I will go down to these people, who call me a foreigner. I will say to them, 'Frenchmen, people have had the want of feeling to tell you that I do not love France, I, the mother of a dauphin, I--'" [Footnote: The queen's own words.-See Campan, "Memoires," vol. II. ]

But her voice choked in her tears, and she fled to the extreme end of the room, fell sobbing on her knees, and held both her hands to her ears, in order not to hear the dreadful insults which came up from below and through her windows.

Thus, amid trials which renewed themselves daily, the months pa.s.sed by. The queen had no longer any hope. She had given up every thing, even the hope of an honorable end, of a death such as becomes a queen, proud and dignified beneath the ruins of a palace laid low by an exasperated populace. She knew that the king would never bring himself to meet such a death, that his weakness would yield to all humiliation, and his good-nature resist all measures that might perhaps bring help. She had sought in vain to inspire him with her zeal. Louis was a good man, but a bad king; his was not a nature to rule and govern, but rather to serve as the scape-goat for the sins of his fathers, and to fall as a victim for the misdeeds which his ancestors had committed, and through which they had excited the wrath of the people, the divine Nemesis that never sleeps.

The queen knew and felt this, and this knowledge lay like a mourning veil over her whole thought and being, filling her at times with a moody resignation, and at times with a swiftly-kindling and wrathful pain.

"I am content that we be the victims," cried she, wringing her hands, "but I cannot bear to think that my children too are to be punished for what they have not committed."

This thought of her children was the pillar which always raised the queen up again, when the torture of her daily life cast her to the ground. She would, she must live for her children. She must, so long as a breath remained in her, devote all her powers to retain for her son the dauphin at least the crown beneath whose burden his father sank. She wanted nothing more for herself, all for her son alone.