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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76772 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+ PALACES AND PRISONS.
+
+
+ BY
+
+ MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.
+
+ AUTHOR OF “MARRIED IN HASTE,” “MABEL’S MISTAKE,” “HEIRESS,” “WIVES AND
+ WIDOWS,” “DOUBLY FALSE,” “MARY DERWENT,” “THE SOLDIER’S ORPHANS,” “RUBY
+ GRAY’S STRATEGY,” “REJECTED WIFE,” “GOLD BRICK,” “WIFE’S SECRET,” “THE
+ CURSE OF GOLD,” “THE OLD HOMESTEAD,” “SILENT STRUGGLES,” “FASHION AND
+ FAMINE.”
+
+ How little art thou known, oh Liberty!
+ Goddess so blindly worshiped on the earth—
+ Worshiped, in broad and simple majesty,
+ Most in the land which gave thee perfect birth;
+ Ay, birth and baptism, not of tears and blood,
+ Such as have stained thy hand in other climes:
+ Not with a mockery of brotherhood,
+ “Linked with some virtues and a thousand crimes’,”—
+
+ But, with a mighty homage of the mind,
+ We give to thee a lovely woman’s form;
+ Because, in that should ever be enshrined
+ All things opposed to treason, war and storm.
+ Thy face is beautiful; we love thy name;
+ If others dye those snowy garments red,
+ And drag thee downward into utter shame,
+ It is not through the path where we have led.
+
+ PHILADELPHIA:
+ T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;
+ 306 CHESTNUT STREET.
+
+
+
+
+ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
+ T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
+ In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
+
+
+ MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS’ WORKS.
+
+ Each Work is complete in one volume, 12mo.
+
+ _PALACES AND PRISONS._
+ _MARRIED IN HASTE._
+ _RUBY GRAY’S STRATEGY._
+ _THE CURSE OF GOLD._
+
+ _WIVES AND WIDOWS; OR, THE BROKEN LIFE._
+ _THE REJECTED WIFE._
+ _THE GOLD BRICK._
+ _THE HEIRESS._
+
+ _FASHION AND FAMINE._
+ _THE OLD HOMESTEAD._
+ _SILENT STRUGGLES._
+ _MARY DERWENT._
+
+ _THE WIFE’S SECRET._
+ _THE SOLDIER’S ORPHANS._
+ _MABEL’S MISTAKE._
+ _DOUBLY FALSE._
+
+ Price of each, $1.75 in Cloth; or $1.50 in Paper Cover.
+
+Above books are for sale by all Booksellers. Copies of any or all of the
+above books will be sent to any one, to any place, postage pre-paid, on
+receipt of their price by the Publishers,
+
+ T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,
+ 306 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA.
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS.
+
+
+ Chapter Page
+ I.— THE COUNTESS AND THE DOCTOR 23
+ II.— THE LADY IN THE PARK 28
+ III.— THE EGYPTIAN SCARABEE 34
+ IV.— KING LOUIS THE FIFTEENTH 38
+ V.— THE DWARF AND THE DAUPHINESS 41
+ VI.— HOUSEHOLD FAMINE 45
+ VII.— THE PRISONER OF THE BASTILLE 53
+ VIII.— AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR 60
+ IX.— COUNT DE MIRABEAU AND MONSIEUR JACQUES 62
+ X.— MONSIEUR JACQUES IS INTRUSTED WITH A DELICATE MISSION 67
+ XI.— THE MARKET WOMAN 71
+ XII.— EARLY IN THE MORNING 74
+ XIII.— THEY THREE BREAKFAST TOGETHER 79
+ XIV.— MARGUERITE FINDS HER PATH OF DUTY AMONG THE FLOWERS 84
+ XV.— IN THE DUNGEONS OF THE BASTILLE 92
+ XVI.— THE KING’S work-shop 100
+ XVII.— THE KING AND THE WORKMAN 105
+ XVIII.— THE LANDLADY AND THE WHITE HENS 113
+ XIX.— THE SWISS COTTAGE 118
+ XX.— ROYAL MILKMAIDS 122
+ XXI.— DAME TILLERY TEACHES THE COURT AN ACCOMPLISHMENT 128
+ XXII.— THE QUEEN’S PERIL 132
+ XXIII.— COUNT MIRABEAU AND HIS FATHER 137
+ XXIV.— THE OLD NOBLEMAN MAKES CONCESSIONS 142
+ XXV.— THE LINK WHICH CONNECTED MIRABEAU WITH THE COURT 146
+ XXVI.— THE LANDLADY OF THE SWAN PLUMES HERSELF 153
+ XXVII.— DAME TILLERY PIQUED 157
+ XXVIII.— UNWELCOME GUESTS 162
+ XXIX.— THE QUEEN AND HER LADIES 166
+ XXX.— TRUE WOMANLY POWER 171
+ XXXI.— THE JOY OF A GREAT SURPRISE 175
+ XXXII.— MONSIEUR JACQUES PLEADS BEFORE ROYALTY 178
+ XXXIII.— ZAMARA BRINGS BAD NEWS FOR HIS MISTRESS 182
+ XXXIV.— MADAME’S CRIME COMES HOME TO TORTURE HER 186
+ XXXV.— DAME TILLERY DINES WITH THE COUNTESS DUBERRY 190
+ XXXVI.— THE DISGUISED COUNTESS 194
+ XXXVII.— JOYFUL NEWS 199
+ XXXVIII.— MIRABEAU AND HIS FOSTER BROTHER IN COUNCIL 203
+ XXXIX.— A VISITOR AFTER DARK 207
+ XL.— THE GOVERNOR AND THE PAGE 211
+ XLI.— THE COUNTESS AND HER VICTIM MEET 216
+ XLII.— THE PAGE TRANSFORMED 221
+ XLIII.— THE LAST ROULEAU OF GOLD 225
+ XLIV.— DAME TILLERY OBTAINS AN AUDIENCE IN THE PARK 230
+ XLV.— ONE VIRTUE LEFT 237
+ XLVI.— WAITING FOR THE MORNING 242
+ XLVII.— DEAD SEA FRUIT 247
+ XLVIII.— THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH 251
+ XLIX.— A WOMAN’S NATURE TRANSFORMED 256
+ L.— THE DAME OF THE DAIRY 261
+ LI.— EFFORTS AT ATONEMENT 265
+ LII.— MONSIEUR JACQUES TURNS BLACKSMITH AGAIN 272
+ LIII.— LIGHT OUT OF DARKNESS 276
+ LIV.— A DETERMINED BENEFACTOR 281
+ LV.— GENEROSITY AND DIPLOMACY 285
+ LVI.— THE ENERGY OF MADNESS 288
+ LVII.— UNSEXED WOMANHOOD 292
+ LVIII.— THE FIRST ROLL OF THUNDER 297
+ LIX.— THE FIRST DRAW-BRIDGE 301
+ LX.— THE PRISONERS FREE 306
+ LXI.— THEY THREE MEET AGAIN 309
+ LXII.— THE PRISONER AT HOME 317
+ LXIII.— SEARCHING FOR THE SERPENT RING 321
+ LXIV.— DOWN IN THE LEAFY SHADOWS 326
+ LXV.— THE PRISONER AND THE KING 331
+ LXVI.— ON TO VERSAILLES 336
+ LXVII.— LOUISON BRISOT IN THE RUINS 339
+ LXVIII.— MARGUERITE COMFORTS HER FATHER 348
+ LXIX.— QUEENLY STRUGGLES 356
+ LXX.— ENEMIES RECONCILED 360
+ LXXI.— MIND SWAYING MIND 365
+ LXXII.— SPYING AND WATCHING 371
+ LXXIII.— FATHER AND DAUGHTER 376
+ LXXIV.— LOVE 381
+ LXXV.— CRAFT MEETING TREACHERY 388
+ LXXVI.— CRIMINATION AND INDIFFERENCE 392
+ LXXVII.— AMONG THE FLOWERS 398
+ LXXVIII.— THE MARKET WOMAN 402
+ LXXIX.— THE WOMEN OF FRANCE 406
+ LXXX.— TAKING AN OBSERVATION 412
+ LXXXI.— THE MIDNIGHT REVEL 418
+ LXXXII.— THROWING OFF DISGUISES 423
+ LXXXIII.— THE DOUBLE SPY 430
+ LXXXIV.— LOUISON AND MARGUERITE 436
+ LXXXV.— MIRABEAU BUYS FLOWERS 443
+ LXXXVI.— ANOTHER CUSTOMER 451
+ LXXXVII.— THE SEALED LETTER 456
+ LXXXVIII.— DAME TILLERY PROCLAIMS HER HEIRESS 462
+ LXXXIX.— MARGUERITE SEEKS THE QUEEN 469
+ XC.— A BITTER HUMILIATION ACCEPTED 475
+ XCI.— THE BAFFLED SPY 482
+ XCII.— THE VIPER TURNS 487
+ XCIII.— THE QUEEN’S LETTER 492
+ XCIV.— LOUISON BRISOT VISITS ROBESPIERRE 498
+ XCV.— THE FRAUD OF FASCINATION 507
+ XCVI.— ZAMARA IS MASTER OF THE SITUATION 512
+ XCVII.— BAFFLED AND DEFEATED 518
+ XCVIII.— A THANKLESS LOVER AND HOSTS OF ENEMIES 525
+ XCIX.— FETE IN THE CHAMP DE MARS 530
+ C.— THE QUEEN GIVES UP HER RING 535
+ CI.— ZAMARA IS TEMPTED TO EARN MORE GOLD 540
+ CII.— A LOVER’S QUARREL 545
+ CIII.— PERFECT RECONCILIATION 551
+ CIV.— A THEFT AND AN INSULT 555
+ CV.— THE SECRET OF THE RING 561
+ CVI.— THE OLD MAN FALLS ASLEEP 564
+ CVII.— THE SCARABEE DOES ITS DEADLY WORK 570
+ CVIII.— THE STORMING OF THE TUILERIES 576
+ CIX.— THE PRISONS 580
+ CX.— BOUGHT BY BLOOD 584
+ CXI.— THE GODDESS OF REASON 587
+
+
+
+
+ PALACES AND PRISONS.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER I.
+ THE COUNTESS AND THE DOCTOR.
+
+
+A beautiful woman—if a coarse nature ever can give beauty to faultless
+features—sat in one of those charming little saloons which made the
+Grand Trianon the gayest and most popular palace in France. She was not
+alone—such women usually avoid solitude; but the person who stood before
+her that day was so unlike any of the venal courtiers that usually
+surrounded her, that his presence there, in itself, was remarkable. He
+was a tall, spare man, a little under thirty. His hair was flaxen, soft,
+and of that exceeding fineness, which is seldom found except upon the
+head of an infant. His eyes were of a keen, variable gray, sometimes
+pale in their color, sometimes almost black. The face was one of
+remarkable refinement—exquisitely cut and perfect in the contour as the
+best dreams of a sculptor; the complexion pure, changeable, delicate,
+and fair. The least emotion brought a faint color over the forehead,
+which was threaded about the temples with a network of azure veins.
+
+Never was contrast more perfect than that which existed between this man
+and the woman, in whose presence he was not allowed to sit. His air, his
+gestures, the very bend of his person, was a protest of refinement
+against the coarseness which, to his sensitive nature, made her
+wonderful beauty repulsive. This woman was questioning him imperiously.
+She wanted a favor, yet had not the grace to ask it gently.
+
+“They tell me that you have this power—then why hesitate? When a subject
+has the ability to serve his king, it is treason to waver.”
+
+“But, madam, I may not have the power. Our Saviour himself carried
+healing to the poor—never to kings; besides, it is given to man once to
+die. That is a law which human art cannot reach, and divine power has
+limited. The King of France is an old man, and, like the most humble of
+us, his days are numbered.”
+
+The woman started up in sudden terror.
+
+“Is this prophecy, or is it rank treason?” she said.
+
+“Madame, it is the simple truth. No art that I ever heard of can make an
+old man young; the waters of eternal youth are fabulous. Great power
+lies in human knowledge, but not such as you would evoke. Were it
+otherwise——”
+
+The man paused, and a faint color stained the pure whiteness of his
+forehead. The countess seated herself. A glow of angry impatience had
+succeeded to her sudden panic, and she seized upon his hesitation as a
+wild animal snatches at food.
+
+“Well, were it otherwise, what then?”
+
+“Then it would be a consideration for any wise man, whether, in
+continuing the king’s life beyond that period ordained of God, wrong
+might not be done to the people of France.”
+
+“Wrong done to the people of France!” cried the woman, grasping the arm
+of her gilded chair with angry vehemence; “the people of France! What
+are they but hounds, born to do the bidding of the king.”
+
+“Forgive me, Madame la Countess; but it is said——”
+
+“Well, what is said? Some miserable absurdity, no doubt; another scandal
+of the people you talk of. Do not hesitate and stammer as if you were
+afraid—I will help you out. It is said that not long since I, myself,
+was one of the people—among the lowest, too. Is that it?”
+
+The man bowed very gravely, and looked upon that beautiful face, which
+had long since forgotten to blush, with a sentiment of profound pity.
+
+The woman laughed scornfully, and clenched the arm of her chair in
+fierce wrath.
+
+“_You_ presume to pity _me_! I might have forgiven the rest; but this
+you shall have good cause to remember.”
+
+The man bowed, and made a movement toward the door. His face was
+perfectly calm, his step even. She evidently had not terrified him by
+her violence.
+
+This wonderful composure astonished the woman, who had become so used to
+adulation and assumed homage, that an assertion of self-respect took her
+by surprise.
+
+“I have not yet dismissed you, monsieur,” she said, with an effort at
+self-control.
+
+The man turned again, and waited while the countess took a golden tablet
+from her bosom, and read a memorandum from its ivory leaves.
+
+“This power of healing is not the most marvellous of your gifts, this
+memorandum tells me.”
+
+“It is the one I am most grateful for,” answered the man.
+
+“But that of divination! Tell me if it is true that in Vienna the
+Empress Maria Theresa sent for you to read the horoscope of her
+daughter, the Dauphiness of France?”
+
+“If her majesty had so honored my poor gifts, it would be a base return
+to speak of it.”
+
+“But it has got out already, do you think the Countess Du Berry can be
+kept ignorant of what goes on in any court of Europe? there is no longer
+a mystery. It is said that the Dauphiness turns pale if your name is but
+mentioned in her presence.”
+
+The man remained silent, and stood looking sadly on the floor. Some
+painful thought seemed to carry him out of that woman’s presence—this
+gave her new offence.
+
+“You do not listen, monsieur. Must I be compelled to speak twice?”
+
+The man started as if he had been dreaming.
+
+“I crave your pardon, Madame la Countess. Other thoughts came across me,
+and I forgot your presence. As I cannot accomplish the thing you most
+desire, permit me to take my leave.”
+
+“Not till you have given me a proof of the wonderful power which was
+sufficient to gain you admittance to the cabinet of Maria Theresa. If
+your prophesies could drive the blood from that proud heart, they must
+be worth listening to. Tell me, monsieur, of my own future. How long——”
+
+The countess checked herself, she had not the courage to ask, in so many
+words, how long her evil power might last; for she knew well enough that
+it was limited to the life of a wicked old man, and even she shrunk from
+a direct question. But the man divined her reason for hesitation, and
+answered quietly, as if she had spoken.
+
+“Madame la Countess forgets that to divine the king’s death is treason.”
+
+“But you can tell me this. Not his death—not his death! Heaven forbid
+that it should be near enough for your gift of divination, whatever that
+may be, to reach it! But tell me of his life. He is strong, he is
+healthy; and men do, sometimes, live to be a hundred. Ah! if your
+witchcraft could tell me that, it would make you the richest man, and me
+the happiest woman in all France.”
+
+“But, madame——”
+
+“Do not dispute me. I have power—help me to perpetuate it. You have
+great skill as a physician, if nothing more. The king’s physicians are
+negligent, they permit him to be worried with questions of state. They
+allow the courtiers to disturb him with their quarrels; De Chaiseul
+never gave him rest, and for this he lost his portfolio. I say again, a
+physician who will devote himself to the health and real good of the
+king, who will be the friend of his friends, watchful and trustworthy,
+might become anything his ambition pointed out. Do not shake your head,
+monsieur—I ask nothing that an honest man may not perform.”
+
+“You ask everything, madame, when you desire a student to give up his
+pursuit of knowledge, and confine his life to any one man, though that
+man be King of France.”
+
+“Then you refuse me—refuse a position that would crown the highest
+ambition of most men?”
+
+“Madame, I have no ambition.”
+
+The countess threw herself back in her chair and laughed aloud.
+
+“A man with no ambition? This is a novel creature. But you are looking
+through the window. What is it that you see there?”
+
+The countess started up from her chair and ran across the room,
+forgetting all her previous efforts at dignity in vulgar haste to learn
+what had drawn this strange man’s attention so completely from her.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER II.
+ THE LADY IN THE PARK.
+
+
+The object that had arrested Doctor Gosner’s attention was a group of
+ladies sauntering beneath the trees of the Park. One, who seemed the
+superior of the rest, walked a little in advance. She was young, very
+beautiful, and paused now and then to address some of the ladies with a
+playful turn of the head, and a smile light and careless as that of a
+school-girl enjoying her holiday. She was dressed in simple white
+muslin, gathered up like a cloud around her slender person, and a jaunty
+little straw hat gave piquancy to a dress which any pretty woman in
+France might have worn without comment. This young person had broken a
+straight branch from the shrubberies as she passed through them, and was
+tearing away the green leaves with one ungloved hand. Once she turned
+her eyes toward the palace, gave a quick look around, as if she had come
+upon it unawares, and addressing the lady nearest to her, shook her
+rustic whip in playful reproach.
+
+The countess watched every motion of this lady through the window with
+nervous trepidation, as if she half expected that she would enter the
+palace. In her anxiety she leaned out of the window so far as to become
+visible. The man who stood just behind her saw that the Dauphiness was
+seriously annoyed. The quick crimson flashed over her face, and she
+turned to retrace her steps with a queenly lift of the head, haughty as
+it was graceful.
+
+An exclamation, so fierce that it amounted to an oath, broke from the
+countess; a flame of angry crimson rushed over her face, and with a rude
+gesture, she flung herself away from the window.
+
+“You saw this Austrian, how haughtily she turned away, as if
+contamination lingered in the very walls of any place I live in. Yes, as
+you said just now, I am one of the people, that is why she dashes that
+whip against her dress, as if beating away the dust of my presence from
+her garments. Tell me, you who profess to know everything, is it strange
+that I hate her?”
+
+Dr. Gosner took no heed of this question; he was gazing after the group
+of ladies, silent and absorbed, while the countess paced the room to and
+fro, panting with noisy rage. Not till a winding path hid the group from
+view did he leave the window, or become aware of the angry storm that
+lovely woman had provoked.
+
+“You saw her—you saw that proud lift of the head when she discovered me,
+as if I were the dirt under her feet, and she treading me down with her
+heels. Oh! she shall pay for this!”
+
+“Yes,” said the doctor, gently. “I have seen her once before in Vienna.
+She was very young, then, and far less beautiful. It is the Dauphiness
+of France. Poor lady! Poor, unhappy lady!”
+
+“Ha! You speak as if the things they tell me were true; as if your
+divination had found out some great misfortune in store for her. Is it
+so? Is it so? I would give this right hand to be sure of it.”
+
+“Madame, I cannot answer.”
+
+“But you shall!”
+
+The doctor smiled very gravely, but in a way that exasperated the woman,
+who usually found slaves to her will on every side.
+
+“You brave me! You will do nothing that I desire!”
+
+“I will do anything honorable that appertains to yourself, madame.”
+
+“Then sit down here. I would test your power, let it come from what
+source it will. Tell me of my own fate?”
+
+“If you insist, madame, I will.”
+
+The countess went to a table, and began to array writing materials upon
+it; but finding no pen, she rang a bell, all crusted with jewels, and
+the figure of a dwarf, in a fanciful costume, presented itself at the
+door.
+
+“Bring me a pen, Zamara, and see that no one approaches nearer than the
+ante-room.”
+
+The dwarf went out, making a bow, as he walked backward, so deep, that
+it amounted almost to an Oriental salam.
+
+“That little marmoset is the only true friend I have at court, the only
+creature I can really trust,” said the countess; and a gleam of light
+softened the haughty boldness of her face. “I think he loves me! Yes, I
+think he loves me!”
+
+These words were said more to herself than as if she wished to be
+answered. So the doctor took no heed of them in words, but seated
+himself in a chair, which she wheeled toward the table, forgetting all
+her assumed dignity in an eager desire to learn something of the future.
+
+The doctor seated himself just as Zamara came in with a pen in his hand,
+one of those golden and jeweled extravagances which it was the delight
+of this low-born woman to have about her.
+
+Dr. Gosner took the pen, and drawing a sheet of vellum toward him,
+prepared to make a calculation. The countess, in her anxiety, placed
+herself behind him, and folding her arms on the back of his chair,
+watched his movements while a sensation of awe crept over her. The
+dwarf, Zamara, knelt down upon a cushion, which still had an imprint of
+the countess’ foot pressed in the velvet, and regarded first one and
+then the other with the vigilance of a favorite dog.
+
+Then a profound stillness fell upon the room. Gosner was making
+calculations on the vellum, the other two were watching him. Neither of
+them seemed to breathe.
+
+At last the doctor turned his face to the woman, who was partly leaning
+over his shoulder.
+
+“You will have me go on, madame?”
+
+“Yes, yes!”
+
+“Remember, it is only at your imperative command. From the very first I
+shrunk from this task.”
+
+“I will remember anything you wish, only go on.”
+
+Still he paused. She saw that his face was pale, and a quiver of light
+on the jeweled pen, warned her that his hand was trembling.
+
+“Reflect,” he said, very earnestly.
+
+The countess was bold and brave to recklessness; the visible agitation
+of this man only made her the more determined.
+
+“Go on! go on!” she repeated, impatiently; but her face grew white, and
+her eyes shone.
+
+The dwarf sprang from his knees and caught hold of her dress.
+
+“No, mistress, do not let him go on. It frightens you. It makes
+him tremble. He sees something wicked coming out from the
+parchment—something that will hurt you.”
+
+The countess stooped down and patted Zamara’s head exactly as she would
+have pacified a pet spaniel.
+
+“Go back to your cushion, marmoset,” she said; “this will not hurt me.
+It is only writing.”
+
+“Strange writing,” muttered the dwarf, with a glance at the parchment.
+“It is like the tracks of a spider, and spiders are venomous. I do not
+like it—I do not like it.”
+
+No one seemed to heed these muttered words. The doctor was absorbed by
+the hieroglyphics he worked out, and the countess watched him in
+breathless suspense. All at once he lifted his head and laid the pen
+down.
+
+“We are not alone; send that child out.”
+
+“Child!” exclaimed the dwarf, laying his hand on a little poniard that
+glittered in his belt. “Monsieur calls me a child, when I am twenty
+years of age, and stay only to protect my mistress.”
+
+The countess laughed. A few minutes before she had been white as a
+ghost; but rapid transitions were a part of her reckless character; the
+pompous bravery of this little creature was enough to change her mood.
+
+“Go, go,” she said, waving her hand; “this gentleman does not wish to
+hurt me. Keep watch at the door—I will call you presently.”
+
+“But should some one call?”
+
+“Send some one away.”
+
+“What if it should be the king?”
+
+“Oh! let the king wait!”
+
+The low-born audacity of this answer did not astonish the dwarf, who
+backed out of the room, saying, between his bows, that madame should be
+obeyed.
+
+“Now!” exclaimed the impatient woman, “now, monsieur, we are alone. Tell
+me what it is that makes your face so pale.”
+
+“Madame, you but now demanded that I should tell you what the future has
+in store for Marie Antoinette, who will be Queen of France.”
+
+“Will be Queen of France? When—where?”
+
+“Have I not said it is treason to divine, or prophesy the death of the
+king?”
+
+“But I absolve you—I, who have more power than any queen, pardon this
+treason in advance.”
+
+“Still I must not speak.”
+
+“Not when my entire destiny depends on that one question?”
+
+“Madame, I have spoken.”
+
+“And still refuse me?”
+
+“Madame, I still refuse!”
+
+“This is cruel! How can I bribe—how can I force you into speaking?”
+
+“This much I can say, as you will have the truth; before another year
+passes Marie Antoinette will be Queen of France.”
+
+“Before the end of another year? You are trifling with me! The king is
+not so very old, and his health—no, no! I will not believe that; the
+stars cannot tell you such horrible things. You are angry because I
+persisted. What is it now? Your very lips are white, your hand shakes,
+your eyes are looking away into the distance. What is it that you see?”
+
+The man answered like one in a dream. His eyes grew dim, his voice was
+low and hoarse.
+
+“I see a great concourse of people heaving and jostling each other along
+many streets, all leading into a public square, in which a scaffold
+stands reeking with blood, scattered over with saw-dust. Great heavens!
+I have seen that picture before. A cart comes lumbering through the
+crowd; a woman sits in the cart, her hands bound, her feet tied. She
+reels to and fro in the seat; her cries for mercy are mocked by the mob;
+the hair, cut short at the neck, has fallen over her face. She flings
+herself back in the agony of a last appeal, the hair sweeps aside.
+Woman, the face is yours!”
+
+Gosner started up, cast a wild look on the countess, and retreated from
+her backward till his progress was stopped by the wall, where he stood
+shuddering like a man who had been aroused out of some terrible dream.
+
+The woman seemed turned to marble. The rouge upon her cheeks stood out
+frightfully scarlet from the dead whiteness of her lips and face. At
+length she fell upon her knees by the chair she had left, threw her arms
+over the cushion and shrieked aloud. The dwarf rushed in, seized upon
+her dress, and began to cry. Gosner leaned against the wall, and must
+have fallen but for its support; great drops of perspiration stood on
+his forehead. He had come out of that fearful trance weak as a child.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER III.
+ THE EGYPTIAN SCARABEE.
+
+
+All at once Madame Du Berry sprang to her feet; her audacious courage
+assumed all its force. She would not believe the fearful thing that man
+had said with so much pain.
+
+“Go,” she said to the dwarf, “there is no need of all this whimpering.
+The man is an imposter; my enemies have sent him here. He will boast of
+the fright he has given me, and they will enjoy the treat. Take your
+hand from that poniard, Zamara. I will deal with this false wizard
+alone.”
+
+Zamara crept from the room, sobbing piteously. Then the countess turned
+upon Gosner.
+
+“Confess you were put up to this—some bitter enemy hoped to give me a
+horrible fright. Perhaps it was the Dauphiness, herself, who could not
+wait for a report, but came, with a crowd of her ladies, to be near when
+your work was done.”
+
+The doctor shook off his weakness, under this rude attack, and walked
+firmly toward the angry woman.
+
+“Madame will remember that I came here by her own command—I will add
+now, much against my wishes. Heaven knows I do not willingly enter into
+a scene like the one which has just passed! It has not surprised or
+wounded you more than it has me.”
+
+The countess laughed. Tears stood in her eyes, and her voice broke forth
+in a shriek. She was hysterical with anger and affright.
+
+“You still persist? You wish to leave me in abject terror. Know that in
+my whole life I—I have never been afraid. Still it would be better to
+tell me all. I will forgive this wicked attempt to terrify me. Make
+yourself sure that it has failed—miserably failed. I shall only look
+upon it as an absurd joke. So you may speak out, and have no fear of
+punishment.”
+
+“I have nothing to say, madame,” answered the doctor, “save that I came
+here by your command, that I am now ready to retire.”
+
+“Then you will not confess? Well, yes, I will appeal to you. I shall be
+happier, not that I was really frightened; but I shall be happier to
+know that this was the work of an enemy. Make yourself sure of this, no
+queen ever rewarded or punished as I will reward or punish you.”
+
+“Lady, permit me to depart as I came, deserving neither reward or
+punishment.”
+
+Dr. Gosner moved toward the door. The countess followed him.
+
+“Still obstinate, still faithful to my enemies. Here, take this, it once
+shone in the crown of France. If that is not enough, I will send Zamara
+to the lord treasurer for gold. Only have some compassion, and do not
+leave me haunted by that awful prediction. Oh, it is terrible!”
+
+The countess took Gosner’s hand and attempted to force a large diamond
+on his little finger; but he resisted. A ring was already there, so
+singular in its form that it drew her attention. In a setting of rough
+gold was a small beetle cut from a chrysoprase gem, and engraved with
+hieroglyphics. The countess gave this ring a curious glance, and with
+eager violence attempted to draw it from his finger in order to give
+place for her diamond; but he tore his hand from her grasp, exclaiming
+passionately,
+
+“Not for ten thousand diamonds!”
+
+“Why? It is but a green stone spoiled by the graver; let me look at it.”
+
+“Lady, for your own sake, forbear. When this ring leaves my finger, it
+will be to carry sorrow and misfortune wherever it goes. With me, or any
+of my blood, it brings a blessing; away from us, nothing but evil will
+follow it.”
+
+The countess exhibited no haste to touch the ring again, but her eyes
+dwelt on it curiously, until a sort of fascination possessed her. In her
+intense interest she seemed to forget all that had passed before.
+
+“Tell me about it! Give me its history! In what way did it become
+possessed of this marvellous power of good and evil?
+
+“As for its history, I can tell you this much. An ancestor of mine,
+being warned of its existence by a power which I have no right to
+explain, found this stone in the sarcophagus of an Egyptian monarch, who
+had been inclosed in the marble many many thousand years. The gold which
+encircles it was found coiled around the finger of the mummy in the form
+of a serpent. This serpent seemed alive, its eyes were so bright and its
+jaws closed on the fangs with such a clinging grip. In this form my
+ancestor wore it during the rest of his life.”
+
+“And it gave him prosperity—happiness?”
+
+“I have said, madame, that it brings nothing but good to any man or
+woman who has a drop of my ancestor’s blood in his or her veins—nothing
+but evil to the person who has not. My ancestor, who lived centuries
+ago, believed that his own line ran back thousands of years through the
+man from whose tomb this chrysoprase was taken. He also believed that it
+possessed a supernatural influence on the possessor; and the ring has
+fallen to us from father to son as the most precious inheritance that
+ever descended for generations in one family.”
+
+“Always bringing happiness?” inquired the countess.
+
+“The man who wears this ring finds all knowledge easy to him—and
+knowledge to the men of our house is in itself happiness.”
+
+“But it is sure to carry mental blindness and ruin into any strange
+line?”
+
+“So the tradition connected with the ring assures us.”
+
+“Has it never passed out of the direct line?”
+
+“Once.”
+
+“And what happened?”
+
+“The man who stole it died a maniac, with the ring upon his finger.”
+
+“And you would not part with it for gold or honors?”
+
+The doctor only answered with a smile—the idea seemed impossible to him.
+
+Madame put the diamond slowly back upon her finger, still keeping her
+eyes wistfully on the Egyptian relic. All at once her countenance
+changed; an idea flashed through her brain, and shone upon her face. She
+waved her hand in dismissal.
+
+Dr. Gosner gladly accepted this permission to withdraw from a presence
+which, from the first, had been hateful to him. The moment he was gone,
+madame snatched up the bell and rang it sharply. Zamara answered it.
+
+“Tell one of my people to follow that man even to Paris, if it is
+necessary; trace him to his abode, wherever it is. Then, and not till
+then, I shall expect my messenger back. Quick, Zamara, for he walks
+fast; glad to escape.”
+
+The Indian dwarf made a hurried salam, and left the room. In a few
+moments madame had the pleasure of seeing one of her retainers, whose
+talent as a spy she could depend on, stealthily following the track of
+her late visitor.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV.
+ KING LOUIS THE FIFTEENTH.
+
+
+The two spies had scarcely disappeared when Madame Du Berry observed an
+old man walking deliberately along the grand avenue leading to the
+palace.
+
+“Ah! how fortunate! I might have been compelled to wait, but for this.
+He seems in good-humor, too; but I am trembling yet. Mon Dieu, how I
+tremble! That awful shock has shaken every nerve in my body. He will see
+that I am disturbed, and, perhaps, ask the cause. For the world, I would
+not tell him. Zamara! Zamara!”
+
+The dwarf, who was waiting close by the door, entered instantly.
+
+“Wine, Zamara!”
+
+The dwarf turned, and directly came back with a salver, on which was a
+crystal flask, full of wine, and a tall glass, engraved with a
+frost-work of vine-leaves. Madame forbade him to kneel, and filled the
+glass herself, draining it like a bar-maid.
+
+“Now go,” she said; “the king must not be kept waiting.”
+
+She need not have been in so much haste, for the old man coming up the
+avenue, walked but slowly. He seemed to enjoy the sunshine of that
+pleasant day, and lingered in it as an idle old man might, to whom a
+degree of weariness was to be endured every day of his life. Still, if
+he walked slowly, it was with a jaunty affectation of youth, which his
+costume and singularly handsome features carried out with some
+appearance of truth. As the sun shone down upon his coat of plum-colored
+velvet, with all its rich bordering of embroidery—on the little hat,
+surmounting a peruke of flowing brown hair, and the soft, mist-like lace
+fluttering at his wrists and bosom, the picture was far more youthful
+than it would have appeared at a closer view, or with less elaborate
+appointments. As he walked daintily forward in his high-heeled shoes, on
+which the diamond-buckles shot out a tiny flame with each lift of the
+foot, the old monarch—for this man was Louis the Fifteenth—saw the
+flutter of a rose-colored dress at one of the palace windows, and paused
+long enough to kiss his hand.
+
+“Thank heaven, he is in excellent humor!” exclaimed the countess, moving
+restlessly around the room, and hiding the parchment Dr. Gosner had made
+his calculations on beneath a cushion. “This will make my task easy.”
+
+She was right; the old monarch was in high spirits that day. Like a
+school-boy, he had escaped from the etiquette of Versailles, and sought
+an hour of relaxation in the pretty palace which, from its very
+proportions, gave some idea of a home.
+
+The countess stood near the door of her saloon, waiting to receive him,
+her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed with the wine she had been
+drinking. The nervous shock she experienced, subsided into what seemed a
+pleasant excitement.
+
+The king came in a little tired from his long walk, and breathing
+quickly. There was no ceremony in his reception. The woman knew well
+enough that half the charm of that place lay in an entire want of
+formality. She wheeled a chair near the window, placed a gilded
+footstool for the old man’s feet, when he sat down, and settling herself
+on the floor close by it, began to chat with the careless grace of a
+spoiled child. It was not till just as he was going away in high
+good-humor, that she ventured on the object that had all the time been
+uppermost in her mind.
+
+“One minute—do not go quite yet, my friend; I have a little favor to
+ask.”
+
+“Oh! that is why you have insisted on keeping at my feet,” laughed the
+old man. “One must pay for an hour like this. Well, well, if the price
+is not heavy, we will consider it.”
+
+The countess went to a table, and brought back a small portfolio, which
+she opened upon one knee, sinking the other gently to the floor.
+
+“Only a little signature—just one.”
+
+She held out a paper, on which some lines had been hastily written by
+her own hand. The king took it with a little hesitation, and holding it
+a long way from his eyes, read the contents.
+
+“What! another _lettre-de-cachet_!” he exclaimed, a good deal
+disconcerted. “Do you know, my friend, these things are getting far too
+common. The people are beginning to question them. Will nothing else
+content you?”
+
+“Nothing else, sire. Why, it is three weeks since I have asked for
+one—and my enemies are so many.”
+
+“Ah! I know; but this name—I have never heard of it. Who is the wretched
+man?”
+
+“He is a sorcerer, sire. It is not a day since he terrified me fearfully
+in this very room.”
+
+“In this room! How did an unknown man get here?”
+
+“He bribed Zamara to give him access, under pretence of presenting a
+petition, and once here, said horrible things, threatening me with
+death.”
+
+“Ha!”
+
+“And saying, that to save the king’s life was rank treason.”
+
+“Give me a pen.”
+
+She opened the portfolio wide, spread it across his knees, and went to
+the table for a pen. Her hand shook as she reached it toward him, and he
+remarked it.
+
+“I know! I know!” she said. “The fright has not left me yet.”
+
+Louis signed the order, which was to bury Dr. Gosner in one of the
+gloomiest vaults of the Bastille, and laying it in the portfolio, handed
+it and the pen back to the countess.
+
+“It will be very difficult for this bold man to frighten you hereafter,”
+he said, rising a little wearily. “Such audacity must be checked. You
+will know how to put the order in force?”
+
+“Always gracious, always good!” exclaimed the countess. “Ah, sire! if
+you could read all the gratitude in my heart!”
+
+“I am just now content to read it in those eyes. Adieu! or rather, _au
+revoir_, sweet friend!”
+
+The woman permitted Louis to go. She was anxious to see him depart, that
+she might use the cruel order he had just signed. She watched him
+eagerly till he disappeared behind the trees of the Park, then rang her
+bell for Zamara before seating herself to write a note, which she
+completed without looking up, though the Indian dwarf stood by her chair
+within a minute after her bell sounded.
+
+“Take this,” she said, sealing the note which inclosed the
+_lettre-de-cachet_, “deliver this yourself, and at once. Do not return
+to me until you know that this audacious man is on his way to the
+Bastille. Above all things, say that I want the ring from his left hand.
+Without that, do not dare to look on my face again.”
+
+“Madame shall be obeyed,” said the dwarf, taking the letter and darting
+from the room.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER V.
+ THE DWARF AND THE DAUPHINESS.
+
+
+On the second day after this scene in the favorite’s bower room, Zamara
+came unsummoned into the presence of his mistress, and laid a ring, with
+its green scarabee in her hand. She started up with a shriek, and dashed
+the ring from her vehemently.
+
+The dwarf picked up the ring, and stood holding it with a frightened
+look, astonished at the excitement it had occasioned.
+
+“Madame commanded that Zamara should not return without it,” he said,
+with tears in his eyes. “Is it wrong?”
+
+“Lay it down—do not touch it, Zamara. Yet stay. An hour—a single hour
+can do little harm. Zamara, do you know the palace? Have you ever been
+at Versailles?”
+
+“Often, madame. No one regards Zamara when he is not in these clothes,
+especially if it should be night.”
+
+“Could you find your way into the apartments occupied by the Dauphiness,
+Zamara?”
+
+“To give madame pleasure, Zamara would find his way anywhere.”
+
+The countess patted the dwarf’s head with her white and beautiful hand.
+
+A small enameled box stood on a _chiffonniere_ among other articles of
+expensive jewelry. She opened the box, and bade Zamara drop the ring
+into it; then she folded the box in a piece of silver paper, and gave it
+again to the dwarf.
+
+“You understand,” she said, “this must go directly into the hands of the
+Dauphiness?”
+
+“Madame, I understand.”
+
+“And you will convey it there, at once?”
+
+“At once.”
+
+“But how? It must be done secretly, or you may come to harm, Zamara.”
+
+“The harm will be welcome, if it comes in madame’s service,” answered
+the dwarf.
+
+“Then go. It is getting late, shadows are gathering over the Park; but
+be careful. If any one sees you, say that you have a message for the
+king. There is not a creature in the palace who will dare molest you.
+Stay, I will write.”
+
+The dwarf waited patiently till madame had completed a fanciful little
+note, which she gave to his charge. Concealing this with the box in his
+bosom, the dwarf set forth on his errand.
+
+It was no unusual thing for Zamara to be seen coming and going to the
+king’s apartments; but that night he seemed lost in the vast building,
+and wandered about from room to room, hiding when the guards appeared,
+and darting across each illuminated space like some deer in an open
+glade. At last he found himself in a wing of the vast palace that he had
+never visited before. The dwarf passed several persons unavoidably on
+his way; but if any one observed him, he asked innocently if the king
+was yet at dinner, and passed on.
+
+At length, after trying several keys, he entered a spacious bedchamber,
+dimly lighted, and rendered somewhat gloomy from the massive high bed
+mounted on a dais, from which curtains of crimson damask swept almost
+from the frescoed ceiling to the floor. In a smaller room, beyond this
+chamber, Zamara saw a toilet brilliantly lighted up, and a casket of
+jewels lying open upon it, from which a rope of pearls had fallen
+loosely, and lay gleaming like frozen moonlight across an azure satin
+cushion, on which the casket was placed.
+
+Zamara knew that this was Marie Antoinette’s dressing-room. He moved
+across the bedchamber cautiously, and looked in. The room was empty, but
+a robe of some glittering white gauze lay upon a sofa near the toilet;
+and near that was a pair of white satin shoes, with high, red heels, and
+an enormous pearl in the center of each rosette. These preparations
+warned the dwarf that he might any moment be discovered. Quick as
+lightning he darted across the room, removed the casket from its azure
+cushion, and laid the enameled box, containing the scarabee, in its
+place. Before his hand left the box, he heard voices, and a gush of
+sweet laughter, as of young persons approaching and conversing together.
+That minute the room was empty again.
+
+Zamara had just found time to flee across the bedchamber and hide
+himself behind the voluminous curtains, when the Dauphiness came into
+the dressing-room, followed by several of her ladies. She had just come
+up from dining in public, where some strange characters among the
+people, permitted by an old custom, to see the monarch dine, had excited
+her mirthfulness.
+
+The Indian looked upon her with admiration, increased by her youth and
+wonderful beauty; the light from a dozen wax-tapers fell upon her
+rounded arms, shaded at the elbows with a mist of lace; and her neck,
+white as the purest leaves of a water-lily, gleaming through a kerchief
+of lace so thin that it lay upon it like a shadow. That string of pearls
+had fallen entirely from the casket when Zamara lifted it from the
+cushion, and this attracted the attention of the Dauphiness. She stooped
+and took them from the floor; then saw that the casket had been removed,
+and its place occupied.
+
+“What is this?” she exclaimed, unfolding the silver paper, and opening
+the box. “Some new gift from my august father-in-law, no doubt. How
+strange! Look ladies! what a singular thing!”
+
+She took the Egyptian ring from its box and examined it curiously. “A
+beetle with such strange writing on its breast; a serpent coiled around
+it. Some valuable antique, I suppose.”
+
+“A talisman, rather, which will bring good fortune to your Highness, and
+to France,” said one of the ladies in waiting. “I have heard of such
+things.”
+
+“And I,” said the Dauphiness, removing one of the many jewels from her
+finger, and putting the scarabee in its place. “It seems to have come
+here by a miracle, and we will at least test its virtues.”
+
+Here the dressing-room door was closed, and Zamara stole from his
+hiding-place.
+
+An hour after he rushed into the presence of his mistress, wild with
+triumph.
+
+“Madame! Oh, madame! she has got it! She accepts! I saw the serpent
+coiled around her finger! It looked alive—it looked alive!”
+
+In her gratitude for this evil act, the Countess Du Berry drew Zamara,
+the dwarf, toward her, and kissed him on the forehead.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI.
+ HOUSEHOLD FAMINE.
+
+
+A narrow street in the heart of Paris; houses on each side, towering up
+so high that the sunshine never reached the earth upon which they stood;
+and those who lived in the lower stories scarcely knew what it was to
+see a gleam of pure light from Christmas to Christmas. The houses,
+solid, old, and moss-grown at the base, were crowded with human beings,
+who would gladly have worked for a livelihood, had any work been
+attainable in Paris that cruel season.
+
+But there was stagnation in trade, and distress in all the land. Those
+who depended on toil for their daily bread, found all their efforts
+insufficient to appease the incessant cravings of hunger, which was a
+terrible disease all over France that year. But there was no work. Those
+who controlled capital held it close, thus paralyzing trade and adding
+to the general distress. Thousands and thousands of those who longed to
+be, in fact, the working people of Paris, suffered terribly for food.
+This want was felt all through the neighborhood we speak of. Scarcely a
+family within sight of it had enjoyed a sufficiency of food for weeks.
+Poverty drove them from story to story, while it kept them almost too
+weak to climb the stairs as they multiplied upward.
+
+In a small room, under the roof of one of these houses, two women sat in
+idleness. They would have been glad to work, but that poor privilege was
+denied to them. They would more gladly have eaten something, but all the
+provisions they had in the room would scarcely have set forth the ghost
+of a meal. Still this destitution was borne with a sort of cheerful
+patience, which nothing but a native of France could have maintained
+under such circumstances. There was no abandonment to despondency—hunger
+had, sometimes, made these two females serious, but seldom morose; their
+burden of life grew heavier day by day, but up to this time it had not
+broken down the patience which is the most beautiful part of womanhood.
+
+They sat together in the darkening room, two worn and half-famished
+creatures, wondering if the morrow would have something in store for
+them with a sort of forlorn hope, which neither had the spirit to
+express.
+
+These two suffering women were mother and daughter; yet the mother was
+not at full mid-age, and a powerful constitution made her seem younger
+than she really was. She was handsome, too, spite of the famine that had
+pinched her features, and given that hungry light to her eyes. A large,
+fine woman, of the English type, full of natural health and energy this
+person had been only a year before; now she was subdued and broken down
+by sheer physical want.
+
+The young girl who sat near her was a fair, gentle blonde, very thin,
+white and delicate: her great, blue eyes enlarged with craving; and her
+mouth tremulous, like that of an infant denied of its innocent wishes.
+
+The woman had just come in from a long, long walk through country roads;
+her shoes were heavy with clinging mud, and all the edges of her dress
+were soiled. The girl noticed this, and said, with some anxiety,
+
+“Mother, have you been far?”
+
+“Yes, Marguerite, very far. Once more I have been to Versailles.”
+
+“And for no good?”
+
+“For no good! The guard refused me at the gate.”
+
+These words were uttered with profound despondency. The poor woman
+closed her eyes, and leaned her head against the wall of the room as
+they left her lips, as if about to sleep or die. Marguerite started up
+and went to her, shivering with mingled pain and nervousness.
+
+“Mamma! mamma!”
+
+The woman was insensible. She had been walking all day without food, and
+come home hopeless. This had never happened before; through many a weary
+year of disappointment and pain that noble form had held its strength,
+but it gave way now, and a cold whiteness settled upon her. To her child
+she seemed dead.
+
+“Oh! my poor, poor mamma! What can I do?” she cried out, wringing her
+hands in utter helplessness, for there was not even a cup of water in
+the room.
+
+“Monsieur! Monsieur Jacques!”
+
+The frightened girl beat her hands against the partition which divided
+her room from that of some poor neighbor; and cried out in her despair,
+“Monsieur Jacques! Monsieur Jacques!”
+
+Directly a heavy and most singular man appeared at the door with his
+coat off, and an iron crucible in his hand.
+
+“What is it, Marguerite, my child? What is hurting you!”
+
+Marguerite came toward the man, and seized hold of his arms with both
+hands.
+
+“Monsieur Jacques, she is dead. Look, look! the great God has taken her
+away from me!”
+
+The poor girl was too horror-stricken for tears; but her face was so
+wild and white that the strange man flung his crucible on the floor,
+spattering the hot lead it held over the threshold, where it gleamed
+like silver. The next moment found the head of that insensible woman on
+his bosom, and his face close to hers. He was listening for her breath.
+
+The girl stood by, mute as stone, watching him with her wild, blue eyes,
+that seemed twice their usual size. At last the man spoke,
+
+“No, little one, she is not dead. Give me your hand, I will make you
+sure.”
+
+Marguerite reached forth her hand, and Jacques laid it on the wrist he
+was handling. The well-formed hand fell down from his hold in limp
+immobility; but Marguerite, after bending her head a little while, cried
+out joyfully as an infant does when it hears a watch tick, “Oh! my good
+God! It beats—it beats!”
+
+The girl fell down upon her knees, and, covering her face with both
+hands, kept repeating amid her tears,
+
+“It beats—it beats! She is alive!”
+
+“Yes, little one, she is alive. Do not cry! Do not cry so!”
+
+The girl looked up, radiant in spite of her pallor and her tears.
+
+“Oh, Monsieur Jacques! it is because I am so happy! How kind the good
+God is! How he makes us think light of trouble that seemed so great!
+Only this morning I was so sad, weeping because she must go out, and no
+breakfast; not a morsel of bread; not a drop of milk—in short, nothing.
+It was the third morning I had seen this, and it made my heart sick with
+trouble. But now that is so little, I smile at it. I have her here
+alive—she breathes—she opens her eyes! Oh, mamma! you have been so close
+to death, I thought you had gone and was about to die myself. Only for
+that tiny flutter in your wrist I could not have helped it. Ah! you know
+all about it. You look into my eyes, and say in your heart, ‘How this
+poor child loves me. She is worth living for.’”
+
+Here Monsieur Jacques put Marguerite on one side with his hand, in which
+was a lump of brown bread. In the other he held a cup of water.
+
+“Let her eat this, little one; then she will be strong, and tell us how
+all this happened.”
+
+Marguerite reached out her hand for the bread.
+
+“Oh, monsieur! let me give it to her. I so longed to see her eat it from
+my hand; but then it is yours—I have no right.”
+
+Jacques was holding the woman’s head on his arm. She was conscious,—her
+eyes were wide open,—but quiet from perfect exhaustion. He surrendered
+the bread into those outstretched hands with a smile that illuminated
+his grim free into something better than beauty ever was to a man.
+
+Marguerite held the water to her mother’s lips, and then placed a morsel
+of bread between them. This was feebly swallowed. At that moment, made
+aware that food was near, the woman started up, snatched at the bread,
+and devoured it ravenously. Marguerite began to cry again at this; then
+she laughed through her tears, and turned to Jacques, who looked on with
+two great tears rolling down his cheeks. Seizing his two hands, she fell
+to kissing them rapturously.
+
+“It is you that I must thank. Where did you get it? bread, and such
+bread, all of flour; the last we had was half fern, that made our
+throats dry. She would not eat, but gave it all to me, saying that she
+had plenty put away, but liked to eat it by herself. That was wrong,
+very wrong; it cheated me into eating so much. Do you know, Monsieur
+Jacques, I fear—nay, I feel sure that she has eaten nothing. Oh! mamma,
+mamma! if I forgive you, it will be after you have eaten every crumb of
+monsieur’s bread.”
+
+The woman, who had been devouring the bread like a hungry wolf, now
+dropped the last crust from her hands.
+
+“Forgive me! I had forgotten you, little one; but the day was so long,
+and I walked fast both ways.”
+
+Marguerite replaced the fragment of bread in her mother’s hands.
+
+“Eat it all!” she said. “I have had enough, haven’t I, Monsieur
+Jacques?”
+
+“Plenty,” answered the man. “Never fear; there is yet another loaf—the
+baker is my friend. Besides, I have made a discovery.”
+
+“A discovery! What?” cried Marguerite. “I can believe anything since we
+have food. See, mamma is listening. Where shall we look for this
+discovery?”
+
+“Here, in this house.”
+
+“Here?”
+
+“Yes, in the roof. We have been close to it all the time. What the
+people want is, first bread, then arms.”
+
+“Well, monsieur.”
+
+“And ammunition. Look!”
+
+Jacques pointed to the crucible, which lay upon the floor, and the
+bright metal which covered the threshold, like a fantastic embroidery.
+Marguerite shook her head; she could understand nothing of this.
+
+“There is plenty of it under the roof and about the old windows. The
+people want arms, powder, bullets—I make them, you understand. See, I
+gather this up—no harm is done. I melt it over again, run it into a
+mold, that you shall see—for Jacques not only works for the people, but
+he invents. Then I take my bag of bullets to the proper place, do a
+little work where I can get it, and come back with a pocket full of
+sous, enough for a little bread that is all flour, such as madame has
+eaten. So do not fear that she will faint again. To-morrow shall be a
+holiday—I don’t just now remember the saint, but we will find one to
+suit us, or do without. Between us, little one, saints are getting out
+of fashion since liberty took the lead—not that I like it altogether,
+mark; but we will have our holiday. In the morning I will go to
+market—that is, you shall go with me, and I will buy you six eggs, a
+sprig of parsley, perhaps an onion, who knows, with some milk, and—but
+it does not do so well when we promise overmuch; still make sure of
+this, it will be a feast providing we can get the work.”
+
+Marguerite smiled, and took both her mother’s cold hands in hers.
+
+“You hear, mamma, it is to be a feast!”
+
+“Yes, I hear,” answered the woman, brightening into new life. “Give me
+plenty of food and I can do anything.”
+
+“Ah!” said Marguerite, with a sigh. “Even food will not bring _him_ out
+of the Bastille.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques laughed.
+
+“The want of it may: people who starve are strong as giants. It is
+hunger which makes lions fierce; famish a man, and he becomes a wild
+beast. Food may not relieve your father, my little friend; hunger
+can—but for that what would my bullets be worth?”
+
+The woman, who was listening keenly to all this, sat upright, and you
+could see the strong vitality of a great idea kindling through her
+frame.
+
+“Go on, Monsieur Jacques, your words are worth more than the bread; they
+give life to ideas.”
+
+“Yes, I know. We have found a saint worth all the martyrs in the
+calendar—nay, we must not call it a saint, but a goddess. Let the clergy
+take their saints; we want something to work for, not to pray to.”
+
+The woman’s eyes grew bright as stars. Hunger had made them
+supernaturally large.
+
+“This very day I would have knelt to the king. After so many years of
+waiting, I had made up my mind to speak to him, or be trampled under the
+feet of his horses; but though I fell upon the earth, it was of no
+avail, they would not allow me to reach him. Oh! those nobles are hard,
+hard as the rock. He did not look that way; so many persons surrounded
+him that I could no more get through them, or reach him, than I could
+have stopped an army.
+
+“The king was on his way to Meudon, to hunt, they told me, and no one
+must impede the way. So they went by, horses and men, spattering me with
+mud. Ah! how grand they were, how their clothes shone and glittered! How
+rosy and plump they looked, while I was famishing, and _he_ in the
+depths of the Bastille. Ah, Monsieur Jacques! there is a great gulf
+between the good king and his people. Who will fill it up?”
+
+“Wait,” said Jacques—“wait and work.”
+
+“Ah! but mamma has already worked so hard,” said Marguerite, kissing her
+mother with pathetic tenderness. “It is my turn now. I will find
+something to do, if it is only to open and shut the mold in which
+Monsieur Jacques runs his bullets.”
+
+“But can you do nothing better than that, little one?”
+
+“Oh, many things!” answered the girl. “I can embroider beautifully, and
+make the loveliest things—but who will employ me? I have tried, oh! so
+hard, to get work.”
+
+“No doubt, no doubt; but then work is the thing which no one can get in
+Paris. Even the earth refuses to do her part, and lets the seed dry up
+in her bosom, that is why France is so restless. But madame has just
+made a revelation—she spoke of some one in the Bastille.”
+
+“She spoke of my father,” said Marguerite, in a sad, low voice.
+
+“And is he in that awful place?”
+
+“Sit down, monsieur, and I will tell you,” said the elder lady, “for you
+are almost the only friend we have, and I must confide in some one.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII.
+ THE PRISONER OF THE BASTILLE.
+
+
+Jacques sat down, and Mrs. Gosner went on with her narrative.
+
+“We have not always been so poor as this—far from it. My husband was the
+lateral descendant from a noble house; my own blood is not altogether
+plebeian.”
+
+Jacques nodded his head, and muttered,
+
+“I thought so.”
+
+Madame went on,
+
+“My husband was a born subject of the empress. He was a learned man—nay,
+he had higher powers than mere learning can give. In some things he was
+great.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques started up suddenly, and struck a table near him with
+his clenched hand. Some idea had evidently excited him.
+
+“Your name is Gosner—Dr. Gosner. I understand—I understand; but go on.”
+
+“The fame of my husband’s powers reached Marie Theresa at her court. She
+sent for him not long after our marriage. It was just before her
+daughter came to France. He went, but returned greatly disturbed, and
+for days was haunted by some distressing remembrance. When we mentioned
+the Dauphiness, he would turn pale, and go off alone, as if afraid of
+something. But this changed. He became tranquil as ever, and plunged
+deeper and deeper into those sciences which were his very life. Some
+happy years went by. One day my husband received a letter from France.
+It had come all the way by a courier in the king’s livery, who was
+ordered to escort the doctor to Versailles, where some person high at
+court wished to consult with him.
+
+“This summons disturbed us greatly. Instead of being pleased that his
+renown as a physician had extended so far, he looked upon the summons as
+a presage of evil. I felt differently, glorying in my husband. I
+rejoiced that his great learning, and still greater powers, had won this
+invitation to the court of Louis the Fifteenth, and urged his departure.
+He went sadly enough.”
+
+The woman paused here, and seemed to struggle with her voice against
+some choking sensation.
+
+“Well?” questioned Monsieur Jacques.
+
+Madame Gosner answered in a single sentence.
+
+“He never came back!”
+
+“Truly, he never did come back,” repeated Monsieur Jacques, with a
+strange smile.
+
+“He was away a long time—no word came to us about him. We inquired of
+every one who had been in France, but no tidings. At last we believed
+him dead. Knowing that he had arrived in Paris, we sent a person, who
+knew him well, to get certain tidings of his fate. This person traced
+him to Versailles, learned that he entered the Grand Trianon, and
+remained there more than an hour. It was the palace in which that vile
+woman, Barry, lived. After that he returned to Paris, ate some supper at
+the house where he lodged, and went out for a walk. A man was waiting
+near the door, who joined him, and they went off together. That is all.”
+
+“And you have never heard of him since?” questioned Monsieur Jacques.
+
+“Not till last year. Then a letter reached me, written on a scrap of
+soiled paper, and dated at the Bastille. It was in his handwriting, and
+bore his signature; but it said little that I could understand. This
+much was certain. Years and years my husband had been shut up in the
+horrible place. There had been no crime, no charge—and his imprisonment
+threatened to be eternal. Sometimes prisoners were taken out of their
+subterranean dungeons, and permitted to breathe the air; but he had no
+such privilege. Day after day, month after month, year after year, he
+saw no one but his keeper, who seldom spoke, but was not devoid of pity.
+Once he had given him a scrap of paper; on this he pierced some letters
+with a pin; and after waiting months and months, got it carried out into
+the world by a man who——”
+
+“Who was called to mend the ponderous locks of his dungeon. I was the
+man.”
+
+“You, Monsieur Jacques—you?”
+
+“I remember him well—a tall, thin man, with hair white as spun silk, and
+a beard falling down his bosom; the face white, and pure as an infant’s;
+the eyes luminous, even in the darkness of his dungeon. Was this like
+your husband, madame?”
+
+“It was my husband, no doubt.”
+
+“This I saw as the keeper left me for a single minute. Then the prisoner
+came eagerly toward me, his long white finger on his lips, his eyes
+burning and eager. Thrusting that paper into my hand, he whispered a
+name and an address. ‘Send it!’ he said. ‘For the love of God, send it!’
+His hands shook, his face quivered, his teeth knocked together with
+affright, for he saw the jailor coming back, and feared him.
+
+“I thrust the paper into my bosom, saying only, ‘I will,’ He could not
+answer, for the man was near, but instantly the fire in his eyes was
+quenched in tears; he crept back to his corner, and sat down, with both
+hands to his face, weeping.
+
+“‘What was he saying?’ demanded the jailor, looking at me keenly. ‘I saw
+his lips move.’
+
+“‘Did you?’ I answered, carelessly twisting a screw in its socket. ‘I
+did not observe, ask him.’
+
+“My careless answer disarmed the man of his suspicions; but he did not
+leave me again for a moment; and when I asked the prisoner’s name, he
+answered, ‘We have no names here. This man has a number—that is all.’
+
+“‘But how long has he been here?’ I asked.
+
+“‘Since the year in which Louis the Fifteenth died,’ he said.
+
+“The prisoner started up, and reached forth his hands imploringly, ‘Is
+the old king dead?’ he questioned. ‘Then she is queen! Will no one tell
+her that an innocent man suffers here? Is there no mercy in any human
+heart?’
+
+“The jailor answered him by a heavy clang of the door, and a grinding
+noise of the lock I had just mended. I came away with the paper in my
+bosom, and sent it to the name whispered in my ear when it was given. It
+was the name of some curé in a town of Germany.”
+
+“It was for me, that poor prisoner’s wife,” cried the woman, who had
+been listening with intense interest. “The curé sent it to me—and then I
+knew that my husband was alive, and in the Bastille. It was like a
+revelation from the grave.”
+
+“It was that scrap of paper, pierced with pinholes, that brought you
+here?” said Monsieur Jacques. “It was to save him that you came to
+Paris?”
+
+“Yes; in less than a week we set forth. Marguerite had almost forgotten
+her father; but she was restless to go in search of him. The little
+property we had was almost gone, but we turned it into money, and came
+away. Oh! it was a terrible undertaking. Day after day, I wandered about
+that grim building hoping, in a wild fashion, that some chance would
+give me sight of him—but nothing came of it. I knew that he was there,
+and the knowledge wounded the heart in my bosom; but in Paris I was
+helpless as in Germany. How would I get him from underneath that grim
+pile of stones? It was like beating myself against a rock. I went to men
+learned in the law; I wrote petitions, and gave money to have them
+presented to the king; I made vain efforts to get speech of him; but all
+was useless, our money melted away, my strength left me; from one place
+to another we were driven here, helpless and starving, and oh my God! he
+is in that hideous dungeon yet!”
+
+“Take courage, my friend; it will not be forever. Do not let those poor
+hands fall so despondently in your lap. Better times are coming. All
+these terrible grievances will be laid before the king. He is not cruel;
+some day he will open the doors of that awful Bastille, and let the
+people look in. They are getting curious, impatient. No power can keep
+them much longer in the dark. I have seen it; they thought me a
+blacksmith, for I went in place of a man who had taught me something of
+his craft; for, madame, it is my pleasure to know everything, and, like
+the king, I have a taste for working in iron. I went over more than one
+of those hideous dungeons, and saw their inmates. What I saw was given
+to the clubs, and in that way to the people. They are learning all the
+secrets walled-in by that pile of stone. The knowledge ferments—let it
+work. By-and-by we shall know what it is to arouse millions of slaves to
+a knowledge that liberty exists.”
+
+The two women looked at the strange man in supreme wonder; his eyes
+glowed, his figure drew itself up erectly; his right arm was extended,
+as if addressing an audience. The glow of a powerful enthusiasm was upon
+him.
+
+The elder woman stood up, the food she had taken made her strong; this
+man’s enthusiasm extended itself to her.
+
+“I have knelt this day in the street, only to be covered with mud,” she
+said. “I have worked, starved, entreated, that an innocent man might be
+taken from a dungeon worse than the grave, and all to no avail. Others
+suffer as I do; other women have seen their husbands buried alive, and
+have heard the cries of their own anguish mocked by the nobility, which
+stands between the people and their king. Tell me what to do, and if
+human will can accomplish anything, it shall be done. Marguerite, come
+hither.”
+
+The young girl came at her mother’s bidding, an earnest light in her
+eyes, a faint glow on her face. Her father was in prison, her mother
+only an hour before had fainted from want of nourishment. She thought of
+this, and her gentle nature was aroused to profound sympathy. The mother
+took her hand, holding it firmly as she bent down and kissed the white
+forehead uplifted to her face.
+
+“We have been selfish, my child,” she said. “In our own troubles we have
+forgotten others. What can two helpless women accomplish against wrongs
+that have grown strong under centuries of endurance? My child, in
+ourselves we are nothing; united with others equally unfortunate we may
+do much. France has wronged us terribly—it is my motherland. It was I
+who persuaded him to come and cast himself into dangers that seized upon
+him, as wild beasts snatch their prey. ‘The king has sent for you,’ I
+said. ‘The king is France.’ I was wrong, the king is not France—his
+people cannot reach him; his heart is good and generous, but who can
+appeal to it, standing so far off. Still, France is France, and this
+king is not the old one; he continues abuses, but does not originate
+them.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques listened earnestly. He looked from madame to her
+daughter, in wonder. Their energy had enkindled a new idea in his ardent
+nature. He saw in it an element of strength that would be wielded with
+force when the time of redemption arrived. The power and pride of a
+Roman matron lay in that woman, who was lifted far above those with whom
+poverty forced her to associate. Her intellect was quick and grasping;
+she comprehended like a man, and felt like a woman—of such characters
+among men leaders are formed. How would it prove with her own sex? Could
+she control that subtle element? Would enthusiasm awake to the glance of
+her eyes, and ignorance follow her lead unquestioning?
+
+Monsieur looked upon her as she stood, tall, naturally robust, and
+proud, flinging off all selfish weakness, and ready to suffer for her
+country, as she had already suffered for her husband, alas! in vain.
+Then he turned to Marguerite, fair and delicate as a lily; and saw in
+her beauty another spirit of power; for this man had but one grand
+idea—and that was “_Liberty!_”
+
+“You think as she does?” he questioned, laying his hand upon her head
+solemnly, as if consecrating her.
+
+“Let her think for me, I am too young. Where she goes, I will go; where
+she dies, I, too, will die!”
+
+Her words were low and solemn; sweet as the rustle of living flowers,
+but resolute, too. The girl felt their import, though she did not as yet
+understand the magnitude of her concession.
+
+“Those who dedicate themselves to liberty have no sex,” said Monsieur
+Jacques. “Men and women suffer alike; let them resist alike.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+ AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR.
+
+
+As Monsieur Jacques was speaking, a knock sounded at the door—a fierce,
+loud knock, as if the person without had become impatient.
+
+Jacques was going toward the door, when it was flung open, and a man
+entered—a large, powerful man, dressed carelessly, but with something of
+courtliness; for his clothes were of rich material, and slightly adorned
+with embroidery; but his hair was of its natural warm brown, thick,
+wavy, and abundant, giving a leonine power to the great head,
+remarkable, because it was free of powder, and fell downward in natural
+waves, which stirred heavily whenever he turned.
+
+“Monsieur le count! I did not expect you so early.”
+
+“So it seems,” answered the man, glancing at Madame Gosner, with
+mischievous significance. “But I beg pardon; hearing voices in this
+room, I supposed you had changed lodgings, and came in more rudely than
+madame will forgive, I fear.”
+
+The rough manner which had marked this person on his entrance, changed
+to the most elegant courtliness the instant he saw Marguerite standing
+near her mother. The hat was instantly lifted from his head, and once
+more he begged leave to apologize.
+
+He came in search of his foster-brother, and had no idea of the company
+he was honored in finding himself.
+
+The contrast of this man’s address, which was soft and persuasive, with
+the rude grandeur of his head, had a sort of fascination in it. The two
+ladies felt themselves transferred back to the saloons which nature and
+education had given them a right to enter. In this man the energy of the
+people seemed blended with the elegance of the court; thus they found
+him in harmony with old memories and recent ideas.
+
+Madame received his apologies with the grace of a Roman matron. She
+waved her hand toward one of the rude chairs, and requested him to be
+seated, while Monsieur Jacques, recovering from his surprise, presented
+his visitor as the Count De Mirabeau.
+
+Mirabeau seated himself, and began to converse; his words were directed
+entirely toward Marguerite, who listened in breathless awe to his
+brilliant sayings, without dreaming that they were all intended for her;
+and that each glance of those eyes were sent to measure their effect.
+
+In this presence Monsieur Jacques allowed himself to subside into
+insignificance. He spoke in monosyllables, and sat with his hands
+clasped, as if in adoration of the talent which broke forth in every
+word this strange man uttered.
+
+Marguerite, too, was fascinated and enthralled. At first the exceeding
+ugliness of their visitor had repelled her; but the moment he spoke,
+this feeling changed, and she listened with all her soul, and that shone
+in her beautiful eyes.
+
+Count Mirabeau saw all this, as only a man of quick intellect and
+insatiable vanity can observe. He soon discovered that the surroundings
+of these two women were far inferior to the rank to which they were
+entitled—and this both inspired and surprised him. In his own person he
+blended so much of the extremes of social life—coarse strength with
+vivid imagination, pride of birth and pride of humanity—that a wild
+sympathy for these two persons awoke almost to a passion in his nature
+at the first sight. They were refined, delicate, sensitive, yet still of
+the people, suffering with them, and, to a certain extent, feeling with
+them.
+
+If Count Mirabeau had any fixed ideas at this time, they were vague and
+incomplete, shifting and changing with the current of public opinion,
+which was firm only to one fixed point, a concentration of power in the
+people. Mirabeau had watched the storm rising, which was to devastate
+all France, with the interest of a man born to lead in tempests. How the
+whirlwind, which he saw gathering, might rage, he, probably, had no
+idea. Events rush forward in revolutions with a force that defies
+individual strength; but he was a man to seize upon every means of power
+as they presented themselves; and even now, with that lovely girl and
+the stately woman before him, he was calculating how far they might be
+made available to his ambition.
+
+After a little, Mirabeau arose, and, with a graceful reverence, such as
+he might have denied to a queen, left the room; begging permission to
+call again when he might have the happiness to be of service to the
+ladies.
+
+Monsieur Jacques followed him, looking proudly back upon his friends.
+
+“How strange, how grand, how ugly!” said Marguerite, drawing a deep
+breath as the door closed. “Oh! if kings were like him, we should not
+plead in vain!”
+
+Madame Gosner answered with less emotion. She was wondering if this man,
+who seemed both of the court and the people, would be able to aid her in
+the one great wish of her life. If he had that power, she was ready to
+become his slave.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX.
+ COUNT DE MIRABEAU AND MONSIEUR JACQUES.
+
+
+Mirabeau and Monsieur Jacques went to a neighboring chamber and sat down
+together; for, strange as the contrast was between them, they were
+foster-brothers, and a stronger tie than that of absolute kinship
+existed between them.
+
+“Well, Jacques, where did you find these people? Who are they?” inquired
+the count, flinging himself into a chair, and reaching forth his hand
+for that of his foster-brother. “The demoiselle is beautiful. It is a
+sin to find her here.”
+
+Jacques gave a succinct account of his acquaintance with the mother and
+daughter, and repeated, word for word, the conversation he had held with
+them that evening.
+
+Mirabeau listened eagerly. There was romance in this—a mother and
+daughter devoting their lives to the hope of winning freedom for an
+innocent man, had something sublime in it, which kindled his
+imagination, and touched all that was good in his heart. He took out a
+well-worn purse, which contained only a piece or two of gold, and
+emptied it on the table.
+
+“See that there is no more starvation. Women like these must not be
+permitted to suffer,” he said, thrusting the empty purse back into a
+pocket of his dress. “The girl is beautiful, the mother simply grand.”
+
+“Ah! but the young lady is so good,” answered Jacques, who did not feel
+quite satisfied with this sudden interest.
+
+“Good, very possible—I am no judge; but she is fair as a lily, and
+bright as a sunbeam. Did my face terrify her, Jacques?”
+
+“Your face, Count Mirabeau—how should it? Why, your face is magnificent,
+grand—it is that I glory in most of anything.”
+
+Jacques believed all that he was saying. In his heart great love had
+glorified that massive head, with its shock of ruddy hair, into
+something beautiful. He heard the question put to him with genuine
+surprise, as if some one had disputed the brightness of the sun; but
+Count Mirabeau understood himself better. He rather gloried in the rude
+grandeur of his appearance, the conquests which he made in spite of it
+were doubly grateful to him. “It is a common thing to be beautiful,” he
+would say; “but to be hideous and beloved in spite of it, is sublime.”
+
+“Ah! you are no judge, brother Jacques. Of course, I am everything grand
+and agreeable to you; but with a young lady, the thing is different. I
+saw her look of surprise when I came in. No wonder; but she forgot to be
+afraid after a little. Did you see that? How her eyes kindled! What a
+smile came to her face—a lovely face, undoubtedly; a very lovely face!”
+
+Count Mirabeau fell into a reverie here, and began to thread with his
+hand the long waves of hair that fell to his shoulder.
+
+Jacques remained silent, and sat watching him.
+
+After awhile the count arose, and taking one of the gold pieces from the
+table, dropped it into his pocket. Glancing at the two Louis d’or that
+were left, he said, with a laugh.
+
+“These will be enough for the present—one cannot do entirely without
+money. Come to me, Jacques, when you want more.”
+
+“But the ladies are proud; they will not accept it, knowing where it
+comes from.”
+
+“They must not know where it comes from. You understand?”
+
+“Yes, I understand.”
+
+“Now I will bid you good-night, Jacques. Do you know that my father is
+in Paris?”
+
+“In Paris! I did not know it. What brings him here?”
+
+“He comes to be reconciled with his son, so I am told. I had a letter
+from him this morning, appointing a time when I am to call on him. It
+was this which brought me here.”
+
+“Then you will go?”
+
+“Yes. Why not?”
+
+“But he has been so cruel, so harsh. It is not long since the doors of
+his chateau were closed against you.”
+
+“Yes. I am not likely to forget that; but in these times it is not
+policy to be resentful. My father has influence with the king.”
+
+“But I thought you were the enemy of Louis the Sixteenth, and of all his
+family!”
+
+“You forget the Duc d’Orleans.”
+
+“But he is not your friend.”
+
+“He is the friend of no man but himself. Still one does not quarrel with
+him. A bad, weak friend, Jacques; but sometimes such characters carry
+braver men into power. While he is popular with the people, who will not
+readily release their hold on royalty of some kind, I, for one, shall
+not abandon him.”
+
+“Still, it is a terrible thing to know that he is plotting against his
+own brother, his anointed king,” said Jacques.
+
+“Nay, it is rather against the Austrian woman, who rules that brother.
+Surely, Frenchmen owe little allegiance to her.”
+
+“That is, perhaps, because they do not know her!” said Jacques.
+
+“That is true. She makes sure that those men who love France, and seek
+after liberty, never shall come near enough to know her.”
+
+“Yet it is said that those who have opportunities of seeing the royal
+family love her most. To them she is a beautiful, good woman.”
+
+“Yes, she is beautiful. She has, sometimes, allowed your humble servant
+to see her across the theatre; but disdains to receive him at court. Her
+mother would have known better. She had some idea of statesmanship, and
+understood how to employ talent, though it might exist a little outside
+of court circles. She would never have left a Mirabeau to be converted
+into an enemy.”
+
+“Ah! if the queen only knew you as Jacques does—but how can she? The
+courtiers who surround her are jealous of powers they cannot rival. The
+queen will never be permitted to know how brave a friend is kept from
+her.”
+
+“She will learn, rest content, Jacques. She will learn who Mirabeau is,
+and what he can do, before she sits firmly on the throne of France. She
+will learn, to her cost, that nobility does not always convey talent;
+and that the best adviser a monarch can have is the man who is most
+popular with the people.”
+
+“That you are, my count. I do not see you pass the streets of Paris
+without acclamations!”
+
+“Yes, they love me, and I love them. It was my great fault with that
+grand old aristocrat, my father, that plebeians would love me, and that
+I sometimes stooped to their companionship. Even then I felt what was
+coming, and, knew where the best elements of power lay. But my
+thickheaded old ancestor was never able to understand it. What do you
+think he would say now if he knew where I have spent this evening? Yet a
+lovelier creature, or more dainty, does not live in any court, than the
+girl we left yonder.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques colored crimson, and moved uneasily in his chair. He
+did not like this open admiration in his foster-brother.
+
+“Yes, the young lady is pretty and gentle as a bird; but I doubt if——”
+
+Here Jacques paused, and colored still more violently than before.
+
+“Doubt if what——”
+
+“If—if she is used to such warm admiration. Is that it, brother
+Jacques?”
+
+“Exactly,” answered Jacques. “She is country bred, you know, and
+innocent as a fawn.”
+
+Mirabeau laughed rather boisterously.
+
+“Why, you foolish fellow, that is her chief attraction. Had she been one
+of your hackneyed court dames, her beauty would have passed as nothing.
+As it is, she is charming. Simple as a violet, pure as a
+lily-of-the-valley—not that I have seen one of late; but those things
+still linger in my memory Jacques, man of the world as you may think
+me.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER X.
+ MONSIEUR JACQUES IS INTRUSTED WITH A DELICATE MISSION.
+
+
+As Count de Mirabeau uttered these last words, Monsieur Jacques arose
+from his chair, and came close to his foster-brother.
+
+“Mirabeau,” he said, laying a hand on the count’s shoulder, and speaking
+with deep earnestness, “forget this girl. Spare her for my sake.”
+
+Mirabeau wheeled round in his chair, and gazed upon the man in laughing
+astonishment. His great head was thrown back, his eyes danced with
+merriment.
+
+“What! You, Jacques—you in love with that pretty rustic—really, truly?
+Do tell me how it happened! Why, man, how improbable!”
+
+“No,” said Monsieur Jacques, humbly enough, “love is so far apart from
+me, and so natural to you; but what man ever knows what destiny has in
+store for him. I saw her so sweet, so gentle, given up to sorrow, which
+she bore patiently, and, spite of myself, she became dear to me as my
+own life.”
+
+“And does she know this?”
+
+“Not for the world! I should drop with very shame at her feet if she but
+guessed it.”
+
+“I dare say,” answered Mirabeau, with cruel sincerity. “So dainty a
+creature as that might well be astonished. Why, man, I, myself, was half
+in love with her.”
+
+“I saw it.”
+
+“And now you warn me off the chase.”
+
+“I say to you only this. The foster-brother, who loves you better than
+himself, has but one thing on this earth that he would withhold from
+you, this single, forlorn hope of affection. Will you trample it under
+foot—you who have but to smile, and the best beauty and brightest wit of
+the land render the homage you scarcely deign to accept?”
+
+“Ah! that is because they do render it. Can’t you remember, Jacques,
+that, as a boy, I would never stoop to pick up the ripest and mellowest
+fruit that fell to my feet; but was ever up in the topmost branches of
+the tree, risking my neck for that which could only be got with
+difficulty. It is my nature, man, and I cannot help it. Now pray
+comprehend that in placing this interdict, which leaves all to my honor
+and brotherly affection, you lift the fruit to the very topmost bough,
+where I shall be forever tempted to climb for it.”
+
+“But, for my sake.”
+
+“Ay! in your behalf, I will make a brave effort to be good. It is asking
+a great deal, and I am no saint; but then I am in no haste to give that
+proud old man, who is waiting for me, a daughter-in-law who is neither
+of the court or the people. So we will talk no more of this pretty
+Marguerite, but let her fly, as we sometimes sent the birds we had
+snared back to their native woods in the pure wantonness of benevolence.
+Sometimes we would gladly have got them back, you know, Jacques, but the
+little wretches would not come. Give me my hat, man; do you know that we
+are keeping the proudest old man in France waiting?”
+
+Jacques took up the hat which Mirabeau had flung to the floor when he
+sat down. The count received it lazily, and putting a finger on two of
+the triangular points, began to twirl it between his hands. He certainly
+did not seem to be much distressed at keeping his father in suspense.
+
+“Jacques,” he said, after a few moments’ silence, “Have you seen the old
+gentleman?”
+
+“Only for a moment.”
+
+“Did he speak of—— Well, we may as well be frank. Did he mention
+finances? Has he an idea of the trouble his close-fisted parsimony has
+brought on me—of the shifts and arrangements I am constantly compelled
+to make?”
+
+“How can he help knowing it, monsieur count? A man of good family cannot
+live on air; and what else has he provided for a son that—I must say
+it—is the glory of his house?”
+
+“Not much, Jacques—certainly, not much; but more perhaps, than you know
+of. Still, he comes in good time, for I am fairly at my wits’ end for
+means. Can you manage to let him know this, and impress upon him the
+necessity of a liberal supply? Tell him of the great popularity you are
+so confident of. Hint to him that I have had advances from the court,
+and only need a little persuasion to carry me over, body and soul, which
+will end in a thorough reconciliation between the people and the king.
+In short, Jacques, you know what to say, and you know the man. It will
+not be the first time you have done me good service with him.”
+
+“Nor shall it be the last, by a thousand, if I can help it,” answered
+Jacques, delighted with his mission. “God grant that what I say proves
+true! Then, indeed, you will be the saviour of this unhappy country!”
+
+“Well, well! you understand my wishes, and will know how to carry them
+out. I have sworn never to ask my father for another sous on earth—and I
+never will; but my oath does not reach you, brother Jacques. The old man
+is a staunch royalist, and would do much for Louis. When he knows how I
+stand between the court and the people, powerful with both, he will
+forget past extravagance, and come forward to sustain the honor of his
+house.”
+
+“I will put the case before him in this light; I will tell him all that
+he ought to know. Even now an agent of the queen is seeking you.”
+
+“Ha! Where did you learn this?” cried Mirabeau, flushing scarlet with
+sudden astonishment and delight.
+
+“The agent came to me.”
+
+“When?”
+
+“Only this morning.”
+
+“Well, well!”
+
+“He talked cautiously at first; spoke of your power with the people—your
+eloquence.”
+
+“Yes, yes; I understand that—the usual sugared flattery. But come to the
+essence of the matter. What did he want?”
+
+“He wanted your influence in behalf of the court; and he spoke of
+money.”
+
+Mirabeau felt the hot blood leap to his face again; and with an angry
+gesture he dashed the hat from his hand.
+
+“They know how poor I am; they feel that I can be bribed. This proud
+queen does not offer me her confidence, but money. Ah! this stings me!
+It is an insult; but one which I dare not resent. Oh, Jacques! this
+poverty breeds a nest of temptations. To want money is to be a slave.”
+
+Mirabeau seized his hat, dashed it on his head, and left the room,
+walking away so fiercely, that his footsteps sounded back from the
+flights of stairs, like the tramp of a dragoon.
+
+Monsieur Jacques listened till the footsteps died away in the street,
+then he sat down, with tears in his eyes, muttering,
+
+“Ah! what a grand nature he has! Yet a moment may shipwreck him forever.
+Yes! forever and ever!”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI.
+ THE MARKET WOMAN.
+
+
+Monsieur Jacques started from his aroused reverie, by the sight of that
+hard gold piece left by Mirabeau on his table.
+
+“This will keep them from want a long time,” he thought, gloating over
+the money as if it had been food, for which he was in fact famishing;
+for the bread he had given those poor women, was taken from his own
+hungry mouth.
+
+Jacques, in his devotion to Count Mirabeau, would have starved rather
+than take gold from him. Indeed, his own hard earnings had been swept
+away many a time in the vortex of that man’s reckless extravagance; and
+he had gloried in the sacrifice. But now, another feeling came in and he
+yielded to it without a murmur. He could struggle and endure, but those
+suffering women must be fed, even with Mirabeau’s gold. How? They were
+delicate and proud—far too proud for almstaking.
+
+“I know! I have a thought,” he exclaimed at last, dropping the gold into
+his pocket. “They shall seem to earn this.”
+
+Jacques went swiftly down stairs, and knocked at a door in a lower story
+of the house.
+
+A clear sharp voice bade him enter, and directly he stood before a
+little woman,—perhaps fifty years old, who was tearing half a dozen
+bouquets to pieces, and dipping their stems in hot water, thus partially
+restoring their lost bloom.
+
+“Ah, Monsieur Jacques, you have found me at my work, cheating the poor,
+dear people. No matter, it serves them right; why didn’t they buy my
+flowers yesterday, when they were fresh and charming? Ah, my friend,
+these are hard times for us poor women of the market. With the court at
+Versailles and food so dear, flowers go for nothing, especially when it
+is only an old woman who offers them.”
+
+“I understand,” said Jacques, sitting down by the old woman. “We all
+have our troubles. That was what I came to talk about. Your business is
+doubtless much disturbed by these unsettled times.”
+
+“Disturbed; _mon Dieu_, it is broken up. One sells nothing but carrots
+and turnips now. The fruit and flowers that brought in a reasonable
+profit, are left to wither on our stalls. Working people have no money
+for them, and your court lords never come to _la Halle_ for their
+flowers.”
+
+“But they purchase them yet. There is no famine among the courtiers,”
+said Jacques, steadily pursuing the purpose of his visit.
+
+“But, as I said before,” answered the old woman, sharply. “They never
+come to _la Halle_, and one cannot be in two places at once. Our trade
+there is sure, if but little, for people must eat.”
+
+“Still, a great many flowers are sold. Every day I see pretty girls in
+the streets with loads, and people buy them.”
+
+“True, Monsieur Jacques, but Dame Doudel is no girl, and people no
+longer call her pretty.”
+
+“But if you had a daughter now.”
+
+Dame Doudel sighed.
+
+“Ah, yes, if I had, but she is dead.”
+
+“Still, a kind heart might supply the place.”
+
+“How! you talk folly, my friend.”
+
+“There is a young girl in this very house, fresh as a lily, and lovely
+enough to be your own daughter.”
+
+“Poor child but _she_ was so beautiful.”
+
+“I understand! This girl is beautiful too, and needs work _so_ much.
+Every one says Dame Doudel has a kind heart; so, when I saw this poor
+child and her mother pining from want, it was natural that I should come
+here.”
+
+“Yes, it was natural,” said the Dame, putting a strand of field grass in
+her mouth, and twisting the loose end around the bouquet she had
+arranged.
+
+“The child might make herself useful in arranging flowers, but most of
+all in selling them,” suggested the kind-hearted fellow.
+
+“Poor thing. Yes, she might. Well, my friend, send her here, and we
+shall see.”
+
+“Would it not be better, being as it were an old resident, if you went
+yourself to Madame Gosner; she might resent my intrusion, for suffering
+has not killed her pride.”
+
+“Yes, I will go, why not? It will not be the only time Dame Doudel has
+taken the first step in a kind act.”
+
+“The girl will have to learn; she may be awkward, at first, you
+understand. In the meantime they must eat. If it would not be a liberty,
+perhaps Dame Doudel would use this until the business began to pay.
+
+“This! But it is gold,” said the shrewd little woman, eyeing her
+neighbor suspiciously, “enough to keep two people with care half a
+month.”
+
+“In that time, your pretty protegée will have begun to earn something. I
+do not forget that until she does, money will be wanted, and who can use
+it with more discretion than Dame Doudel?”
+
+The market woman dropped the gold into her pocket. There was no doubting
+that man longer.
+
+“Well, my friend, it is arranged, and my work is done. To-morrow the
+little ope shall begin, if her mother consents.”
+
+“She will consent; for heart and soul, she is with us.”
+
+“With the people, you mean. Yes, yes, and the little one, what of her?”
+
+“She is good as an angel.”
+
+“And we will keep her so. Our work, Monsieur Jacques, is not for
+children. The clubs are no places for girls. This one shall sell
+flowers, and charm us with her innocence. We need something sweet and
+young to keep us human in these strange times. Are you going? Well,
+well, adieu.”
+
+“Ah, dame, you are kind as an angel. I cannot thank you enough,” said
+Jacques, bending before the market woman as if she had been an empress.
+
+The dame blushed like a girl, and, gathering up her flowers, took her
+way to the market in quick haste, ashamed of the pleasure this adroit
+flattery gave her.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XII.
+ EARLY IN THE MORNING.
+
+
+All night long, Madame Gosner lay awake, thinking of what she had
+suffered, and of what she had heard. She was a woman of powerful mind
+and corresponding physique; all her faculties were in vigorous harmony.
+In peaceful times she might have been a court dame, leading a throng of
+triflers into something like intelligent pleasures—for that woman could
+never have contented herself with mediocrity in anything. As it was, one
+great object had occupied her for years. The wrongs of a husband, whom
+she had loved with all the force and tenderness of a great soul,
+occupied every idea of her life. Even when she believed him dead, this
+great love clung around him as a memory, which threw her whole being
+into mourning. The scrap of paper, which seemed to have come to her by a
+miracle, changed all this in a moment. Her husband lived. There was
+something for her to do. The sleeping energies of her nature awoke with
+a rebound. She determined to save her husband, or perish in the attempt.
+
+Save her husband, rescue him from the Bastille, with walls twenty feet
+thick between him and daylight; with green mould forming itself out of
+the stagnant waters, which oozed through the very stones, and clung,
+like an unwholesome sweat, to the sides of his dungeon. Was it in the
+power of woman to free this unhappy man from the living grave that
+inclosed him?
+
+Against all the despairing replies, which came back to her from these
+questions, the indomitable spirit of the woman answered, “I will free
+him,” and her action corresponded with her words. She took her only
+child, gathered up the fragments of property left to them, and came into
+France, her own native country, resolved on obtaining freedom for her
+husband. We have seen how she succeeded. Her money was all exhausted.
+She had used it unsparingly, but with no avail up to this time—nothing
+that she had done could win her even access to the king. Now she was
+suffering for food; want had sapped the foundations of her strength, and
+the energies of her soul were giving out.
+
+That night, when she was ready to give up all hope and die, this man,
+half-demagogue, half-patriot; this singular being, who, born of the
+nobility, was still the idol of the people, came suddenly into her life,
+and opened a broader and more sublime road by which her object might be
+obtained. From that moment, the struggling wife became, what soon was no
+uncommon thing among the women of France—a patriot; more than that, love
+that burned in her bosom for the one man languishing in his dungeon,
+made her an enthusiast; and out of her very womanliness this wronged
+being was thinking how she might become a leader of that great element
+which, for a time, ruled the very mobs of Paris.
+
+When it became day, Madame Gosner arose and dressed herself with more
+than usual care. The reflections of that night had resolved themselves
+into a vague plan of action. Other women suffered like herself; other
+husbands and fathers lay chained, like wild beasts, in those reeking
+dungeons. How narrow and selfish her efforts had hitherto been. No
+wonder God had not helped her when she asked his aid only for herself
+and the man she loved, forgetting thousands and thousands of sister
+women who suffered with her.
+
+But little preparation for breakfast was needed in that poor room.
+Indeed, when she awoke, Madame Gosner knew that there was not a fragment
+of food at her command; but she was hardly dressed when a knock came to
+the door.
+
+Madame Gosner opened the door, and found a little old woman standing on
+the threshold. She had seen that genial face before, going up and down
+the stair-case, but it looked peculiarly bland and kind that morning,
+and the dainty cap, tied around the head with a black ribbon, betrayed
+an unusual toilet before the visit was made.
+
+“If madame will excuse the liberty, we are neighbors, only one floor
+between us, and, hearing that madame had been ill, I ventured to bring
+her a little breakfast, nothing worthy of notice; still if madame will
+accept the basket, in which she will find a tiny bouquet of violets for
+mademoiselle, whom I am happy to find sleeping so sweetly. Indeed, it is
+a part of my business to make a proposal about mademoiselle, whom I have
+observed to be very fond of flowers. Might I be permitted to step in and
+explain myself?”
+
+The little woman was courteously invited to take a seat, and Madame
+Gosner received the basket with a glow of thanks that went to her heart
+at once. In a few words she explained the object of her visit.
+
+Had an angel dropped from Heaven with hope and succor, it would not have
+been more welcome. Here was employment, hopes of food, an opening
+through which this brave woman could move toward the great object of her
+life, untrammeled by the wants of humanity. She considered no occupation
+mean for her child which promised to secure so much, and accepted it
+with ardent thankfulness, which sent Dame Doudel away supremely content.
+
+As for Madame Gosner, she accepted this visit as a blessing from Heaven
+itself. It renewed her waning strength, and helped to kindle the new
+idea born to her in the night. Just as the grander design of aiding
+others was formed, God has sent the food necessary to her life, and she
+accepted it as a token and an encouragement.
+
+In the basket she found a little milk, some eggs, and a sprig of green
+parsley, all promised to her the night before, though Jacques scarcely
+knew then how the breakfast was to be provided. With these was a loaf of
+white bread, and some charcoal for cooking.
+
+In a few minutes, Madame Gosner was on her knees, kindling the fire
+with her own breath. When the charcoal ignited and began to crackle,
+she went to the bed, and looked tenderly down upon her daughter, who
+slept soundly. How pale and delicate she was! Not a trace of color
+remained on those cheeks; and want had almost quenched it from the
+exquisitely-formed mouth, in which the white gleam of her teeth was
+just visible as she breathed. No wonder the mother thanked God for the
+food that had been brought to her when she saw all this; but she would
+not awake her child then, that delicious breakfast should give her a
+surprise. It would be, indeed, the beginning of a _fete_ day with
+them.
+
+So the now hopeful woman fell to beating her eggs and chopping up her
+parsley, with as little noise as possible. At length, when her omelet
+was on the fire, she went to the bed and aroused Marguerite.
+
+“Come, my daughter, breakfast is ready!”
+
+“Breakfast!” It was a strange word in that room, where no regular meal
+had been served for a month. Marguerite started up in her bed, looked
+around in bewilderment, and murmured,
+
+“Let me sleep—I was dreaming so sweetly.”
+
+“Dreaming of what, Marguerite?”
+
+“Oh! it is you, mother! Nothing. Only it seemed as if you and I were
+eating such a delicious meal together.”
+
+“Indeed! Such as an omelet and white bread, perhaps.”
+
+“An omelet! Oh, yes! and—and—— Why, mamma, there is a smell of it in the
+room yet. I suppose it is Monsieur Jacques who is cooking. He said
+something about a _fete_ day. Why, what is that? The table out, a cloth
+on; and, oh, mamma! an omelet—a real, plump omelet. Where did you get
+it? and parsley. Why, mamma, darling, have you been among the fairies?”
+
+“Our fairy was a little market woman, who came with all these things in
+a basket early this morning.”
+
+“A little market woman, how good; how strange.”
+
+“Come, come, child, everything is ready.”
+
+Marguerite, who had been making a hasty toilet, twisted her hair in a
+coil around her head, and sat down by the table, where both mother and
+daughter commenced a delicious meal, thanking God for it in their
+hearts.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIII.
+ THEY THREE BREAKFAST TOGETHER.
+
+
+The two women, suffering as they were from the pangs of hunger, scarcely
+looked at each other, but sat rapidly feasting their eyes on the food
+yet untasted, with a wild, eager craving which made them forgetful of
+everything else.
+
+All at once, Marguerite started up in absolute dismay.
+
+“Oh, mamma! we have forgotten the good Monsieur Jacques, who all this
+time has no breakfast.”
+
+“True, my child! and he so thoughtful of us!”
+
+Marguerite went to Monsieur Jacques’ room, and knocked eagerly.
+
+“It is ready; we have a delicious omelet, my friend. Come, come! there
+is enough for three!”
+
+Jacques came to the door and opened it a little. His face was flushed,
+his eyes sparkled.
+
+“Do you really invite me?” he questioned.
+
+“Invite you! Why our little feast is yours.”
+
+“Wait a minute, then, while I wash my hands; perhaps madame will excuse
+the dress, as I have no other.”
+
+“Come in any dress. We are waiting, and the breakfast gets cold.”
+
+Marguerite came back to her mother, and they placed the omelet near the
+fire, that it might be kept warm for their guest. He came in soon after,
+with his face shining, and his hair smooth, as if he had spent some time
+in brushing it. His blouse was clean, and he looked more respectable
+than they had seen him the night before. But the good man partook
+sparingly of madame’s omelet, and sat gazing upon Marguerite when he
+should have been eating.
+
+The sweet girl knew that he was half-famished, and tempted him to eat,
+until the animal instinct in him became ravenous, and for the moment, he
+forgot that she was near him. Then the noble fellow grew ashamed of
+himself, and drew back abashed.
+
+Without appearing to heed this, Madame Gosner began to talk, and told
+Jacques of Dame Doudel’s generous visit, and of the proposal she had
+made for Marguerite.
+
+Jacques received the intelligence calmly, but cast anxious glances at
+the young girl, who looked from him to her mother with affright.
+
+“I fear she will not consent,” he said, seized with compunction for the
+part he had taken, when he saw the color driven from Marguerite’s face.
+
+“Yes, yes,” gasped the girl. “It is work, it is food! Who am I to put
+such blessings aside? Heaven forgive me if, for one moment, I hesitate!”
+
+“Heaven has nothing to forgive its angels,” muttered Jacques, in a voice
+so faint and deep that no one heard him.
+
+Madame Gosner leaned over the table, and, her heart being full of the
+subject, began questioning Jacques very closely about the state of
+things in the city. She was earnest, clear, and searching in her
+interrogatories. He saw that some grand idea was in her brain, and
+answered her without comment.
+
+All this was not wonderful to him. Such mental excitements were sure to
+follow Mirabeau whenever he condescended to converse. Indeed, his most
+subtle power lay among the women of Paris. But eloquent as Mirabeau was,
+Jacques had more telling powers, for he had the merit of honest
+conviction. There was truth in all this man said, for he possessed that
+to which his foster-brother often pretended—a thorough knowledge of the
+people, of their wants and aspirations. Even in the chaotic state into
+which society was at this time thrown, Monsieur Jacques had wonderful
+influence, of which his foster-brother took the credit.
+
+When madame and Marguerite were left alone, the mother began to pace the
+room to and fro in great excitement.
+
+“Marguerite,” she said, laying a firm hand on each of her daughter’s
+shoulders, “up to this day we have been cold and selfish.”
+
+“Selfish! Oh, mamma!”
+
+“Yes; cold, selfish, egotistical—and for this God has not prospered us.”
+
+“Oh, mamma! have we not given up all? Have we saved anything, or spared
+anything to win liberty for my father?”
+
+“It is for this that I blush, Marguerite. Our poor martyr is but one of
+many. The Bastille is crowded full. You are not the only child who pines
+for her father’s liberty.”
+
+“Alas, no!”
+
+“Yet it is of him, and him alone, we have been thinking.”
+
+“But what else could we do?”
+
+“Open our arms, and embrace all humanity.”
+
+“But we are only women—helpless and suffering women.”
+
+“So much the better; our sister sufferers will have faith in us.”
+
+“But what is it you intend? Something grand and strange—I can see it in
+your eyes.”
+
+“No, there is nothing grand in my object; it is simply to perform a duty
+to others as well as to ourselves. To-day I am going among the
+market-people. I know some of them, from whom we have made our meagre
+purchases. They are brave and ardent, ready to act if they only had a
+leader. The good dame who was here this morning will aid me in my first
+step.”
+
+“And that leader? Not my mother, surely! I see a power of command in
+your gestures. All this terrifies me—what does this mean?”
+
+“It means that our poor prisoner shall yet feel the grim walls of the
+Bastille tremble around him like an earthquake. It means liberty for him
+and for all. It means that while a woman loves the husband of her youth,
+she should never forget the country of her birth.”
+
+“But how can you, a lonely woman, without money or friends, accomplish
+this?”
+
+“I will make friends of my fellow-sufferers. I will make friends of
+famine and want. Starvation shall be made powerful. Elements of great
+strength are running to waste. I will gather them up, and hurl them
+against the walls of the Bastille—hurl them against the throne itself.”
+
+“Mother, you have been dreaming; the fatigue of yesterday has made you
+ill.”
+
+“No, I have not been dreaming. Last night I never closed my eyes; but I
+thought, while you slept, thought of him, thought of France, till my
+brain burned, and my heart grew large.”
+
+“Mother, dear mother! sit down, I pray you! Want of food, and that long,
+long journey yesterday, have made you wild.”
+
+“No, my child, they have made me wise.”
+
+“But you will not go out?”
+
+Madame had taken a bonnet and shawl in her hand. Marguerite forced them
+from her gently, but with firmness.
+
+“It is the fever, which is said to rage when plenty of food is taken
+after a long fast,” she said. “Let me put the things away.”
+
+Madame smiled, but held firmly to her garments.
+
+“You cannot comprehend,” she said; “but I will explain.”
+
+“Not now, mamma, but when you are better. The disappointment of not
+seeing the king, after so many efforts, is preying upon you; but do not
+despair—I am young and strong. The next time I will go to the king or to
+the queen. Perhaps I shall be more successful.”
+
+“Well, what then?”
+
+“I will kneel to him, and beseech him to set my father free.”
+
+“And then, ‘he is but one man!’”
+
+“But he is all the world to us!” said Marguerite, clasping her hands
+with pathetic earnestness.
+
+“I thought so once. God forgive me!”
+
+“Mother, there is something on your mind that I cannot understand. Put
+it aside, I pray you; or wait till Monsieur Jacques, or his friend
+comes, that you may counsel with them.”
+
+Madame sat down and drew a hand wearily across her eyes. It was true;
+great fatigue, want of food, and intense wakefulness, were telling
+fearfully upon her system, vigorous as it was. It is, sometimes, out of
+such insanity, that great actions are wrought.
+
+“Sit down and rest, mamma, after that I will listen to all you can say.”
+
+“And help me?” asked the woman, fastening her large, eager eyes on the
+girl’s face.
+
+“With all my power and strength. Only rest awhile, and take full time
+for thought.”
+
+“Ah! if I rest, this resolve may pass from me. I have had such dreams
+before,—that was in my sleep; but now, but now——”
+
+“Now you will lie down and sleep sweetly, while I take your place.”
+
+Madame sat down on the bed, releasing her hold on the shawl.
+
+“You are right, my child,” she said, gently. “I must have rest and
+strength before this great work begins; then you will understand it
+better, and we both have our task, yours not less difficult than mine.”
+
+“But you will rest first?” pleaded Marguerite, who looked upon this
+sudden outbreak as the result of over exertion, and was troubled by it.
+“Perhaps Our Lady will bless my poor efforts for your sake.”
+
+“Yes—I can wait,” said the mother, sinking back upon the bed, and
+closing her eyes. “To-day for rest, to-morrow for action.”
+
+Marguerite sat down by her mother, took one of her hands and smoothed it
+tenderly between her own palms, striving her best to induce the sleep
+which would, she trusted, restore the tone of her mother’s mind, which
+she believed to have been disturbed by great fatigue, and long fasting.
+But she was not the less resolved to assume some portion of the work to
+which that mother had almost given up her life.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIV.
+ MARGUERITE FINDS HER PATH OF DUTY AMONG THE FLOWERS.
+
+
+The very next evening after Marguerite had entered on her new duties,
+she was hard at work in Dame Doudel’s apartment, where she found delight
+in arranging the garlands and bouquets, which were to be sold on the
+morrow.
+
+The good dame was in high spirits. The talent and rapid execution of her
+young friend surprised her, and she chatted gaily as she handed flower
+after flower from her lap, to be richly clustered by those active
+fingers.
+
+“And you have never seen my good husband, that is strange; he is often
+on the stairs when off duty. Everybody loves him, for he is
+tender-hearted as an infant. That is singular, people say, considering
+that he is a prison guard, and has been years and years in the
+Bastille.”
+
+Marguerite uttered a faint cry, and dropped the flowers she was twining.
+
+“The Bastille! The Bastille! Is your husband a guard in the Bastille?”
+she cried.
+
+“Of course he is. I thought everybody knew that; why, he has grown old
+in the Bastille; old, but never hard-hearted—nothing can make him that,
+my good Gaston; but he sees sights—such terrible sights, and hears moans
+that make his blood run cold. But then sometimes he does a little good,
+and that cheers him. I tell it you, in strict confidence, my child, but
+many a time he has eaten little, and carried half his breakfast hid away
+in his pocket, for some of the poor creatures, pining to death in those
+awful vaults. Yes, yes; those poor prisoners would lose a good friend if
+Gaston were to leave.”
+
+Marguerite listened breathlessly. A strange, wild light came into her
+eyes. Her words came swift and eagerly when she spoke.
+
+“But will they let him. Is it possible? oh! if I could see your
+husband!”
+
+“Well, that is easy, little one; for he is coming now. You can hear his
+step on the stairs. Ah—yes, that is Gaston. I can never mistake.”
+
+A smile of kindly affection lighted the old woman’s face, as she turned
+it to the door, which opened, admitting a tall, elderly man, who walked
+wearily into the room.
+
+“Ah! you are tired, my friend. I can see it,” exclaimed the dame,
+emptying the flowers from her lap into a basket, and smoothing down her
+dress. “Been walking the ramparts? It was your turn, I know. Hungry,
+too, I dare say. Well, well; your supper is waiting. Ah! you see my
+little friend here; and are surprised. No wonder.”
+
+“Is she not lovely? Like some one, _mon chere_, we never talk about. You
+observe that. Yes, yes, I see it in your face.”
+
+“She is at least welcome,” answered Doudel, kindly. “Now dame, for our
+little supper. I have had a hard day at the prison.”
+
+Dame Doudel bustled off into the next room, which was one of those tiny,
+neat kitchens, the French know how to make so inviting; and, after a
+little time, looked through the door again.
+
+“Come, my friend, come little one. There is a plate for you always,
+remember.”
+
+Marguerite arose eagerly; at another time she might have hesitated, now
+she forgot everything in a wild desire to speak with the man who might
+have seen her father. They sat down together, but the girl could not
+eat, her heart was so full. Dame Doudel observed this, and, seeing how
+thin she looked, heaped her plate with bountiful hospitality.
+
+“No, I cannot, I cannot. He has seen my father, my poor, poor father,
+who lies buried in the dungeons of the Bastille. How can I eat or sleep,
+knowing this.”
+
+“Your father, child, and in the Bastille. Our Lady forbid,” said Doudel,
+with infinite compassion in his voice.
+
+“In the Bastille—your own father? Heaven be good to us,” exclaimed the
+dame, holding up both hands in amazement. “Oh, Doudel, if you know, tell
+her about him—tell her about him.”
+
+“His name is Gosner, Doctor Gosner, a learned man from Germany. He was
+torn from us when I was a child. You have seen him, you know him; his
+eyes are blue like mine, his hair soft and light. He was tall and
+slender, with a benign look. Oh, tell me about him.”
+
+The poor girl left her chair as she spoke, and clasping her hands, went
+round to where the guard sat, and knelt before him.
+
+“You have seen him? Oh tell me!”
+
+“Poor thing, poor, sweet child, how can I tell her?” said Doudel,
+appealing to his wife. “We have no names at the Bastille, nothing but
+numbers.”
+
+“I know the number; ah, I know that, monsieur, I——”
+
+Here the girl checked herself, remembering that Monsieur Jacques had
+given the number in confidence.
+
+“Yes, I know the number. It is here; I wrote it down and laid it next my
+heart, saying to myself, ‘some day our blessed lady will lead me to
+him.’ Here it is.”
+
+Doudel took the paper from her quivering fingers, and read it.
+
+“My poor child, it is down in the very depths. I know this wretched
+prisoner. Sometimes, I speak to him, not often; for it is against the
+rules. He is gentle as a lamb.”
+
+“Ah, it is like my father, every one says that.”
+
+“Once,” continued the guard, “but that is a long time ago, his hair was
+yellow and glossy, like yours, but it is white now; his beard is like a
+snow drift, his eyes weak and faded. It is an old, old man you speak of,
+little one.”
+
+“Ah me, I ought to expect that. In darkness and solitude so many
+miserable years, how could he be anything but old! Oh, monsieur, let me
+see him, let me look on my father’s face.”
+
+“See him, poor child, that is impossible.”
+
+Marguerite turned imploringly to Dame Doudel.
+
+“Plead for me, oh, think of some way. The good God did not send me here
+for nothing,” she said, lifting her clasped hands upward.
+
+“It is our child who asks this; our angel child pleading through the
+eyes of this poor girl. Doudel, God ordains it. She must see her
+father,” cried the wife with tears in her eyes.
+
+“But how, dame, how?”
+
+“You must do it, Gaston. There may be danger in it. What then, my
+husband is brave.”
+
+The guard turned his eyes from the kneeling girl to his wife, and
+thoughtfully stroked his beard with one hand. Marguerite held the other
+prisoner.
+
+“Sometimes,” he said, slowly, “the children of the guards come to the
+prison and are let in to the outer court. More seldom I have seen them
+within the draw-bridge. Mademoiselle is so young, and like a child, they
+might think her my own daughter; no one there will remember that she has
+gone away from us forever. It is dangerous, but possible.”
+
+“Wait, wait a minute, while I think,” said the wife, answering her
+husband’s train of thought. “This is what we will do. The governor
+trusts you, Gaston; he will give you privileges.”
+
+“But not that, not that.”
+
+“I know; but he may take an interest in this good child, thinking her
+your daughter. She shall take her flowers to him, make him used to her,
+as she passes in and out of his quarters; then some day she can watch
+her opportunity and steal with you into the lower prison.”
+
+“But this will take time, dame, and may get me into trouble in the end.”
+
+“No, no, I will be cautious; no one shall know. I will die rather than
+bring harm on you,” exclaimed the girl, who had been listening eagerly
+to his words. “Let me once look on my father’s face, and I will bless
+you forever and ever.”
+
+“It is dangerous, and may cost me dear; but who can say no to a child
+who only prays to look on her father?”
+
+“He consents, he consents!” cried Marguerite, flinging up her clasped
+hands in an ecstacy of delight.
+
+“But it must be a secret with us; no human being must be told; a breath
+would destroy us both,” answered the guard, half-frightened by the
+promise he had made.
+
+“She can be dumb. The child who has such courage knows how to keep a
+secret,” answered the dame. “To-morrow, she shall try her fate with the
+governor.”
+
+“That will not be hard,” said the guard, with a grave smile; “he loves
+to have plenty of flowers in the dim rooms of that old fortress, which
+need them enough, and never is severe upon a pretty face. We shall
+manage it—we shall manage it.”
+
+Dame Doudel kissed her husband with the ardor of a sweetheart.
+
+“Ah, you have courage! I knew it, I knew it. Come now, little one, let
+us finish the flowers. Your very first attempt shall be at the
+Bastille.”
+
+Margaret went to her work in an ecstacy of delight; her eyes were on
+fire, and her hands quivered like young birds over their work. She had
+never known what real hope was before. Marguerite lay by her mother’s
+side all that night, wide awake, and restless with thought. On the
+morrow, the great task of her life was to begin. What her mother in her
+experience and strength had failed to accomplish, she must undertake,
+and in her very weakness carry out.
+
+Very early in the morning, the young girl arose, and, after preparing
+the breakfast she had no wish to eat, went forth into the street with
+Dame Doudel’s blessing on her head, and a basket of blooming flowers on
+her arm.
+
+“Remember,” said the good dame as she heaped the basket with flowers,
+“you are our own daughter; your name is Marguerite Doudel; you have just
+begun to help your parents by selling bouquets, and turn first to his
+excellency the governor, who perhaps will let you carry a few violets to
+your father, one of his own faithful guards.”
+
+“I know, I know; there is little danger that I shall forget,” said
+Marguerite, breathless with agitation; and pale as marble, she went
+forth to her great work.
+
+“Will you sell me some of your roses?”
+
+Marguerite had walked some distance from home, forgetful in her intense
+excitement of the character she had assumed, when these words fell on
+her ear, uttered in a sound so sweet and low that the heart in her young
+bosom leaped for the first time to the voice of man. Marguerite stopped
+in her swift walk and lifted her eyes to the speaker, a young man in
+citizen’s dress, which he wore with a grace befitting our best ideas of
+a nobleman. His eyes, soft and deep as a mountain spring, were bent upon
+her in smiling admiration, for the flowers on her arm were scarcely more
+beautiful than Marguerite appeared that morning.
+
+“Will you sell me some of your flowers?” the young man repeated, lifting
+his hat.
+
+Marguerite drew a deep breath, and turned her fascinated eyes from the
+wonderful beauty of that head and face.
+
+“What shall I give you monsieur,” she faltered, trembling all over with
+a sensation of delight that pure soul had never felt before.
+
+“It shall be a white moss rose, I think,” said the young man, “can you
+find one in your basket?”
+
+Marguerite’s hand was instantly searching among her flowers, from whence
+it brought forth a lovely moss rose.
+
+“Will this please monsieur?” she said, holding up the rose by its long,
+flexible stem.
+
+The pallor had left her face then, and a soft bloom came over it, more
+exquisite than a blush. She had forgotten even the Bastille, and her
+father.
+
+“Will it please me, oh yes—one seldom sees two objects so beautiful in a
+day.”
+
+Marguerite cast down her eyes, and the rose shook in her hand. Something
+more sweet and subtle than its breath had entered her heart. The young
+man’s face brightened all over. He took the flower and placed it gently
+between his vest and the snow-white linen that covered his bosom.
+
+“To-morrow it will be withered,” he said; “no matter, your basket will
+be full again then, and I shall not fail to know when you pass this
+way.”
+
+He took a piece of silver from his pocket, and held it irresolutely. It
+seemed like sacrilege to offer money to a delicate creature like that.
+Stealthily, and half-ashamed of the act, he dropped the money into her
+basket.
+
+Marguerite saw the act, and the silver seemed to have fallen upon her
+heart. She looked up with a hot flush overspreading her face, but
+remembering that to sell was her business, dropped her eyes again, and
+instantly their lashes were heavy with tears.
+
+“Good morning, monsieur, I wish the roses were mine to give,” she said,
+moving away almost with a sob.
+
+The young man followed her a step or two, then turned back muttering to
+himself.
+
+“Can it be that the women of our clubs were like that? Is it possible
+that any thing will make her one of them? Does liberty demand that
+women, lovely and gentle as she is, should debase themselves?”
+
+“Ha, St. Just, is it you? We missed your eloquence at the club last
+night.”
+
+The speaker was a low-browed, heavy featured man, ill dressed and
+unwashed, coarse in his person, and rough in his speech.
+
+St. Just lifted his hat, thus unconsciously rebuking the rude manner of
+his companion, which seemed to challenge rather than salute him.
+
+“Good morning, citizen Marat, I was busy elsewhere last night.”
+
+“And especially busy this morning,” answered the demagogue with a coarse
+laugh. “Do not look so black, citizen, or your frown may wither the
+favor in your bosom. A dainty piece of mischief that. We must have her
+at the clubs. How that Theraigne de Merecourt is exiled, there is great
+need of fresh beauty and spirit there.”
+
+St. Just clenched his hand with a sharp desire to knock the brutal man
+down; but checked his wrath, and moved away with absolute loathing.
+
+As Marat stood with a hand on each hip, laughing till his uncombed hair
+shook like a fleece over his shoulders, a young woman came up the
+street, dressed in the loose fashion of her class, and addressed him.
+
+“Who was it, citizen, you were talking with a moment ago?”
+
+“A gentleman whose name I will not give, he carried a white rose in his
+bosom, which I saw him take from the prettiest flower girl you ever saw.
+She has but just passed out of sight.”
+
+“Ha! tell me, for I will know. Was it Mirabeau?”
+
+A malicious pleasure came into the rude face of the demagogue, and he
+answered warily: “You must not tell him that I said so, _citoyenne_
+Brisot, but there is an excuse. The flower girl was so beautiful.”
+
+“Ha! but just passed out of sight, and she went this way. Good morning,
+_citoyen_.”
+
+Fierce and swift the woman left Marat, and threw herself like a hound on
+the track of that poor girl.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XV.
+ IN THE DUNGEONS OF THE BASTILLE.
+
+
+“There is silver for your flowers, and I thank you for bringing the
+first choice here. So you are Doudel’s daughter; I wonder he never gave
+me a sight of you before. A faithful man is Doudel. So you wish to speak
+with him,—have a message from his dame. Well, there is no treason in
+that; few women can pass from this court across the ditch of the
+Bastille; but you shall go with your flowers and brighten the gloomy
+shadows, if that is possible. Ho! there! Pass this girl and her basket
+across the draw-bridge, and find the guard Doudel; he is her father.”
+
+Seldom had an order like that passed from the governor of the Bastille;
+but Marguerite had brought him fresh flowers, of which he was
+passionately fond; and Doudel, one of the oldest of his guards, had been
+faithful to his trust so many years, that it seemed impossible that he,
+or this beautiful young creature who called herself his daughter, could
+be in any way dangerous.
+
+A guard answered this order, and conducted Marguerite down the large
+avenue, which led from the Cour de Gouvernment, to the deep stagnant
+ditch of the Bastille, which coiled itself around that gloomy group of
+towers like some hideous serpent, green and slimy with incessant slow
+creeping.
+
+A huge draw-bridge, with great rusty chains dangling from it, and
+rust-eaten hinges, which shrieked and groaned like living things in
+torment, began to move heavily, and at last fell with all its ponderous
+weight across the ditch, over which the girl, now shivering and white as
+a ghost, walked.
+
+When she had crossed the bridge, which rose groaning behind her, it was
+to pass through a guard house, full of wondering sentinels.
+
+Then a strong barrier of crossed timbers, sheeted with iron, loomed
+before her; and, passing that, she stood in the interior court, bound by
+nine lofty towers linked together with massive stone walls, adown which
+the sunshine never came. These towers, black, weather-stained, and
+hideous in grim antiquity, were pierced here and there with narrow slits
+widening inwards, and crossed with rust-corroded iron bars.
+
+In the dread solitude of this place, the girl was left alone, while her
+guide went in search of Doudel.
+
+The damp dreariness of the court chilled her through and through. In the
+dull gray light, her flowers looked like the ghost of blossoms long
+since dead.
+
+All at once, far above her, she heard a hoarse clangor, as of bells
+clearing the rust from their throats. She looked up, and there, on the
+grim face of the nearest tower, two iron figures, chained to the dial of
+a huge clock, clanked forth the hour. The very soul in that poor girl’s
+body, recoiled from this weird sound. She would gladly have fled from
+the spot, but her limbs shook and refused to move.
+
+At last some one approached, and a voice close behind her said,
+
+“Little one, be still, be cautious, and you shall see him now.”
+
+The blood stirred once more in those young veins. A glow of life rushed
+through the frame that a moment before had seemed chilled to death.
+
+“Come, tread softly, and keep close. It is my turn to visit the lower
+vaults, and for this one minute we are alone. Keep close to the wall,
+then no one can see us from the ramparts. Now be swift and still.”
+
+Doudel spoke in a hoarse whisper; his voice was husky with apprehension.
+A single cry or failure of courage on the part of that frail girl, would
+inevitably plunge him into ruin. He moved close to the foundations of
+the nearest tower, and turned his face back, to make sure that she was
+following him. The face that met his was white as death.
+
+“Do not fear,” she whispered, “I will follow.”
+
+Doudel opened a ponderous door in the wall, and held it while she passed
+through. Then it was closed and they stood together in total darkness,
+but for the time safe from observation. Doudel felt for a lantern in a
+niche of the wall, struck fire from a flint and lighted it. Then he
+moved along a close stone passage, adown which Marguerite could hear the
+great water rats scuttling from the light. Down a flight of steep,
+slippery steps, and along other passages she followed her guide, as it
+seemed to her, into the very depths of the earth; for she could hear the
+waters sweeping and lapsing, as it seemed, above her head, and great
+clammy drops fell down upon her as she walked. It was a weird sight, if
+any one could have witnessed it—that tall man with his lantern, and the
+pale, resolute girl, delicate as a lily, gliding on behind him with that
+basket of bright flowers on her arm.
+
+Doudel sat down his lantern, took a great key from a bunch in his hand,
+and fastened it into the lock of a low iron-studded door, which swung
+backwards into the darkness.
+
+Marguerite heard a faint murmur and a rustling of straw, then a sharp
+cry as Doudel lifted his lantern and threw its light into the cell he
+had opened. She went forward, shivering all over with excitement, and
+looked in.
+
+A man was sitting upon some mouldy straw in a corner of the dungeon,
+holding two thin pallid hands before his eyes, shielding them from the
+sudden glare of the lantern. His beard, long and white, flowed down the
+garments that fell in mouldered and decaying tatters around him. His
+voice was feeble and broken, like that of an old, old man.
+
+Marguerite stood at the door one moment, with this miserable picture
+before her—the grim, dripping walls, the reeking straw, and that shadowy
+man, sitting upon it in pathetic helplessness, uttering his feeble
+protest against the pain of so much light. Then she stole across the
+little space of rocky floor and sunk to her knees by his side.
+
+“Father, father!”
+
+The prisoner hushed his voice and seemed to listen, but still kept both
+hands over his eyes. Marguerite placed her basket on the straw, and the
+breath of her flowers arose to his nostrils. All at once a sob shook his
+bosom, and the thin hands dropped away from his eyes, from which great
+tears of delight were rolling. He looked down upon the blossoms and
+touched them cautiously, with strange gleams of mingled joy and
+distrust.
+
+“They are yours, father,” said Marguerite in sweet, pathetic
+thankfulness, that she had given one ray of joy to that dreary man.
+“Will you not look at me now? I brought them for you.”
+
+The prisoner turned his eyes slowly on the kneeling girl.
+
+“That voice, sweet, like the flowers, comes from a great way off. I have
+dreamed such things before, but that is long ago. Even the dreams have
+left me at last. I suppose this drip, drip of water washed them from my
+brain. But they have come back to me now, and you, you! Why, you were my
+wife then. Don’t move. Don’t turn your eyes. I will not stir my hand.
+Don’t I know how such things fade away when one reaches out his arms.”
+
+“Oh, my father, if you would but touch me, or look into my face. Indeed,
+indeed I am—not your wife—but your child, your own little Marguerite.”
+
+The prisoner shook his head and a mournful smile crept over his wan
+face.
+
+“Now I know what a sweet snare it is; with that name you seek to win me
+to move or cry out; then all would melt away. Why, do you think I have
+forgotten because I am a prisoner? The child, my little Marguerite,
+could just reach my knees. You are—yes, you _are_ like my wife; no
+change, not a whit, since I married her; but you know that cannot be;
+people must grow old; and it is a hundred years since I came here. You
+must understand I can reason. People do grow crazy here sometimes, but I
+can reason yet. That is why dreams do not cheat me; but this is very
+sweet, very, very sweet.”
+
+Here the wretched man stooped forward and seemed to give himself up to
+the perfume of the flowers, weeping softly all the time.
+
+Marguerite looked on in piteous helplessness. At last she reached out
+her arms, clasped them around that bowed neck, and kissed the pallid
+forehead.
+
+A shudder ran through the prisoner. His feeble arms clasped themselves
+around the form that clung to him, and he murmured in a quiet, dreamy
+way:
+
+“Yes, yes; we will not disturb it. This is not the first time you have
+been here, but never, I think, never did you seem so real. Why, I can
+hear your heart beat; your very breath stirs my beard; and there is my
+guard, my good, kind guard, looking on. Does this light come from his
+lantern? Are you a real breathing woman? Tell me, my guard. I know your
+voice. If you will speak to me, I shall believe.”
+
+“My poor friend, it is your daughter; for years and years, she and her
+mother have been searching for you.”
+
+“My daughter, my own little Marguerite!” said the prisoner, holding
+Marguerite back with both hands, that he might look on her face. After
+perusing it eagerly for awhile, he shook his head and sighed heavily.
+
+“Is it her or her mother? I cannot tell them apart, and it wearies me to
+make it out. She was so little, you know.”
+
+“But years have made me a woman, father. You will not love me the less
+for that.”
+
+“Love you less! Why, what have I had to love but your shadow and hers,
+all these years—hundreds on hundreds, I think, only for awhile I lost
+the count.”
+
+“And all these years we have been searching for you. The letter you sent
+us——”
+
+“Hush! hush! we might do that good man harm; even my guard must not know
+of that.”
+
+“He brought me here. He will permit me to come again and again. Now and
+then, I shall send you a little fruit, fresh out of the sunshine.”
+
+The prisoner laughed, and patted her head like a thankful child.
+
+“And a flower which the good Doudel can hide in his bosom. We—mamma and
+I—will think of nothing but you. Some day we shall come with the king’s
+order and take you home with us.”
+
+The prisoner shook his head. The idea of freedom seemed to give him
+little pleasure. Nor did he question about his wife. His feeble memory
+could not disconnect the child in his arms from the woman who was most
+vividly on his mind, as a bride. Marguerite was, from that day, both
+mother and child to that solitary man.
+
+After a while, Doudel went into the passage, and came back with some
+sodden black bread and a pitcher of water, which he placed on the
+dungeon floor, saying gently to Marguerite,
+
+“It will be dangerous to stay longer.”
+
+Marguerite cast her eyes on the repulsive food, and shuddered.
+
+“Not that—not that,” she cried. “Oh God! make us thankful. There is
+something in the bottom of my basket. The good dame put it there, lest I
+should be hungry before my flowers were sold. See, here it is.”
+
+Marguerite thrust her hand eagerly among the flowers, and drew forth a
+tiny loaf of white bread, and two purple figs.
+
+“Take these—take these!” she said, tearing one of the figs apart, and
+holding its juicy pulp to the old man’s lips. “They are fresh; they are
+sweet. Oh! thank God that they were in my basket. See how he eats, how
+he loves them. Oh, my good kind Doudel, was there ever happiness like
+this?”
+
+“I have tasted these before,” said the prisoner, earnestly, pausing a
+moment in his delicious repast, to examine the half devoured fig; “but
+the name—I cannot remember the name.”
+
+“Must we go? Oh! for another ten minutes. It is such pleasure to see him
+eat; but we will come again. Oh, I will be so crafty, so cautious; but
+then it shall not be long now. I will find my way to the king, or be
+trampled to death under the hoofs of his horses.”
+
+“Do not go near the king; he is a hard old man. It was he who put me
+here,” said the prisoner. “No wife or child of mine, shall go near
+enough to look in his evil face.”
+
+“That king is dead long ago,” answered Marguerite. “I should have no
+hope if he was on the throne.”
+
+“Dead! Is he dead, and I living here? Well, well; I cannot understand
+it. Louis the Fifteenth is gone. Then who rules in France?”
+
+“His grandson, who was the Dauphin.”
+
+“And the Queen?”
+
+“Is Marie Antoinette of Austria.”
+
+“Marie Antoinette of Austria?”
+
+A look of wild inquiry, more vivid than anything the prisoner had
+expressed yet, flashed over his face; but Marguerite had no time for
+questions or answers.
+
+Doudel would not give her another moment; so she left the dungeon so
+full of thankfulness, so resolved to set her father free, that the dark
+corridors and gloomy sounds had no terror for her. Her father was a
+reality now. She had seen him—felt his arms around her, fed him with her
+own hands. Yes and she would set him at liberty or die.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVI.
+ THE KING’S work-shop.
+
+
+The thoughts of her father, in that awful dungeon, took entire
+possession of that young girl; all other things became as nothing to
+her. Her new occupation, her old friends, only presented themselves to
+her mind as aids to the one great object. She would go to the king. She
+would obtain freedom for her father, or die at the cruel monarch’s feet.
+
+Marguerite had promised secrecy to Doudel, and could tell her mother
+nothing. The great secret preying on her soul, drove her wild. In her
+impatience she went to Monsieur Jacques, and besought him to find a way
+to the king.
+
+Jacques promised, and fortunately for her, Madame Gosner had fallen ill;
+the reaction of great excitement had left her weak as an infant, so weak
+that she scarcely knew when Marguerite went away, and left her to the
+generous care of Dame Doudel. The next morning, Monsieur Jacques and
+Marguerite presented themselves at the guarded entrance of the palace of
+Versailles. The man was admitted, for he brought a message to the king,
+from a person whom the guard had been ordered to respect. But the poor
+girl was sent away, and she went drearily back to The Swan, a public
+house kept by a sister of Dame Doudel, to whom Marguerite was consigned
+with a kind message.
+
+The palace which Monsieur Jacques entered seemed gloomy to him, in spite
+of its regal splendor; for even then the shadow of coming events was
+gathering around the vast edifice, which the queen herself forsook
+whenever she could get an opportunity, for the freedom and pleasure of
+her bijou of a palace in the great park.
+
+Though France was one grand field of excitement, and had already begun
+to tremble with the moral earthquake that shook it to the very
+foundations, it seemed impossible to convince the court of the awful
+danger that threatened it. The very anxieties of her position drove the
+queen from the distractions of gayety, the gloom that gathered around
+her, made even pleasure tiresome; and it was with an effort that she
+flung off the cares of state, which fell heavily, indeed, on a nature so
+light, so gay, and so womanly as hers.
+
+Our readers have seen Marie Antoinette years ago, and only for a
+moment—the girlish, beautiful, and lovely Dauphiness, burdened with no
+care heavier than that imposed by court etiquette, and anxious only
+about the day’s amusement. They see her again escaping from the
+anxieties that beset St. Cloud and Versailles, striving to bring back
+the light-hearted gayeties of her youth in _La Petite Trianon_, which of
+all places on earth seemed most likely to accomplish that object.
+
+On the day that Marguerite presented herself at the gates of Versailles,
+Marie Antoinette was making one of her rustic sojourns at the little
+palace, while the king, glad to escape from cares equally burdensome,
+had retreated into the private chamber, in which an anvil and a chest of
+tools promised him at least amusement equal to any she could hope for.
+
+It is true that matters of state called for royal attention; that the
+cries of a suffering and impatient people ought to have been heard, even
+among the click of locks and rasping of files; but it was the fault of
+this really good man, that he was always ready to put away troublesome
+cares, and permitted others to think for him, save where, with a
+stubborn sense of right, he would persist on a given point without
+understanding all its relations. Indeed, at this time the burdens of
+state were so heavy, that a greater man might have willingly laid them
+down, even for the primitive employment which Louis loved so well.
+
+That day Louis the Sixteenth was alone in his work-shop. A furnace was
+all aglow in the chimney, and a bench across one of the windows, was
+scattered over with tools. To this bench a vise was attached, and a
+heavy man, somewhat awkward in his movements, was hard at work there.
+His velvet coat, heavy with gold-lace and embroidery, hung across the
+back of a chair, and a diamond star on the breast shot out gorgeous rays
+of light, whenever a fitful flame from the furnace flashed up and
+quivered over it.
+
+No one, to have seen that man working so earnestly at the lock which was
+in the fast grip of that vise, would have believed him capable of
+exasperating a great nation into such crimes as soon left France lying,
+like a monster, saturated with the blood of its own children. His face
+was gentle and serious, a little full and heavy, perhaps, but neither
+wanting in dignity or character. The lace-ruffles had been loosened at
+his wrist, and, with the garment to which they were attached, rolled
+back to his elbows, revealing a strong, rounded arm, white as a woman’s,
+but which was sprinkled with iron-filings. Indeed, this metallic dust
+had fallen over the rich lace on his bosom, and glistened in dark specks
+among the powder of his hair. As he worked, the intricacies of the lock
+seemed to puzzle him; he unscrewed the vise, and examined its
+workmanship with great earnestness. Nothing could be more intelligent or
+patient than his face, as he bent over the work-bench. Again and again
+he attempted to fit the parts together, but something was wrong about
+them, and each attempt proved a failure.
+
+At last he sat down and wiped the perspiration from his face, to all
+appearance resigned to his defeat. He was evidently a man to suffer, to
+endure, but not to trample obstacles under foot. As he sat pondering
+thoughtfully over the disjointed lock, a servant came to the door. The
+king shook the iron-dust from his hands, and turned toward his coat,
+evidently a little ashamed of his undress.
+
+“Sire,” said the man, decorously looking downward, that he might not see
+what his master wished unobserved, “a man has just come from Paris, who
+says that De Witt is taken ill, and sends him to ask your majesty’s
+pleasure. He brings a written recommendation, which states that he is
+trustworthy, and master of his craft. Shall I send him back, or is it
+the royal pleasure that he should be received?”
+
+The king looked at his disjointed lock, hesitated, and at last gave
+orders that the mechanic from Paris should be sent up.
+
+When the door was closed, Louis began to arrange his dress with true
+regal pride. He would rather have been found at a disadvantage by a
+prince of the blood, than discovered wanting in any appendage of royalty
+by this strange mechanic. Directly the work-room door was opened again,
+and a short, stout, and almost uncouth man, presented himself before the
+king. He had evidently been conducted to the room by some private
+entrance, for his hat was left outside, and some attempt had,
+undoubtedly, been made to render his rude toilet presentable since his
+entrance into the chateau.
+
+Rude and strange as this man appeared, he was neither awkward nor
+abashed, but approached the work-bench, and leaning one hand upon it,
+waited to be addressed. There was something manly, and indicative of
+strength, in this attitude, which took the king by surprise; for the
+moment he realized that he was in the presence of one of the people.
+
+“De Witt sent you, and vouches for your faithfulness,” said Louis, more
+embarrassed than his visitor; for at times he was rather ashamed of his
+passion for mechanics.
+
+The locksmith bowed, and his eyes turned on the lock which had been
+taken apart, but all the genius of the king had failed to put it
+together again.
+
+“You see that I have only the power to do mischief,” said Louis, smiling
+pleasantly.
+
+“So the people of France have been bold enough to say,” was the prompt
+answer.
+
+Louis frowned at this bold reply; but directly his brow cleared, and he
+looked earnestly into the man’s face, as if questioning that instead of
+his words.
+
+“The people of France know but little of their king,” he said, gravely;
+“but let us to our work.”
+
+The man again bent his head, and took up the disjointed lock, which was,
+in fact, a new invention, full of complications.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “this is after De Witt’s plan. I have seen it before;
+but here is something I do not understand.”
+
+“Ah!” said Louis, coloring a little, “that is my own improvement.”
+
+The locksmith smiled, examined the new complication well, and nodded his
+head in approval.
+
+“This is really an improvement—but it fits ill; a free use of the file,
+and a screw here, will make the thing perfect.”
+
+The man reached out his hand for a file; but Louis had already flung off
+his coat again, and was fastening a bolt into the vise.
+
+“Give me the file, I see what is lacking,” he said, eagerly. “So you
+like the improvement. De Witt may not be of your opinion. He is not
+willing that the king should be considered so good a craftsman as
+himself. This lock is for the queen’s chamber. I shall present it to her
+myself when it is complete.”
+
+“It will be safe and strong,” said the workman; “delicate, too, for the
+metal is of the best. I put one upon a dungeon of the Bastille after the
+same pattern, lacking the royal improvement; but that was of ponderous
+iron, which is by this time thick with rust.”
+
+The king started as the Bastille was so suddenly mentioned, and, holding
+his file in suspense, looked steadily at his strange instructor.
+
+“You have been in the Bastille, then?”
+
+“Yes, sire; more than once.”
+
+“And you have been in the dungeons?”
+
+“Almost every one of them.”
+
+“And what did you see there?”
+
+“Souls in torment—some of them innocent.”
+
+“You are a bold man,” said Louis, after a brief pause.
+
+“Because I am a true one!”
+
+“And so our commissioners should be; but they give no such report.”
+
+“There it is,” cried the locksmith, with sudden warmth. “There is no one
+to report the wrongs of the people. The ministers are deaf to them; the
+king hears them when their cries have been smothered by
+commissioners—owned by these men. Ah, sire! if you could once go among
+your subjects, see and hear them as I do, France might yet be saved.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVII.
+ THE KING AND THE WORKMAN.
+
+
+The king drew back as if a viper had sprung out from the iron he was
+filing, when the workman who had entered his presence so strangely made
+this direct appeal. Anger, astonishment, and something like
+consternation, rose to his face. Perhaps a King of France had never been
+addressed in such language before by a man of the people. The fact
+seemed incredible, even to the kindest and least exacting monarch of his
+race.
+
+“Who is it that dares use words like these to the king?” he said, at
+length, drawing his heavy figure up with dignity.
+
+“One who loves his king better than anything on earth, save France,” was
+the reply given firmly, but with profound respect.
+
+“Our grandfather used to say that the king _was_ France,” answered
+Louis, so impressed by the earnestness of the man that he forgot, for
+the moment, his low origin.
+
+“A good king, who loves his people as fathers love their children, might
+say this, and ask God’s blessing upon it. Ah, sire! it is in this spirit
+the people would recognize their sovereign: let him represent France in
+his own person; let him open his heart to their love, his mind to their
+great needs, his hand to help them; and no monarch ever lived who would
+be worshiped like Louis the Sixteenth. Oh! think of this when the proud
+men who surround you seek to crowd back the people from your presence.”
+
+The locksmith fell upon his knees as he spoke, and clasping his hard
+hands, held them up, quivering with emotion; for, brave as he was, this
+interview with the king, face to face, shook his stout frame from head
+to foot.
+
+Louis stood up proudly above him—for that moment the man was striving
+nobly against all the traditions and prejudices of the monarch. He was
+angry that any human being should dare to address him with the manner
+and words used by this workman, whom he now thought had gained access to
+his presence by a strategem. But the humble position and absolute
+bravery of the man awoke more generous feelings in the really good heart
+of the monarch. After the first rush of angry surprise, he rested one
+hand on the work-bench, and said almost smiling,
+
+“Stand upon your feet, my good friend, and for once let me hear from my
+people directly through one of their number. If you are, indeed, what
+your appearance indicates, a worker in iron, and nothing more, even
+though your craft has been used as a device, I will forgive it. Speak
+the truth, and that fearlessly, as if this were your work-shop, and not
+mine.”
+
+This speech, so different to what the man expected, took all his
+presence of mind away. Anger he could have borne; danger he was prepared
+for; but this generous composure took him unawares. He began to tremble
+with a rush of strong emotions; once or twice the rough hand was drawn
+across his eyes. When he did speak, his voice was low and broken.
+
+“My king, I thank you.”
+
+Louis smiled. He liked the generous homage betrayed in this rude
+emotion, better than the position this man had just left at his feet.
+
+“Speak frankly. We will leave our work for awhile, and learn if you are
+as well skilled in state craft as in this other, of which you, indeed,
+seem to be master. Half an hour ago this lock was chaotic fragments of
+iron, which puzzled my poor brain sadly. Now it is almost compact, its
+bolts slide with a touch of the key—all its parts are in harmony. Tell,
+if you have the knowledge, can my kingdom be so arranged?”
+
+“Not with its present workmen,” answered the smith, resuming all his
+powers of mind; “never while the nobility hedge their king in from the
+common people as with a wall of granite. Sire, sire, old traditions are
+melting away, the people are losing their reverence for the greatness
+which has for generations set its heel upon them. They begin to
+understand that labor has its privileges, and should not forever be
+taxed that arrogance and idleness may become more powerful, and only use
+that power for oppression. They want the King of France to be the
+monarch of all the people of France, not of a privileged class.”
+
+“That is, they desire the king to commence a revolution, and begin it by
+despoiling himself of power, and his court of rights hereditary since
+the foundations of the monarchy. By what excuse can he wrest privileges
+from one class and distribute them to another?”
+
+“By the right of humanity he should do it, and human progress will give
+him the power. Those vast privileges were secured to the nobility in the
+ignorance of the many and grasping ambition of the few. Then physical
+might ruled supreme, and the people were in fact serfs; now mind,
+thought, energy, are at work through the masses. They begin to feel the
+great strength that lies in numbers; they clamor for a share of God’s
+blessings. Yes, sire, a spirit of revolution is abroad among the people
+who love their king, and ask him to be at the head of a grand reform.”
+
+Louis listened gravely, while troubled shadows settled upon his face. He
+felt dimly all the truth that lay in his strange visitor’s words, but
+still more clearly the formidable powers opposed against them. Nobility
+clinging to the rights which, in fact, upheld his throne; the clergy,
+which in no country ever loosened its grasp on wealth or power without a
+death-struggle—all were to be braved and despoiled in behalf of a people
+of whom he, personally, knew nothing, and for whom his sympathies had
+never been thoroughly enlisted. The people, had, in fact, never
+approached their king, save in clamorous multitudes, or in committees,
+that sometimes appealed to his reason, seldom to his sympathies.
+
+The most difficult man to deal with in the world is one of just mind and
+kind heart, who, holding power, has not the mental force and stern will
+necessary to its vigorous execution. To such men half-measures are sure
+to present themselves, and as certain to prove inadequate to the
+occasion when great difficulties are to be overcome. Indeed, it is
+seldom that they thoroughly understand the danger until it is upon them.
+
+This was true with regard to Louis the Sixteenth. It required a gigantic
+mind even to comprehend the dangers that had each year crowded closer
+and closer to his throne; and he had no ministers capable of giving him
+thorough enlightenment, because they did not themselves understand these
+terrible signs of the future.
+
+Was it strange, then, that he received the suggestions of this singular
+man with astonishment; that his kind heart swelled to his rude
+eloquence, and he felt, for the time, ready to lead his people on to the
+broader liberty they asked for?
+
+Was it strange, either, that while the man was talking, the influences
+which had surrounded the king for life came back and stifled the
+generous impulse? He knew that in order to benefit a class of which he
+knew little, he must first enter into bitter contest with those who had
+been the friends and supporters of his house since it was royally
+planted on the throne!
+
+“These are vast questions, and involve much which my people do not
+understand,” said Louis, a little impatiently; for if his reason had not
+been convinced, it certainly was disturbed. “I am not sorry, even in
+this way, to meet one of the people who dares to speak the truth. Had it
+been a courtier, now, or even a minister, who ventured so far, I am not
+sure that he would have been a stranger to our prison of the Bastille
+to-morrow morning.”
+
+The locksmith shuddered.
+
+“Ah! that fearful prison, sire, planted in the very heart of Paris, it
+has become so hateful to the people, that they mutter curses on it in
+passing.”
+
+“That bespeaks them unreasoning and factious. Nations that build up
+thrones, at the same time lay the foundation of prisons; crime must be
+punished that the people may live. The palace in which I stand is not
+more an appendage of royalty than the prison of the Bastille.”
+
+Louis spoke the truth; despotism had no monument more closely allied to
+itself than the Bastille. It had so long been an appendage to royalty,
+that no king, not even the kind-hearted Louis, ever thought of its
+horrors, save as necessary to the punishment of those who were
+considered as his enemies.
+
+“Sire,” answered the locksmith, turning pale under the memories that
+crowded upon him, “I have been in the Bastille, and know all the horrors
+of its dungeons. Has any man ever told your highness of the deep, fetid
+caves and cells that are dug to a level with the common-sewers of the
+city, where men born, perhaps, to luxury, have to struggle with toads,
+rats, and every species of foul vermin, for the privilege of breathing
+the pestilential air? Have they told you of strong men chained by the
+waist to walls reeking with slime, till they become little better than
+skeletons; when the rusty girdles were unclasped, and they were carried,
+in the dead of night, to the cemetery of St. Paul, and buried without
+name and without record, save some rude inscription scratched upon the
+walls of a dungeon by the rusted nail, which some poor wretch had
+hoarded as a treasure?”
+
+The king turned white as the man who addressed him with such passion and
+power, that the picture of the Bastille seemed to loom up, and cast its
+gaunt shadows over them both.
+
+“Have they told you of this cruel man, Latude, crawling back and forth,
+like some wild animal, on those ponderous rope ladders, by which he
+descends the grim towers, and swings himself to the earth? Do the dainty
+commissioners, who go once each year to examine this place of horrors,
+tell the king of these things, and can he still say that this monster
+pile is an appendage of the throne?”
+
+The king made a gesture with his hands, and turned away, as if this
+description revolted him. But the locksmith had plunged into the subject
+with all the fierce energy of a man so completely in earnest, that he
+lost all sense of the rank and power of his auditor.
+
+“And if these enormities exist now under a monarch that all men know to
+be good and merciful, what must it have been when men less gracious held
+sway over the palaces and prisons of France? How many generations of
+Frenchmen have moaned, and suffered, and perished, under those black
+towers? How many innocent hearts have broken in despair? What oceans of
+rageful tears have been spent in vain! How many heads have been dashed
+against those pitiless stones? It stands there yet! Ay, king, it stands
+there yet! Innocent men are even now buried within its walls, sent there
+in the wantonness or cruelty of your grandfather—not many, not many.
+They do not live so long in the Bastille; but that old man——”
+
+“Silence, I command you!” broke forth the king, pale with agitation,
+trembling with anger.
+
+The locksmith dropped his uplifted arm, the word upon his lip broke in
+an angry sob.
+
+“Sire, forgive me! I was standing in that awful prison. I heard the
+moans of agonized men coming up from under my feet; I heard the clank of
+chains, and saw such sights. Sire, forgive, or punish me; I, who have no
+self-command, and should claim little mercy.”
+
+The king sat down and wiped away the beaded drops from his forehead; his
+breath came unevenly, his white hands shook.
+
+“Tell me, in one word—is what you have said the truth?”
+
+The locksmith fell upon his knees, and again held up his clasped hands.
+
+“As heaven sees me, sire, every word I have uttered is a terrible
+truth.”
+
+“And for this I am responsible!” said the king, as if speaking to
+himself. “It shall be remedied! It shall be remedied! Good man, I thank
+you! It is seldom that a monarch hears the truth, when it cuts him to
+the heart like this. I can listen to no more,” he added, lifting his
+hand as the locksmith opened his lips to speak. “Some other time you
+shall come to me again, but not here. I had hoped in this place to
+escape from all cares of state; but I do not complain. You have
+performed the duty of a good citizen, and have the king’s gratitude.
+Mark me, when the people say that Louis is inaccessible to his subjects,
+tell them that he not only sees them, but listens to painful truths
+without anger, when they are honestly told. Some day hereafter I may
+need you as a medium between me and the people, for whom you plead so
+boldly.”
+
+The locksmith bent his head in deeper reverence than he had yet given to
+the monarch.
+
+“When I entered the gates of Versailles, sire, my heart went out first
+to the people of France, then to the king. I go away with them united so
+firmly in my love, that death itself shall not tear them apart.”
+
+The locksmith laid one hand on his breast as he said this, bent low, and
+turned to quit the room. Louis recalled him.
+
+“Your name, citizen?”
+
+“They know me as ‘Monsieur Jacques’ in the city.”
+
+“Leave that and your address with the guard as you go out. You may be
+wanted.”
+
+“At the gate!” These words seemed to arrest the man, and he turned
+suddenly. But the king had arisen, and was leaving the room by another
+door. Whatever Monsieur Jacques wished to say was thus rendered
+impossible; and he left the work-room with a baffled and dejected look.
+This was the second time he had represented De Witt, the locksmith, very
+successfully; but he could hardly hope to gain access to the king in
+that way again; and in the excitement of his patriotism, he had utterly
+forgotten the most immediate object of his visit until it was too late.
+
+“Heaven forgive me! It will break her heart! And he would have done it—I
+am sure he would have done it!” exclaimed the noble-hearted man who had
+forgotten everything in his love of France.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XVIII.
+ THE LANDLADY AND THE WHITE HENS.
+
+
+All that morning a young girl sat in the parlor of a little public house
+in the town of Versailles, waiting with such impatience as can only be
+felt by anxious youth, for the appearance of Monsieur Jacques.
+
+“Have no fear,” he had said, in going out with a box of tools in his
+hand. “I shall see the king, and so plead with him that you will read my
+good news on my face at the first sight. Perhaps I shall have managed to
+get an interview for yourself; so keep a brave heart, and watch for me
+at the little window yonder.”
+
+She had watched, poor child, until the minutes seemed turning into
+hours, until her eyes grew dim, and her heart faint; for one moment hope
+grew strong in her bosom; the next a pang of dread would seize upon her,
+and she longed to flee away and hide herself from the disappointment
+which seemed sure of coming.
+
+As she sat looking wearily through the window, the landlady came into
+the room once or twice, and, standing close by her, looked through the
+upper panes into the street, as if in expectation of some one.
+Marguerite lifted her eyes to this woman’s face anxious for sympathy,
+for it was a sister of Dame Doudel who kept the house. But the good
+woman was that moment filled with anxiety on her own account.
+
+“Ah! here he comes a third time, and all for nothing!” exclaimed the
+woman, excitedly. “As if little hens, with wings and bosoms like snow,
+could be picked up in a minute. I dare say the queen thinks such things
+are hatched full-grown. Good morning, monsieur. Good morning once again!
+No better news!”
+
+“What, nothing yet, and her majesty so impatient?”
+
+“Ah! you know it sometimes happens that nature will have her own way in
+spite of the queen.”
+
+“Then nature is full of rank treason,” answered the man, who stepped
+across the threshold, and threw himself into a seat where he could stare
+at Marguerite more conveniently. “Your daughter, dame, I suppose, and a
+demoiselle worth looking at. Where have you kept her till now?”
+
+“We were talking about hens, monsieur, not about daughters; but you are
+mistaken, I have no child—though this pretty creature does remind me of
+a niece who is in her grave. Do not blush, child, for she was good as
+well as beautiful.”
+
+“And this one is beautiful, let her be good or not,” muttered the man,
+who wore a royal livery, and seemed to assume great authority thereat.
+
+Marguerite turned her face away, and looked out of the window more
+earnestly than ever; for she heard the remark, and those bold, searching
+eyes annoyed her.
+
+“Well, monsieur, step this way,” said the woman.
+
+“No, I will wait here,” answered the man, crossing his feet on the
+floor, and stretching himself into an easy position.
+
+“But it is no use to wait; the thing you want cannot be found in the
+whole town. I have sent to the market in Paris, and among the farmers in
+the country. Perhaps one will come in, but it may not be for a week.”
+
+The man changed his position a little and laughed.
+
+“Oh! I prefer to wait awhile,” he answered.
+
+“Then mademoiselle will, perhaps, walk upstairs?” said the woman. “Other
+windows than this overlook the street.”
+
+Marguerite arose, blushing deeply, and cast a grateful look on the
+landlady who was so kindly attempting to shield her from this man’s
+impertinent admiration.
+
+“Pardon, I would not incommode any one for the world, so will take
+myself off at once. But you have not yet divined my whole business. I
+was ordered to summon the good dame herself to the little palace.”
+
+“What, me? No, no! There is some mistake.”
+
+“Not at all. Her majesty is in a dilemma.”
+
+“That is not unlikely,” muttered the landlady. “It seems to me that all
+France is in a dilemma.”
+
+“She has discovered that none of her ladies know how to make butter.”
+
+“To make butter?”
+
+“Exactly. Thus you can understand all the choice cows that live so
+daintily around the Swiss cottages are a sad reproach. Her majesty knows
+how to set the cream; but when it comes to churning butter, that is
+beyond her. Not even the Princess Lambella or Madame Campan can aid her
+in that, clever as they are.”
+
+The landlady laughed, holding her side with both hands.
+
+“I should think not—I should think not,” she said, at length rocking
+herself to and fro in jovial enjoyment of this absurd idea. “What have
+court ladies to do with useful things like that?”
+
+“So this is one reason that I am sent here. You are wanted, dame, quite
+as much as the white hen.”
+
+“Me! Wanted for what?”
+
+“This is it. Her highness, the queen, desires a perfect dress, and sends
+for a _modiste_ to superintend her toilet. In the same way she wants
+golden butter from a herd of the most beautiful cows in the world—butter
+of her own making, remember; but is compelled to send for the mistress
+of The Swan, who will now put on her shawl and proceed to one of the
+Swiss cottages, to which I shall have the honor of conducting her. It is
+her majesty’s order.”
+
+Still the landlady laughed; she was half flattered, half incredulous.
+The idea that she was summoned to teach the queen was too astonishing
+for belief.
+
+“Monsieur has had his little joke,” she said, doubtfully.
+
+“But it is no joke. I come by the queen’s order to demand your
+attendance.”
+
+“Monsieur, if you trifle with me, I shall be angry.”
+
+“And with good cause. But I do not trifle.”
+
+“And you wish me to go?”
+
+“At once.”
+
+“But it is a long walk.”
+
+“Look through the window, and you will see that her majesty has made
+provision for this difficulty.”
+
+The landlady leaned over Marguerite and saw that a calashe, drawn by a
+pair of fine horses, stood outside. Her eyes brightened; she nodded her
+head and began to untie her apron.
+
+“Monsieur shall not be made to wait,” she said. “It is not every woman
+who can say that the queen has sent for her.”
+
+Just as the delighted woman went out of one door, Monsieur Jacques came
+in at the other, stooping forward dejectedly, and turning his eyes away
+from Marguerite, as if afraid to look her in the face.
+
+Marguerite started as he came in, and clasped her hands; but when she
+saw his face, her fingers fell slowly apart, and she sunk back in her
+chair moaning unconsciously.
+
+“Do not punish me with that look!” exclaimed the unhappy man, drawing
+close to her in deep humiliation; “I have betrayed you, and left my
+errand unfulfilled, but it came out of my love of France. In my insane
+enthusiasm I forgot you, and everything else, when a little moderation
+would have won all. Can you forgive me?”
+
+Marguerite lifted her great blue eyes to his face, and he felt their
+mournful reproach tremble through his heart.
+
+“And you did not see him?” she said.
+
+“Yes, I saw him, and forgot you—everything else but France and its
+sufferings.”
+
+“Ah, me! and I had hoped so much.”
+
+“It is I—your best friend—who have betrayed you.”
+
+“But is the opportunity entirely lost? We may never again be so near the
+king. He is in the palace; oh! if I could obtain entrance! Tell me, sir,
+is it possible?”
+
+Marguerite addressed the queen’s messenger, who sat with his legs
+crossed, regarding her with smiling interest.
+
+“Is what impossible, mademoiselle?”
+
+“That I can gain one minute’s speech with the king?”
+
+“Utterly impossible, I should say!”
+
+Marguerite dropped into her chair with a look of broken-hearted
+disappointment, which cut Monsieur Jacques to the soul.
+
+“It is I that have done it,” he said desperately. “I who would rather
+have perished.”
+
+“Are you her father?” inquired the queen’s messenger, with interest.
+
+“Her father? No!”
+
+“Her friend, then?”
+
+“No, I am her worst enemy. Ask her.”
+
+“Indeed he is not,” cried Marguerite. “We expected him to accomplish
+impossible things, and he could not—for this he condemns himself.”
+
+“Is it that you so much desire an interview with the king?”
+
+“No,” answered Monsieur Jacques. “It is I who have thrown an interview
+away—wasted it in complaints and invectives, when I should have been
+pleading for mercy.”
+
+“That is a misfortune!” said the messenger, striding up and down the
+door, “a great misfortune, but not, perhaps without its remedy.”
+
+Marguerite turned her eyes upon him. He met the look of wild entreaty,
+and paused in his walk.
+
+“To get an interview with the king is beyond my managing; but her
+majesty keeps no state just now. I could almost venture to——”.
+
+Marguerite started up, her sweet face on fire with sudden hope.
+
+“Take me to the queen—take me to the queen, and I will bless you
+forever,” she pleaded.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XIX.
+ THE SWISS COTTAGE.
+
+
+“What is this? Who is it that is begging and praying to see her majesty?
+My young friend here, with the mournful eyes? Why not? If I had a
+daughter now, she should follow me into her presence, and look on while
+I give her majesty a lesson. Not having the daughter, why not take this
+pretty pigeon under my wing? What say you, monsieur? They could only
+refuse to let her in, and no great harm done?” cried the landlady,
+entering the room in haste.
+
+“I was about to propose as much,” answered the queen’s messenger, upon
+whom the landlady had borne down with this burst of eloquence as she
+entered the room, equipped for an excursion.
+
+“You will consent,” cried Marguerite, turning from one to the other in
+breathless anxiety; “you will let me go?”
+
+“Look in her face now, and say if she is not enough like me to pass for
+my own child. Blue eyes, hair with a dash of gold in it—that is before
+mine turned to silver; a nice trim waist, such as mine was not so very
+long ago—in fact, the girl is patterned after me, and I have a mind to
+run some risk for her, especially as it will please my good sister
+Doudel, and monsieur seems willing.”
+
+Marguerite clasped her hands and turned her beaming face on Monsieur
+Jacques.
+
+“You will not leave me? Wait till I come back. It is best that we appeal
+to the queen. Had it been otherwise you would never have forgotten.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques came out of his dejection. The thoughtfulness and hope
+in that sweet face inspired him.
+
+“Go,” he said, “I will follow you. When fate closes one door, she opens
+another.”
+
+“It is not fate, Monsieur Jacques, but our Lady; I was praying to her
+all the time you were out.”
+
+A curt smile died on Monsieur Jacques’ lips. He was beginning to have
+very little reverence for “our Lady” or any other being, human or
+divine; but the most irreligious man prefers to find devotion in the
+woman he loves; so this stout democrat stifled the sneer that had almost
+curved his lip, and bent his massive head in homage to the simple piety
+in which he did not believe.
+
+“Now,” said the dame, taking Marguerite by the arm in cordial
+good-humor, and marching toward the carriage with a stir and bustle,
+which would have drawn the attention of passers-by, had the royal livery
+been insufficient to produce that effect, “you shall see what power the
+mistress of The Swan has at court. There, climb up over the front wheel,
+while some one brings me a stool. Thank you, monsieur; it is not that I
+am unable to mount the wheel as she does, but my shoe is a little tight.
+There, let me rest my hand on your shoulder—it helps famously. Oh! here
+we are, comfortable as birds in a nest. Now for a swinging ride through
+the town.”
+
+They had a swinging ride, and a handsome man, in royal livery, attending
+them on horseback. More than that—a stout, hardy working man tramped
+after on foot, resolved to keep his charge in sight, if vigorous walking
+would do it. But the queen’s horses were full of fire, and soon left
+Monsieur Jacques toiling in the mud far behind, while they dashed toward
+the _Petite Trianon_, fairly taking Marguerite’s breath away.
+
+The carriage stopped, the attendant dismounted and opened the door.
+Directly the portly person of our hostess of The Swan was safely planted
+in front of a rustic gate which led to a _bijou_ of a Swiss cottage,
+fanciful as a fairy dwelling in its construction, sheltered by the green
+old trees that spread out from the Park, and surrounded by grass that
+grew greener and thicker than could be found elsewhere, upon which a
+drove of choice white cows were feeding luxuriously.
+
+The landlady turned as she touched the earth, and held out her two stout
+arms, as if Marguerite had been an infant who claimed her help. But the
+young girl scarcely touched the kindly offered arms. She sprang to the
+earth in breathless haste, white to the lips, trembling in every limb.
+Her friend gave a nod of encouragement, over her shoulder, and led the
+way toward the cottage.
+
+A beautiful woman came to the door, and looked out; a merry laugh was on
+her lips; her large eyes were bright as sunshine. A dress of brown
+stuff, looped up from a blue underskirt of the same material, gave
+piquancy and grace to a figure, which had the rare beauty of perfect
+womanhood. A dainty little cap was tied over an abundance of rich brown
+hair, in which there seemed to be a slight grey tinge; but, on a closer
+view, this tinge was produced by traces of powder, which could not be
+entirely brushed from tresses so habitually accustomed to its use.
+
+The lady spoke a few words, still laughing, to some one within the
+cottage; then two or three other faces crowded into the background, and
+bright eyes glowed out upon the portly figure of Dame Tillery, as she
+came up the walk, almost concealing the slight figure of Marguerite, who
+came trembling behind her.
+
+The women of France were a brave, outspoken class even when they came in
+contact with all the exclusiveness of a court. When the people and the
+nobility met, face to face, honest truths were often spoken, which could
+not have been palatable to king or courtier. Of this fearless class,
+Dame Tillery was a superior specimen. She walked with something like
+dignity, toward the cottage; the heavy shawl folded over her ample bosom
+neither rose nor fell, with a quickened breath: a bland smile was on her
+face. She was pleased to be summoned, but in no way embarrassed.
+
+“My queen!” said the Dame, addressing the lady in the door-way, “you
+have sent for me, and I have come.”
+
+Dame Tillery looked at the white hand, which lay in beautiful relief
+against the brown dress, as if she longed to kiss it.
+
+Marie Antoinette smiled, and held out her hand, about which the sweet
+smell of milk still lingered.
+
+“Ah, dame! we are in sad trouble,” she said, laughing pleasantly. “The
+cream is obstinate to-day, or we are sadly ignorant. It is delightful to
+see how helpless we all are. Here is Madame Campan breaking her heart.”
+
+“If your highness permit——”
+
+“Nay, dame, there is no highness here, remember. All that is left
+behind, at Versailles. It is only a company of dairy-women, more
+ignorant of their business than is proper. As a dame of experience we
+have sent for you.”
+
+“Yes, your—That is, certainly; I have some experience.”
+
+“And discretion,” rejoined Marie Antoinette, looking anxious for the
+moment, and scanning Dame Tillery’s face with a clear, keen glance, with
+which the queen sometimes examined those who approached her.
+
+“And discretion, if that means silence,” answered the dame.
+
+Once more the careless light came back to the queen’s face; and throwing
+off the thoughtfulness which had made her appear ten years older, she
+turned and entered the cottage.
+
+“Madame, your highness, can my companion come in also?”
+
+Marie Antoinette frowned and regretted the step she had taken. She was
+evidently annoyed by this constant appeal to her royalty.
+
+“Ah! your daughter. Yes, yes, let her come in. She, too, may be able to
+teach us something.”
+
+Marguerite, in a wondering way, knew that she was in the presence of the
+queen. She would have spoken, but the words died on her lips, for the
+frank, smiling woman who met them so cordially, had been in an instant
+transformed into a creature of evident power; her frown was ominous as
+her smile was bright; but Marie Antoinette was a creature of wonderful
+variability, and almost on the instant took up her _role_ of dairy-maid.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XX.
+ ROYAL MILKMAIDS.
+
+
+Marguerite followed Dame Tillery into the cottage. A confused sound of
+voices, and low bursts of laughter met them at the threshold, and with
+this was mingled the tinkling sound of metal-pans jarring against each
+other, and the patter of high-heeled shoes upon the wooden door of a
+room beyond.
+
+“Put aside your hood and shawl, dame,” said the queen; “you are wanted
+at once.”
+
+Dame Tillery took off her outer garments, and drawing an apron of white
+linen from her pocket, tied it around her stout waist with the air of a
+woman about to perform some important duty, then she entered the room
+which seemed so full of merriment, as if it had been her own parlor in
+The Swan Hotel.
+
+The room was a singular one; the floor was of dark walnut, and entirely
+uncarpeted. Along one end ran a range of shelves, cut from thin slabs of
+marble, on which pans, some silver, some of white porcelain, were
+arranged in rows. These pans were full of milk, on which the cream was
+mantling richly. Pails of almost snow-white wood, hooped and mounted
+with silver, hung on brackets against the opposite wall. At a long,
+marble table, which occupied the center of the room, stood two or three
+pans of milk, with a long, porcelain dish half full of thick cream. Two
+or three ladies were by the table busy at work, but laughing, chatting,
+and making merry over their labor, as if they had been accustomed to it
+all their lives.
+
+One, a little, plump woman, with blue eyes, and a round, pleasant face,
+had rolled her sleeves to the elbows, and drawn the skirt of her dress
+through the pocket-holes, while she skimmed the cream from one of the
+pans, and dropped it into the long, porcelain dish preparatory for
+churning. A fair young girl, habited in like rustic fashion, but with a
+good deal of blue in her dress, was washing milk-pans at a marble sink
+in one corner of the room; while a piquant little lady, with red ribbons
+in her cap, stood ready with a long, white towel, with which she
+polished the pans into brightness.
+
+The person who washed these pans was Elizabeth, the king’s sister; the
+lady who received them was the Princess Lambella—but all titles were
+ignored in this rustic retreat, and each highborn lady went by her
+simple name.
+
+“See, Dame Campan, I have brought a person here who will set us all
+right,” cried the queen, introducing Dame Tillery, with mischievous
+laughter in her eyes.
+
+The lady, who was skimming milk, dropped her hand to the edge of the
+pan, and turned her pleasant eyes on the landlady.
+
+“Ah! I dare not go on with my work,” she said, laughing merrily; “that
+is, with any one who understands it better than I do standing by.”
+
+“No wonder,” answered Dame Tillery, going up to the table and taking the
+skimmer from the plump, little hand that held it. “Why, you are ladling
+out more milk than cream; and that makes sour butter.”
+
+With a subtle turn of her wrist, the landlady glided the skimmer between
+the strata of golden cream and impoverished milk with a dexterity that
+separated them entirely.
+
+“There,” she said, allowing the rich mass to glide into the dish, “that
+is the way to skim a pan of milk.”
+
+“Ah! what a bungler I have been!” exclaimed Madame Campan, clasping her
+hands in mimic humiliation; “but I can never do it like that.”
+
+The landlady laughed, and stood with a hand resting on either hip, while
+Campan made an effort to imitate her dexterity; but that moment the
+queen called her away. She stood by a tall churn of spotless wood,
+mounted with silver and with the dasher grasped in both hands, called
+out,
+
+“Come hither, landlady—come hither! Dame Capet stands in more need of
+help than any one. This churn is obstinate as a mule. See how it has
+bespattered my dress.”
+
+Certainly, there did seem to be cause for the queen’s complaint, for
+little rivulets of cream were running down the side of the churn, and a
+shower of drops hung like pearls upon her white arms and her dress;
+while she worked so vigorously with the dasher that her cheeks were one
+glow of roses, and her eyes sparkled brighter than all the diamonds she
+had ever worn.
+
+“What is it that makes the cream grow thinner and thinner the more I
+beat it?”
+
+Dame Tillery took the dasher from those beautiful hands, lifted the lid
+of the churn, and examined its contents with wistful interest. Then she
+drew a fancy milking stool towards her, sat down upon it, and holding
+the churn between her knees, began to agitate the cream with a slow rise
+and fall of the dasher, which would have irritated Marie Antoinette with
+its dull monotony.
+
+“There, there! let me try!” she exclaimed, all impatience. “It is easy
+enough.”
+
+She took the dasher, while Dame Tillery moved her stool back and looked
+on. A few moments the rise and fall of the dasher was slow and cautious;
+but after a little, the impulsive character of the queen broke into
+action. A shower of snowy drops flashed upward, the lid was knocked one
+side and then the other, frothing cream dashed tumultuously against the
+sides of the churn, and everything was in commotion again.
+
+“There, you see! You see nothing can be more obstinate. I have been
+following your method perfectly, but it comes to this.”
+
+“Nay,” answered the dame, resting an elbow on each knee, as a broad,
+genial smile swept her face, “it is because you try too much. Slow and
+sure—slow and sure is a good maxim, both on the farm and at court.”
+
+“Hush! we have no such thing as court here, good woman,” whispered a
+tall, dark lady, who had just come in. She was in a rustic dress, like
+the rest; but Dame Tillery instantly recognized her as a lady of the
+royal household. “Dame Capet has no knowledge of the queen, remember
+that.”
+
+Marie Antoinette had relinquished her hold of the dasher.
+
+“It takes away my breath,” she said, moving toward a window and looking
+out.
+
+Dame Tillery drew the chum between her knees again, and went on with her
+monotonous work. Marguerite came and leaned upon her chair; she was very
+pale, and her eyes shone with suppressed anxiety.
+
+“Tell me,” she whispered, “is this lady, in truth, the queen?”
+
+“In truth she is,” answered the dame, suspending the motion of her
+dasher a moment.
+
+“And if I speak to her?”
+
+“Speak to her! Ah! now I remember, it was something more than a wish to
+see how royal ladies can amuse themselves, that made you so anxious to
+come.”
+
+“It was life or death—nothing less.”
+
+“So serious as that? I am sorry for it. Of all places in the world, this
+is the last for such things. The queen and her ladies came here to
+escape them.”
+
+“I see. It is almost hopeless; but I must speak.”
+
+“Not yet—wait a little. I will watch for an opportunity. Go to the other
+window yonder, and tell me what they are all looking at.”
+
+Marguerite went quietly to the window, and saw a drove of cows coming up
+from their pasture in the Park, beautiful creatures, with coats like
+velvet, and coal-black horns curving inward like cimeters.
+
+A group of young men, wearing blouses and ribbons upon their hats, were
+driving the cows, all laughing, chatting, and making the air riotous
+with mirth. Marguerite saw one or two of these young men go up to the
+window, around which the inmates of the room were grouped.
+
+“It is of no use inviting us out,” said Marie Antoinette to a young man
+who protested, with grave earnestness, that the cows suffered for want
+of milking. “We have our own duties to perform first; so, my Lord de ——,
+I beg ten thousand pardons, my gentle herdsman; you must watch and wait
+a little longer.”
+
+“But how long, Dame Capet? My companions are getting impatient of their
+idleness.”
+
+The Princess Elizabeth ran out of the room, and returned with a sickle
+in each hand, which she held out of the window with a demure smile.
+
+“Let them cut grass for the cows,” she said, “while we go on with our
+butter-making.”
+
+The young Duke de Richelieu, for it was no less a person, took the
+sickles, and tossing one to the feet of his companion, fell upon his
+knees beneath the window, and made an awkward attempt at cutting the
+grass.
+
+The ladies at the window burst into shouts of mellow laughter, and
+smoothing their aprons, went to work again like so many dairy-maids.
+
+“Now,” said Marie Antoinette, approaching the churn, “I will be more
+obedient.”
+
+She took the dasher between her hands, and continued the slow, steady
+motion, which seemed so easy to Dame Tillery. The work had almost been
+done in her hands. Directly she saw the ridges of cream that gathered in
+a circle about the dasher divide off into particles, while the rejected
+milk flowed in thin bluish drops back to the churn.
+
+“It has come!” exclaimed Dame Tillery, with mild triumph.
+
+“What has come?” demanded her pupil, astonished to hear a liquid-splash
+come up from the churn, instead of a mellow sound, half-smothered in the
+richness of the cream, which her dasher had all the time produced.
+
+“What has come? Your, your —— My pretty dame! why, the butter, of
+course. You can hear it floating in lumps against the dasher.”
+
+“Butter! and I have really made it! Oh! how delicious, Campan. Elizabeth
+Polignac, come and see your Capet in her glory. Butter of her own
+churning—golden butter, sweet as violets, and such quantities! Look!
+look!”
+
+The queen lifted the lid of her churn, and a swarm of pretty women
+crowded around it.
+
+“Oh! this is something like!” exclaimed one.
+
+“Superb!” cried another. “But how are we to get it out?”
+
+“Bring a dish,” said Dame Tillery, whose portly figure seemed to swell
+and broaden under a consciousness of superior knowledge. “Bring a dish,
+little one.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXI.
+ DAME TILLERY TEACHES THE COURT AN ACCOMPLISHMENT.
+
+
+Marguerite sprang from her place at the window, and taking a long
+porcelain dish from the table, brought it to the churn, and kneeling on
+the door, held it up to be filled.
+
+Dame Tillery arose, slipped the lid of the churn over the handle of the
+dasher, and gave the whole group a view of the golden treasure floating
+within. Then she gave the dasher a dexterous twirl, and drew it up
+gently, laden with fragrant butter, from which a white rain of milk
+dripped back in showers. Easily and daintily she deposited this first
+relay upon the dish, and dropped the dasher for another deposit. But
+here the queen broke in,
+
+“No, no! I must gather it with my own hands. I promised the ki—— that
+is, my good man, that he should breakfast on butter of my own making,
+and so he shall. This is the way you separate it from the milk?”
+
+She gave the dasher a vigorous twirl, which produced a tumult in the
+churn, but accomplished nothing.
+
+“Softly, softly,” urged Dame Tillery, rubbing her fat hands together.
+“There, sink the dasher so, give it one turn under the milk, then lift
+it daintily. Oh! what butter! it makes my mouth water! Oh! you are an
+apt scholar. If the people could only teach you other things as easily.”
+
+“Hush, woman! You will offend the queen!”
+
+Dame Tillery lifted her eyes to the haughty woman who gave her this
+warning, and answered gravely,
+
+“Be careful, madame, that you and your mates do not offend the people.”
+
+The lady’s eyes flashed, and her red lip curved ominously, still there
+was no real dignity in her resentment; that small commonplace figure had
+nothing imposing in it, and a low, heavy forehead spoiled the otherwise
+beautiful face. She turned to the queen.
+
+“Madame, do you know whom we have here?”
+
+“A kind woman, who has taught me how to make the most beautiful butter,”
+answered Marie Antoinette, laughing gleefully. “Why, Polignac, I am
+delighted! It is a triumph over the—over my good man, who disputed my
+power to accomplish anything of the kind. You shall all see my success
+astonish him. It will be delicious! Now what are we to do next, dame?
+This is to be made into little pats, somehow, with pretty devices on the
+top.”
+
+“But first, the milk must be worked out.”
+
+“Ah, I see; but how?”
+
+Dame Tillery placed a hand on each knee, and lifted herself slowly from
+the stool. Taking the dish of butter from Marguerite, with a deep, long
+breath, she carried it to the table, where a butter-stick had been lying
+all the morning, with its uses quite unknown. With this in one hand, the
+dame tilted the dish a little that the milk might drain off, and began
+patting, pressing and moulding the butter with a dexterity that excited
+even the queen to rival her in a work so delightfully pleasant. Directly
+her own white fingers closed on the butter-stick, and with much laughter
+and infinite grace, she managed to press out the few drops of milk Dame
+Tillery had left, and sent them rolling out of the dish like waste
+pearls, that broke as they fell.
+
+When the fragrant mass lay on the dish, pure and golden, the queen was
+at a loss once more. How were the delicate little pats and balls, which
+sometimes graced her table, produced? In order to make her triumph
+complete, the precious contents of that dish must take this last
+artistic form.
+
+Again Dame Tillery chuckled, and this time her hand plunged deeply into
+her pocket, and brought forth a little wooden mould carved daintily in
+the inside. This she dipped into water and thrust into the butter,
+closing it like a pair of scissors. When it was drawn forth, a large
+golden strawberry dropped from its clasp, which so delighted and
+surprised the group of ladies looking on, that their soft murmurs of
+wonderment filled the room.
+
+“Oh! the enchantress! the beautiful, beautiful, golden strawberry. I
+shall not only supply delicious butter to my friend over yonder, but it
+will come to him as from the hands of an artist. Isn’t the idea
+charming?”
+
+“Beautiful!”
+
+“Charming!”
+
+“Exquisite!”
+
+Each cherry lip had some epithet of praise to bestow on Dame Tillery’s
+pretty device, except that of the Duchess de Polignac. She swept
+discontentedly toward the window, jealous even of this woman of the
+people, as she had been for years of any one who approached the queen.
+
+“Shall we never be admitted to take our share in the work?” cried one of
+the young men who had been making a vain attempt to cut grass.
+
+“In the folly, you mean,” answered the duchess, angrily; “for my part,
+this practice, which brings one on a level with women of the city,
+becomes repelling.”
+
+“Ah! that is because you have no taste for simple pleasures like her
+majesty, who evidently finds them charming.”
+
+“And you?” questioned the duchess.
+
+“I,” answered the young man, with a thrill of deep feeling in his voice,
+“I shall never have the audacity to condemn anything that gives relief
+to the existence our royal lady must find so full of care.”
+
+The duchess gave him a keen look, which brought the blood to his face;
+but that moment Marie Antoinette lifted up the wooden mould, and bade
+them all look on while her first strawberry was forming. When it fell,
+round and perfect, into the silver dish, a little shout rang up from the
+crowd. With a group of admirers watching each graceful movement, she
+proceeded to fill her dish, and thus accomplished what seemed to her a
+great triumph.
+
+By this time the day was drawing to a close; a tinge of gold melted into
+the atmosphere from the coming sunset, and gleams of crimson shot in and
+out through the great elms in the Park. The cows, which had been driven
+up to the cottage ready for milking, began to low, as if they were
+getting weary of standing there, hoof deep, in the velvet grass. While
+others, still wandering in the Park, answered back with something like
+general dissatisfaction.
+
+“Now for the milking,” cried the queen, taking a pail from one of the
+brackets. “Each one find a stool for herself, and this good dame shall
+teach us how to be less awkward.”
+
+Obeying this suggestion, each lady took her pail in one hand, with a
+stool in the other, and went forth into the soft grass, where a dozen
+cows were waiting to be milked. Here the gentlemen came into active
+service, and made laughable attempts at milking in company with the
+ladies. Dame Tillery had placed her ample proportions on the broadest
+stool she could find, and was sending double streams of liquid whiteness
+into the pail lodged against her knees, while the queen and Elizabeth
+looked on, when a shout started the animal she was milking. It made a
+leap, struck the pail with its foot, and overturned that and Dame
+Tillery into the grass, where she lay clutching at her stool, and crying
+lustily for help.
+
+No help came. The cause of alarm was too serious. Some newly-purchased
+cow, selected for the wildness of her beauty, suddenly darted from its
+covert in the Park, and careering like a mad creature across the lawn,
+bore furiously down upon the group of fancy workers. With her eyes on
+fire, and her head tossing savagely, she plunged through the group of
+milkers, scattering them as she went—turned suddenly, leveled her sharp
+horns, and made a leap at the queen, whose shrieks of terror increased
+the animal’s fury.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXII.
+ THE QUEEN’S PERIL.
+
+
+That instant a young girl, pale as death, sprang before the queen, her
+white lips apart, her eyes burning with heroism and terror. With both
+arms she flung up the folds of her scarlet shawl, thus maddening the
+creature afresh in a wild effort to drive her back.
+
+For one moment the vicious animal shook her fierce head, veered, turned
+again, and gathered up her limbs for a great leap forward. But as she
+made the plunge, and the leveled horns almost touched the girl, a man
+sprung upon the beast, seized her by both horns, and with the strength
+of a giant, bore her head down, even forcing her back until her fore
+hoofs were lifted from the ground.
+
+That instant Marie Antoinette fell upon her knees, and flung her arms
+around the brave girl, who had leaped in between her and death, clinging
+to her in wild gratitude.
+
+“Who is it? who is it that flings her life down to save mine?”
+
+Marguerite turned her white face to the queen, and answered with a
+single sentence,
+
+“Thank God, and the mother of God!”
+
+Still the queen clung to her. Even then, she did not feel entirely safe;
+though the animal which had assailed her was lying upon its side,
+panting for breath, tethered head and hoof, and bellowing fiercely under
+the pain of her sudden bondage, while her conqueror stood with one foot
+on her panting side, tightening the thongs that held her down.
+
+“Sister! sister! Are you safe? are you safe?”
+
+It was Elizabeth, the king’s sister, one of the sweetest women that ever
+drew breath. In all the terror of her flight, she had come back to learn
+of the queen’s welfare.
+
+“Yes; thanks to this brave girl,” said Marie Antoinette. “Had the beast
+kept on she would have been trampled down first.”
+
+“How can we thank her, sister?” said Elizabeth, turning her grateful
+face on the girl. “What can we do in return for this brave act?”
+
+“It was not brave. I did not think—there was no time. Pray, pray do not
+thank me so much! It will make a coward of me; I shall not dare ask
+anything—not even _his_ life. Forgive me, forgive me! I did not know
+what I was doing.”
+
+“If you are grateful, lady, give her the thing she asks for. Give
+liberty and life to her father, who has been years on years in the
+torments of the Bastille. That is what she came here to implore at your
+hands.”
+
+“Who is it that speaks for her so warmly?” said the queen, still pale
+and trembling, but assuming something of her royal dignity.
+
+“A man of the people, your highness, and her friend.”
+
+“But—but surely, you are not the person who conquered that cruel beast?
+The face is like——”
+
+She turned and cast a shuddering glance where the brute, that had so
+terrified her, lay panting out its rage.
+
+The man laughed a little scornfully.
+
+“Oh! it was nothing; I only held her back till some one flung me a rope
+from the window; besides, I had help to bind the brute, a young fellow
+who ought to belong to the people, for they love bravery in lord or
+workman.”
+
+“I saw him, your highness. It was Richelieu,” whispered Elizabeth.
+
+The conversation was drifting away from the subject which lay so close
+to Marguerite’s heart. She looked around, almost in despair. Elizabeth,
+with that keen delicacy which seems like intuition, saw this, and
+touched the queen’s arm.
+
+“She is anxious—she suffers.”
+
+“But Dame Tillery has no husband in the Bastille, that her daughter
+should crave freedom for. I do not understand.”
+
+“Madame, it is a mistake; I am not the daughter of this good woman. In
+her kindness she brought me here, without knowing how urgent my business
+was.”
+
+“Then tell me whose daughter you are, that I may better understand.”
+
+“My father, your highness, was Dr. Gosner.”
+
+The queen uttered a sudden cry, and retreated a step, as if the name had
+inflicted a pang.
+
+“Ah! I have heard the name. It was one which made even my imperial
+mother tremble.”
+
+“But that could not have been his fault; he was good, and gentle as any
+child, I have heard my mother say,” pleaded Marguerite.
+
+“No, child, it was not his fault—and God forbid that it should be our
+misfortune. Dr. Gosner! It is years since I have heard that name. We
+thought him dead.”
+
+“In a living tomb; but not dead, your highness.”
+
+“But how came he in the Bastille?”
+
+“That I do not know.”
+
+“How long has he been there?”
+
+“Since the year of the old king’s death.”
+
+“Heavens! and we not know; but it shall be remedied.”
+
+Marguerite clasped her hands, and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+“You will pardon him? You will free him?”
+
+Marie Antoinette smiled; she was now all the queen. With a wave of her
+hand she had kept the little crowd of her friends back, while this
+dialogue was going on. It was now sunset; a red glow was kindling up the
+landscape, and the last slanting beams fell across the group, revealing
+each figure clearly, like light thrown across a picture.
+
+“I promise,” said the queen, extending her hand: “your father shall be
+set free. It thrills me with horror to think of him in a prison.”
+
+Marguerite sunk upon her knees, and kissed the hand extended so
+graciously. Her beautiful face was aglow with gratitude; her lips
+quivered with emotions they would never have the power to express.
+
+“Oh! if I could thank your highness.”
+
+“But you cannot, and must not. It is I who should give thanks for a life
+saved.”
+
+Again Marie Antoinette held out her hand. This time Marguerite observed
+that her lips touched a serpent coiled around a green stone, which
+circled one finger. She started; a strange sensation crept over her, and
+she seemed fascinated, as if a real serpent were charming all her
+faculties.
+
+“There, you have our promise and our gratitude,” said the queen, gently
+withdrawing her hand. “To-morrow I will have this case inquired
+into—that is, I will suggest it to the king.”
+
+“God bless you!”
+
+This benediction broke from the lips of Monsieur Jacques, who had been
+listening eagerly.
+
+The queen turned a look upon the man which made his heart swell.
+
+“Oh! if the people of France could see their queen now,” he exclaimed.
+
+“They would believe no good of her,” answered Marie; and all at once her
+eyes filled with tears.
+
+The features of the strong man were troubled. He looked upon that proud,
+beautiful woman, with evident compassion.
+
+“Ah, madame!” he said, with a genial outburst of admiration. “If the
+people of France could only look through these eyes, you would be
+adored.”
+
+The queen gave him an eloquent glance, and turned away.
+
+“To-morrow,” she said, “conduct this girl to the palace. The king will
+be glad to thank her and you. Now, ladies and gentlemen, let us back to
+the _Petite Trianon_. Dame Tillery, you will take care of these good
+people, and accept something better than thanks for the trouble.”
+
+Dame Tillery, who had been lying prostrate in the grass, among the
+wrecks of her milking stool and broken pail, for a longer time than I
+dare relate, had at last rolled, and plunged, and scrambled to her feet,
+deluged with milk, and a little lame from a blow she had received, when
+the cow trampled over her. Feeling in a state of dilapidation, she
+hesitated to draw near until the queen called her by name. Then she came
+rolling forward, took Marguerite by the hand, and making a profound
+reverence, led her charge away, followed by Monsieur Jacques.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIII.
+ COUNT MIRABEAU AND HIS FATHER.
+
+
+An old man sat in the saloon of a hotel in Paris, awaiting an interview
+which had been delayed beyond the appointed time, a fact that seemed to
+give him no little annoyance. He rang the bell upon his table with
+violence the third time; and when the servant came, in obedience to his
+summons, asked if any one had called—a question the same man had already
+answered three times that morning.
+
+The man answered with profound respect, that no one monsieur expected to
+see had as yet presented himself.
+
+While the man was speaking, a loud, ringing step was heard on the oaken
+stair-case, and Count Mirabeau strode up to the door, which was
+obsequiously held open for his reception.
+
+The old noble arose, and a faint color came into his face, while the
+young man approached and held out his hand.
+
+“Welcome to Paris, my lord count. I had not dared to hope for this
+pleasure.”
+
+The delicate and slender fingers of the old man clung around the large,
+white hand of his son with a touch of irrepressible affection. The light
+blue eyes, a moment before keen and anxious, grew misty; and the thin
+lips moved with a visible tremor before they framed the words of
+welcome, that seemed to harden and grow cold as they were uttered. In
+his pride, the first impulse of nature was suppressed on the moment; and
+dropping the hand he had not touched in many a year, the old nobleman
+sat down quietly, and motioned his renegade son to occupy a chair close
+by.
+
+Mirabeau threw himself heavily on the chair, and dropped his hat
+carelessly on the floor beside it; at which the old man motioned the
+servant, who still lingered, and bade him place Count Mirabeau’s hat in
+a proper place, and then betake himself from the room.
+
+Mirabeau laughed, stretched himself lazily in his chair, and waited for
+the man to withdraw. When he had gone, the count turned abruptly toward
+the old man, and said, in a voice full of the deep feeling which made
+his eloquence so impressive,
+
+“Father, I am grateful to you for coming here. It is long since we have
+met, and longer, I fear, since you have cared to meet me. But now, I
+think, you will confess that I have not altogether degraded the name I
+bear. If men of my own class shrink sometimes from Mirabeau—the people
+love him.”
+
+“Yes, I have learned this, even in the seclusion of my retirement. But I
+have also learned that Mirabeau uses this influence against his own
+class—against his king.”
+
+“Not when his king is true to the people!” answered the count, promptly.
+“It is only when he refuses to be the monarch of all France that I
+oppose him.”
+
+“They tell me also that my son has degraded himself into becoming the
+editor of a factious journal.”
+
+“Degraded himself! Who dares to call a full use of one’s intellect
+degradation? I cannot make myself heard and known to the people of
+France by speeches only—the thought in these speeches must take various
+forms, and be brought home to every man’s understanding. Yes, I am the
+editor of a journal which speaks of hope, progress, liberty for the
+people. If such engines of power are a terror to the king and his
+haughty Austrian wife, so much the worse for him, and the better for
+us.”
+
+“But, this is treason!” broke in the old man, angrily.
+
+“Father, there is no such word as treason now. We have rebaptized the
+sentiment, and call it liberty!”
+
+“And is this the doctrine taught by a son of mine! He forgets the noble
+blood in his veins, and gives himself up to the rebellious spirit which
+would equalize refinement with ignorance, nobility with degradation. The
+very ermine of royalty he is ready to drag in the dust.”
+
+“And why not, if it fails to protect the people?”
+
+“But the people are rising up in antagonism against the class to which
+you belong; this feeling may reach the king.”
+
+“May!” exclaimed the count, with a mocking laugh. “Why, it is already
+upon him.”
+
+“And you exult over it?”
+
+“I exult over it,” was the prompt, and almost coarse answer. “Why should
+you be surprised at this? Was it not my own father who first repudiated
+me—drove me from men of my own class, and sent me downward to rule among
+the canaille. Was it not my own mother who denounced her son as unworthy
+of companionship with highborn women?”
+
+“No, no!” interposed the old noble. “Your mother was blind to your
+faults, gentle with your sins. She, at least, deserves no censure at
+your hands. Many a tear has she shed over the alienation which was not
+her fault.”
+
+Mirabeau drew a hand across his eyes, then dashed it down, as if
+impatient with himself for the feeling that disturbed him.
+
+“My mother is an angel,” he said; “God bless her!”
+
+“Night and morning she blesses you,” answered the old man, in a broken
+voice.
+
+“But I do not deserve it.”
+
+“No,” said the old man; “the best men on earth rarely deserve the
+blessings good mothers are ready to lavish on their sons.”
+
+“Spare me—spare me! If I have given her pain, it has fallen back on
+myself with many a sharp heartache. But for her I should, undoubtedly,
+have been a worse man.”
+
+A faint smile quivered across the thin lips of the old noble; some
+sarcastic reply was evidently trembling there. Mirabeau saw it, and his
+face flushed.
+
+“You smile; you think it impossible that I could descend to a deeper
+level.”
+
+“Was it not a terrible stride downward when you left our old ancestral
+home for the Jacobin clubs and gambling saloons of Paris?”
+
+“Granted; but what sent me there?”
+
+“Your own predisposition to low company.”
+
+“Rather the parsimony of my father, who withheld the means by which a
+man of birth could maintain his position.”
+
+The old noble drew his slight figure up with a dash of angry pride.
+
+“Young man,” he said, “let me tell you now, if you have never learned it
+before, that my estate is yet cumbered with legal obligations, every
+dollar of which went to pay your debts. Years of economy have been
+forced upon us, that the honor of my name might be redeemed.”
+
+Mirabeau, flushed and indignant, made a rude gesture of dissent, at
+which the old man turned pale; for the manners which his son had slowly
+adopted from low associations seemed threatening and coarse to a man of
+his superior refinement.
+
+“Mirabeau! Is this gesture intended as a denial of my assertion, or is
+that hand clenched as a threat of violence?”
+
+“I scarcely knew,” answered the count, “that my hand was clenched; we
+learn these things in our rough life here, and adopt the manners of the
+people with their sentiments. But this is certain, I did not intend to
+contradict a word you were saying. If I was rude, it was from impatience
+with myself that I had given you so much trouble, and with fate that
+cast my lot among gentlemen, without giving me the means of maintaining
+a position with the best.”
+
+There was something natural and frank in this man, bad as he was, which
+won even upon the fastidious old noble, who, perhaps, understood his
+faults better than any man living. He smiled faintly, and held out his
+hand.
+
+“Ah! my son, have you yet to learn that extravagance is not necessary to
+the maintenance of a great name?”
+
+“No, father; but one cannot live upon a great name. Sometimes I have
+found it an incumbrance; the people distrust the aristocracy which
+traces too far back; and, spite of everything, my lot is cast with the
+people.”
+
+“Against the court? Do I live to hear a son of mine say that?”
+
+“I have not said that. But the court, and that proud Austrian woman at
+its head, have repudiated me from the first. It is royal scorn and
+courtly injustice that has driven me into the arms of the people, who
+adore me; the more because I am turned out from my own class and belong
+to them. In this way my nobility is worth something.”
+
+“I have heard of your apostacy, and read your speeches, with shame and
+bitter sorrow,” said the old man, with touching earnestness. “If any
+severity of mine has driven you into this ruinous course of thought and
+action, I have come to redeem the mistake. Throw off these associations,
+so unworthy of your birth and breeding; return to the higher
+associations which you have abandoned; stand firmly by our good king and
+most gracious queen in the troubles and perils that gather around them,
+and no man in all France can rise higher or win such gratitude from king
+and people. Do this, my son, and all my poor possessions shall be
+divided with you from the hour of your renewed allegiance.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIV.
+ THE OLD NOBLEMAN MAKES CONCESSIONS.
+
+
+Mirabeau looked at his father in amazement a moment, then he turned upon
+his heel and walked the room with quick, heavy strides, gnawing his
+under lip and working his fingers with nervous energy, as if the
+thoughts in his bosom were crowding upon him almost to suffocation. At
+last he stopped, and stood before his father again; his eyes, burning
+with restless fire, and his face pale, as if the struggle of a moment
+had drank up all its color.
+
+“And if I did, there would be no frank reception of my homage. That
+haughty queen would throw it back with such scorn as only a beautiful
+woman can use in crushing the man who might have worshipped her. Were I
+to follow your advice, and offer to wield the mighty power, which it
+were folly to say I do not possess, in favor of the court; were I to
+defend it with my eloquence; sustain it with my pen; cast myself in the
+breach between royalty and its foes; what reward should I have?—the
+covert scorn of this royal beauty, the distrust of the king; a defection
+of the people, for a time, at least, perhaps an entire loss of
+popularity, which alone enables me to be of service anywhere.”
+
+“But you would be doing right, my son.”
+
+There was tenderness and persuasion in the old man’s voice that touched
+the mercurial nature of his son. He no longer paced the floor, like a
+caged panther, but went close to his father, and answered him with an
+earnestness so deep, and evidently so sincere, that the old man, for the
+first time in his life, was thrilled with a sentiment of respect for his
+wayward son.
+
+“But I am not sure that it is right. These good people of Paris are
+beginning to feel that humanity has been trampled down too long; that a
+king is invested with the purple for some higher purpose than
+self-indulgence. If I attempt to lead the people to the feet of Louis
+the Sixteenth, he must meet them half-way.”
+
+“Louis the Sixteenth is a just king.”
+
+“But he is surrounded by unjust courtiers, influenced by a wife trained
+in the Austrian school of statesmanship. No real truth will ever be
+permitted to reach him while a cordon of churchmen and noble leeches is
+drawn closer and closer around him every day. Nothing but a moral
+earthquake can root out the traditions of royal prerogatives and noble
+privileges which have chained the people down till the shackles are
+eaten through with age and rust, and it only wants a vigorous blow to
+dash them asunder. When the king is made to understand this, his good
+heart may bring him in real sympathy with the people.”
+
+“You do not understand Louis,” said the father, after a moment of
+breathless silence, for Mirabeau had spoken with an outburst of feeling
+that astonished the old man. “No king ever lived who felt more kindly
+towards his subjects.”
+
+“But Louis must do something more than feel; he must act in his own
+person fearlessly, independently. The people love him, no matter how
+deeply they hate his nobles; he can never convince them that his heart
+is in the right place while the Bastille is crowded full of groaning
+humanity, that their malice may be appeased; while the prisons all over
+France are choked up by victims that are yet suffering injustice done
+them by the old king and his parasites. I tell you, sir, these evils
+must be redressed, or the people will rise up in their wrath and learn
+what strength lies in multitudes.”
+
+“But who would dare to speak such language to the King of France!” said
+the old man, half-frightened by his son’s impetuosity. “In the very
+thought there is something like treason.”
+
+“I dare,” answered Mirabeau, proudly. “Why not; there are hard truths
+that must be accepted, sooner or later, either from the lips of such
+friends to France as I am, or at the point of the bayonet.”
+
+“The point of the bayonet, and against the king.”
+
+“Father, do not remain wilfully blind, for, as surely as you and I live,
+it will come to that unless the king arouses himself to the peril which
+threatens him, and asserts his own authority.”
+
+“But who will dare to tell him this?”
+
+“Some one must, or the people of France will enlighten him with a roar
+of thunder. If you love him, and have sufficient courage—”
+
+The old man drew himself up with a sudden impulse of pride.
+
+“The men of our house have been supposed to possess sufficient bravery
+for any occasion that might present itself. Convince me that these harsh
+truths should be spoken to the king, and I shall not shrink from the
+task.”
+
+“Then say this: King Louis, the days of despotism are at an end; the
+people have learned to think, and neither superstition nor all the
+traditions of power made manifest, in your prisons, your armies, or in
+the force of ancient usages can perpetuate the bondage in which they
+have been held. In order to make them loyal, make them free. Ask the
+nobility and the clergy to take their feet from the necks of the
+working-men; they want work, bread for their children, freedom from
+oppressive taxation; in short, they ask the king to acknowledge their
+manhood, for this they will surround his throne with a power stronger
+than the nobility which has undermined all its foundations ever gave.”
+
+Mirabeau was going on with increasing vehemence, when the door was
+opened by a servant, and Monsieur Jacques stood in the passage. The
+count held out his hands in cordial good-fellowship, that surprised the
+fastidious parent; who looked upon the good Jacques as little better
+than a servant; and had other prejudices against him; for in all the
+contests and troubles that had arisen between the son and father,
+Jacques had resolutely adhered to his foster-brother.
+
+“Well, what news, good brother? for I take it you have been gathering
+something from the people, since the business that I sent you about has
+been so entirely neglected,” said Mirabeau, good-humoredly.
+
+“Forgive me,” answered Jacques, bending low before the elder noble; “if
+I was unable to obey your wishes at the moment, it was from a reason
+that you will approve, and which I trust no one here will condemn. Count
+Mirabeau, I have seen the king.”
+
+“You, Jacques? Has his majesty been out hunting again, and wheeled his
+horse, rather than trample you under his hoofs?”
+
+“You will not believe me, but I have been at Versailles, and have talked
+with the king in his own work-shop.”
+
+“In his own work-shop?” exclaimed the old noble, holding up his two
+white hands in astonishment.
+
+“Jacques, you are getting crazy?” rejoined Mirabeau.
+
+“Almost,” replied Jacques, excitedly; “for I have not only seen the
+king, and uttered stern truths to him, face to face, but I have, so they
+tell me, though I can hardly comprehend it, saved the queen’s life.”
+
+“Anything else, Jacques?” cried the count, with a broad laugh. “This is
+a noble romance; perhaps you have taken the Bastille with a
+toasting-fork.”
+
+“But, I am speaking the truth.”
+
+The father and son looked at each other in questioning amazement; the
+man seemed so earnest, and so wounded by the half-scoffing unbelief with
+which his assertion had been received, that they began to put some trust
+in it.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXV.
+ THE LINK WHICH CONNECTED MIRABEAU WITH THE COURT.
+
+
+“Well, well, go on with your story,” said the count, while suppressed
+laughter still trembled on his lips. “I, for one, am ready to believe
+anything, even that Marie Antoinette, having trampled _me_ and my
+services under her feet, is ready to atone for it by a tender passion
+for my foster-brother.”
+
+“Do not scoff at me,” said Jacques; “I cannot bear that from you.”
+
+Mirabeau was touched by the deep pathos which lay rather in Jacques’
+voice than his words.
+
+“I did not scoff, man; go on, go on. My father is ready to listen, and I
+am anxious to believe. Indeed, an explanation is necessary, for I fully
+expected that you would have preceded me here, and was somewhat annoyed
+on hearing that you had not yet presented yourself.”
+
+“I come now in all haste directly from Versailles.”
+
+“And what took you there?” asked the count.
+
+“A young girl whom you saw in her mother’s room. You know what her
+business was, and how hopeless it seemed that she should obtain an
+interview either with the king or queen.”
+
+“Yes, I can imagine that.”
+
+“But she would go; helpless, young, beautiful as she was, the girl was
+determined, and I was not coward enough to let her undertake the journey
+alone. A second time, I took advantage of my acquaintance with my
+friend, the locksmith, and in his stead forced myself into the king’s
+presence.”
+
+“And the girl; did she, too, obtain an interview?”
+
+“No; the guard refused her admission through the gates. I went in to
+urge her cause; and, God forgive me! came away without having mentioned
+it.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“It was because I love France better than anything on this earth; how
+else could I have forgotten the poor girl, who sat weeping in the public
+house, while I was pleading for the country, and forgetting her?”
+
+“Sit down, Jacques; sit down, my good friend,” said the old noble,
+composing himself in an easy chair. “This is a strange story, and I
+should like to hear all its details. Be seated, my son, here is
+evidently something worth listening to.”
+
+Mirabeau seated himself but Monsieur Jacques stood leaning on the back
+of his chair, while he related all that had happened to him at
+Versailles the day before.
+
+“I went there,” he said, “with a forlorn hope of helping this young
+girl; but when I found myself in the presence of the king, and saw how
+kind and good he was, enthusiasm for once swept everything else out of
+my mind, and my heart turned traitor to this unhappy girl.”
+
+“And what did you say to the king?”
+
+Jacques repeated his conversation with Louis in the work-shop, word for
+word.
+
+“And he endured this without anger—he listened?”
+
+“Without anger, truly, but not without agitation. Indeed, I could see
+that he felt every word I said, and would ponder over it.”
+
+“Yes,” muttered the count, “until the next man comes to argue it all out
+of his head.”
+
+“Do not think so, count; the king is a good man, and loves France.”
+
+“If he had the strength to govern France it would be better; good hearts
+are charming in social life, but to govern kingdoms power of intellect
+and power of will must be added, and these Louis the Sixteenth never
+had. Those around him will always govern—most of all the Queen.”
+
+“Ah! my brother,” said Jacques, resting one hand on the count’s
+shoulder, “if you and the queen only could understand each other all
+would go well with France.”
+
+“But we never shall understand each other; her prejudices are bitter;
+her ideas of royal prerogatives tenacious. Among them she considers that
+of crushing all who swerve from the royal path as an inherited power. I
+have joined my interests with those of the people, and Marie Antoinette
+will never forgive it.”
+
+“Not while your enemies keep so resolutely in the way,” answered
+Jacques.
+
+The old man listened to the conversation, but just then took no part. He
+seemed astonished at the familiarity which existed between his son and
+the foster-brother, whom he had always considered as little better than
+a servant. Was this the fraternity and equality which was becoming so
+broadly popular in France? The very idea shocked all his lordly
+prejudices. Yet Jacques was, in fact, seconding his own arguments, and
+rendering them far more forcible than anything he could have uttered.
+The old man felt this, and the idea galled his pride.
+
+“There it is, my enemies always are in the way, and my worst enemy is
+here.”
+
+Mirabeau turned his face full upon Jacques, and smoothed his chin with
+one hand. It was indeed, a rough face, but full of power, like that of a
+sleeping lion—a face that, from its very ugliness, carried fascination
+with it. The expression was so intense, the outlines so full of rugged
+grandeur, that no man could look upon it without feeling its force, and
+no woman turn from it with indifference. Still this proud and most
+reckless man was, sometimes, angry with the rude features that met him
+in the glass; and there had been seasons in his life when he would
+gladly have exchanged them for the beauty of weaker men, which is so
+taking at first sight, especially with women.
+
+This distrust of himself had in early life, no doubt, led Mirabeau into
+many adventures unworthy of a great mind. His restless vanity was
+forever asserting itself, and calling for proofs which he was always
+ready to seek for at the sacrifice of his own self-respect. It was the
+glory of this man to step in between some elegant courtier and his love,
+and, spite of his ugly face, carry off the prize, which he really did
+not care for after it was won. It filled him with bitterness when women
+of his own rank would sometimes resist his efforts at conquest, and
+ridicule them, as beautiful women sometimes will. It was here that the
+bitter drop lay.
+
+Mirabeau had at one time dared to lift his eyes to the queen herself—a
+conquest there would have rounded his ambition grandly. To love Mirabeau
+was to be a slave, as many an aching heart had learned; to make the
+Queen of France his slave would have crowned this man’s vanity and his
+ambition at once. Through her he would have ruled the king, the court,
+and in his own might the people. It was a daring venture, founded upon
+the slanderous reports which had so long been in circulation regarding
+the queen, and it ended in an ignominious failure.
+
+Repulsed by his presence, and shocked by the character he bore, Marie
+Antoinette had absolutely refused to accord him an interview, and even
+opposed his appearance at court, thus unwisely adding to her personal
+enemies a man whose sarcasm was ruinous, and whose eloquence would yet
+make her tremble. To wound the vanity of a man like that was to fill his
+soul with bitterness.
+
+This had all happened at a time when Marie Antoinette was all powerful,
+when she could reward her friends unquestioned, and scorn the power of
+her enemies with all the force of her queenly pride. Is it wonderful,
+then, that Mirabeau spoke loftily, and waited for some advances from
+Versailles before he acceded to the wishes of his father, or the rough
+eloquence of his foster-brother?
+
+“The Queen of France does not look or speak like a woman who would turn
+from the face of a friend, because it did not happen to charm her eye at
+the first sight,” said Jacques, after awhile; “to me she appeared frank,
+simple, and honest. In her fright, at least, she was like any other
+woman. Not so brave as Marguerite, truly, for that brave girl sprang
+between her and danger; but she is no coward, I can swear to that, and
+not ungrateful; for, in spite of my protest, she would insist upon
+thanking me for an act any man living could have performed as well.”
+
+“And for all this she has accorded you an interview,” said the count,
+while his face darkened and took new shades of ugliness.
+
+“I shall scarcely have time to get back to Versailles before the hour
+appointed,” answered Jacques. “The moment I had left Marguerite in a
+place of safety, I travelled by night to Paris, and, failing to find you
+at home, came here.”
+
+“And you return at once,” inquired Mirabeau.
+
+“Within the hour. I shall not be in time else.”
+
+“And what is the object?”
+
+“The queen commanded it; and for the sake of the poor man who lies in
+the Bastille, I will accept gratitude for an act that deserves nothing
+of the kind. But that brave girl has herself earned freedom for her
+father. I can claim another reward without harming her—and it was for
+this I came. At first I refused any acknowledgment; but thinking of you
+and of France, I remembered that great good might be wrought out of this
+simple act of mine, both to the man I love, and the country I adore.”
+
+“What good can you expect to win out of this heroism; for, pass it over
+slightingly as you may, it was still a brave act? In what will it affect
+the count?” asked the elder noble.
+
+“I hope that it will bring him face to face with their majesties.”
+
+Mirabeau’s eyes sparkled. He started up and began to pace the floor, as
+he had done on his first entrance to the room. This was his habit when
+any new idea struck him. After a time, he slackened the heavy pace at
+which he had been walking, and moved slowly, and more slowly across the
+room as the thoughts which had sprung, hot and fast, into his mind
+cooled down to a deliberate purpose. This woman had scorned him,
+repulsed his aid, laughed at his supreme ugliness; but this was in the
+days of her triumph, in the first bloom of her beauty, when all men
+worshiped her. Now clouds were gathering around the throne upon which
+she sat; her footsteps were beset by enemies; her actions were
+misrepresented; her words distorted. The man she had so scornfully
+repudiated might hope for a different reception now. But he would not
+seek a rebuff; the queen must be won to send for him and offer the
+interview once so scornfully refused. If Jacques managed his one
+opportunity adroitly, she might be won to this measure. He turned to
+Jacques with a frank smile that transfigured his face into something
+almost beautiful.
+
+“Yes, my brother, you shall do this, and both my father and myself will
+thank you; for his sake I will consent to make concessions. Mirabeau is
+a stronger and more powerful person than he was when no higher aims were
+known at court than a masked ball, or a state drawing-room. He might not
+have figured to the content of a handsome queen in such pastimes; but
+where sterner matters are to be handled, she will be mad to turn her
+back upon the help he can offer. Go, my brother, and for reward, know
+that half France will bless you.”
+
+“And I have leave to use your name as I may think best to the king or
+queen?” said Jacques, turning his radiant face first to the count, then
+to the elder noble.
+
+“Always remembering that it is the influence of an old and noble family
+that you offer,” said the old man, with a courtly bend of the head.
+
+“And of one who controls multitudes when he but opens his lips,” added
+Mirabeau, with haughty triumph.
+
+“I will remember,” answered Jacques; “the honor of the house and of the
+man shall suffer nothing in my handling.”
+
+The singular man turned as he spoke, made a low, sweeping bow, and left
+the room.
+
+The father and son looked at each other in silence, until the sound of
+Jacques’ footsteps was lost in the noise of the street; then the count
+said, with more respect than he usually exhibited to any one,
+
+“I trust that you are satisfied, my father.”
+
+“More than satisfied, Mirabeau; the coming of this man is fortunate. It
+would have been a severe stain upon our pride had I been compelled to
+make advances in your behalf, though I would have done it for the sake
+of my country—I would have done it; for it wounds me to know that a son
+of mine should be an alien from the court of his sovereign—not to say a
+leader among his enemies. The adventure of our retainer will save us
+from much humiliation. Is his discretion to be trusted?”
+
+“Entirely. He has but one ambition in this world, and that rests in the
+exaltation of our family. Even your fastidious pride is safe with
+Jacques.”
+
+“I am glad to hear it. If this reconciliation can be brought about, I
+shall go back to my estate satisfied that a noble work has been done.”
+
+The old gentleman took out his gold snuff-box, tapped the
+diamond-studded lid daintily, and gathering a pinch between his thumb
+and finger, inhaled it with gentle satisfaction.
+
+“Now,” he continued, softly, inhaling his snuff, while he held the box
+in his left hand ready for a second application, “I can pay my homage to
+their majesties without a blush. Once more my son is in harmony with his
+family—all shall be forgotten, all forgiven.”
+
+Mirabeau’s face kindled hotly. He had so long commanded those around him
+that this tone of forbearance and forgiveness irritated his pride, and
+the effeminate indulgence into which the old man so readily sunk, came
+near to arousing his contempt. To a man whose life was spent among the
+clubs of Paris, and whose ambition had been appeased by the homage of
+that roaming class of citizens, which was even now ready to throw off
+all law at his command, the refinements to which he was born seemed
+trivial and weak. In his riotous life he had long since cast aside all
+the gentler habits of his class, and was disposed to regard the old man,
+who had spent half his life in redeeming the waste of a son’s
+extravagance, as a supine old aristocrat, who might be induced to make
+even greater sacrifices, in order to win him back from the people.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVI.
+ THE LANDLADY OF THE SWAN PLUMES HERSELF.
+
+
+Marguerite spent the morning after her adventure at the Swiss cottage,
+in the front chamber, to which Dame Tillery had been ready to conduct
+her on the previous day. The good dame was in high spirits after her
+experience with royalty. It was with great difficulty she could keep
+back the exhilaration of her pride sufficiently to preserve that
+discreet silence which the queen had so delicately recommended. Whenever
+a customer came in, she found dangerous words of triumph struggling to
+escape; and nothing but an application of the plump hand to her mouth
+kept them from proclaiming the glory of her visit to the whole town.
+
+Feeling her weakness, and resolute against temptation, the good woman
+was constantly appeasing her desire to talk, by passing in and out of
+the room in which Marguerite sat, where she could indulge in comments on
+her high good fortune with safety.
+
+“To think of it,” she would say over and over again. “Only yesterday you
+and I were strangers, and now we have been at court together, saved the
+very life of the queen, to say nothing of teaching her how to make
+butter, and have a right to enter the palace and be thanked graciously
+with the highest of the land. While you sprang forward and flung
+yourself before the queen, I kept the animal I was milking from plunging
+at her, by throwing myself on the earth under her very feet. She had not
+the power to leap over me; besides, the pail and stool got under her
+feet and tamed her down; but for that there is no knowing what sorrow
+might have fallen on the nation. In a great event like this it is an
+honor to have acted the principal part; I feel it so—I feel it so. That
+idea it was what made me so patient while I lay before the cow, a
+bulwark between her and the queen; but you did your part, I must confess
+that, and shall say as much to her majesty.”
+
+Five or six times the proud dame visited Marguerite in her chamber to
+say this; and for half an hour together she would sit by the window with
+a hand on each knee, looking radiant as a full moon, while she described
+the scene in the park, in which her own chivalrous action became more
+and more prominent.
+
+While the good woman was solacing her vanity after this fashion, a young
+man passed the house more than once, and looked up to the window where
+Marguerite and her friend were sitting. Dame Tillery saw him, bustled up
+from the chair, and threw the window open.
+
+“Monsieur! Monsieur! are you looking for me? Is the queen getting
+impatient. Don’t be bashful, but come up and tell me all about it.”
+
+The young man’s face brightened, he lifted his hat, smiled pleasantly,
+and came into the house. Marguerite heard his light step on the stairs,
+and the next minute saw him standing within the door, his hat in one
+hand, his coat glittering with embroidery, and a profusion of gossamer
+lace floating over his bosom.
+
+Dame Tillery lifted herself from the chair, which creaked under her
+weight, and stood up to receive her courtly guest. Marguerite followed
+her example, and shrinking behind her portly figure, stood, blushing and
+confused, while the young man’s eyes were fixed upon her. She remembered
+him well. He was the young man who had made such awkward attempts to cut
+grass with a sickle the day before. He had sprung to her relief when she
+and the queen were clinging together in mutual terror, while Monsieur
+Jacques was conquering the vicious beast which had frightened them so.
+
+“I trust,” said the young man, treading his way daintily into the room,
+as if that humble chamber had been the boudoir of a princess, “I trust
+that the affair of yesterday has left no bad effect on Dame Tillery or
+mademoiselle?”
+
+“Oh, monsieur! do not think of us,” said the dame; “but relieve our
+minds about her majesty, the queen.”
+
+“I have not seen her highness this morning; but Madame Campan reports
+her in no degree injured by her adventure. The king, she says, is most
+disturbed of the two, and declares the Swiss cottages shall be razed to
+the ground, and all the pretty cows butchered.”
+
+“Oh! that would be cruel!” protested the dame; “just as her majesty was
+getting such a knack at churning, too.”
+
+“True, it would be a great privation; for her highness loves these
+rustic amusements. All her ladies have been trying to make the king
+understand that there was no malice in the beast; but he will not be
+convinced.”
+
+“How should he,” cried the dame; “it was a savage monster, and would
+have led the whole drove into mischief, if I had not flung myself before
+her, heaven only knows at what peril. I hope the king understands all
+about that.”
+
+A mischievous smile came into the blue eyes of Richelieu, but his lips
+gave no evidence of amusement. On the contrary, he answered, with great
+appearance of interest, that the king knew how much he was indebted to
+the landlady of the Swan, and it was that he might be assured of her
+safety, and that of her fair protégée, that he had himself ventured to
+call upon them.
+
+The young duke took a chair as he said this, begged Marguerite to sit
+down with his eyes, and Dame Tillery to oblige him in the same way, with
+his voice. When they had obeyed him, he dropped into a conversation,
+which soon arose far above Dame Tillery’s capacity, though she listened
+attentively, and occasionally raised her plump hands in admiration.
+
+At first Marguerite answered him shyly, and with blushes; but, after a
+little, her interest deepened, and she spoke with less restraint. He had
+found the way to her heart, and was talking of the queen—of her
+goodness, her beauty, and the gratitude she was sure to feel for the
+fair girl who had thrown herself, with such heroic self-sacrifice,
+between her and danger.
+
+“Let me say to you,” he continued, in a low, earnest voice, “that there
+is nothing you can ask of the king which he will not grant, in return
+for this one act of devotion to the woman he loves better than anything
+on earth. I was told, last night, that some friend or relative of yours
+is in the Bastille, and that your object in coming here was to ask mercy
+for him. There is nothing, perhaps, that the king shrinks from so much
+as this subject of the Bastille. The clamors of the people have only
+made him regard it more resolutely as one of the royal appendages, which
+they threaten to destroy, and he is bound to defend. Say as little as
+possible of the horrors of that terrible prison, but confine yourself
+entirely to pleading the cause of this one man, be he friend or
+relative.”
+
+Tears came into Marguerite’s eyes; she lifted them to his face with an
+expression of gentle thankfulness that went to the young man’s heart.
+
+“You are kind,” she said; “I will not forget what you have suggested,
+and I shall always be thankful that you have remembered my mournful
+errand with interest.”
+
+“Who could look on that lovely face and not be interested. Surely,
+surely, you are not related to that stalwart man, who——”
+
+“Who saved the queen,” said Marguerite, quickly. “No, he is no relative
+of mine; only the very best man that ever lived.”
+
+“I hope you will not always think so,” was the gentle reply. “But now I
+come to say, that the queen will expect you two hours hence.”
+
+Marguerite gave him a quick, frightened look.
+
+“But Monsieur Jacques may not be here,” she said, anxiously.
+
+“Then I will escort you,” said the duke. Then, with a smile and a wave
+of the hand, he left the room.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVII.
+ DAME TILLERY PIQUED.
+
+
+Marguerite was still at the Swan, waiting with great anxiety for the
+appearance of Jacques, for the landlady of the hotel had so often
+repeated and improved upon the exploits of the day before, that she was
+getting weary of the subject and almost ashamed of the whole affair. She
+had noticed that the chamber which she occupied was by no means
+exclusive to herself. Dame Tillery not only kept coming and going, but
+now and then other persons would drop in with her, and remain to listen
+while she related the wonderful exploits which had lifted her into
+sudden notoriety. But in this she satisfied her conscience by mystifying
+the position, and speaking of the queen as if she were some court lady
+walking by the place where Dame Tillery was milking quite by chance.
+
+The truth was, Dame Tillery was almost as shrewd as she was loquacious.
+She dearly loved talking, especially about herself; but she also knew
+the danger there was in handling the name of the queen with too great
+familiarity; still she managed to win considerable glory out of her
+confreres by weaving her narrative up into a half romance, in which the
+queen was shadowed out as a high court lady, whom she had rescued from
+the most imminent peril by rolling in the grass, throwing her milking
+stool in the right direction, and performing other great feats of valor.
+
+Sometimes the dame would appeal to Marguerite to confirm her story,
+which grew and grew till the young girl became weary of hearing it, and
+shrunk from giving the confirmation so often demanded. When this
+happened, the dame would laugh, and repeat herself again with liberal
+additions. Thus the time was spent between young Richelieu’s visit and
+the return of Jacques.
+
+Among the persons who came and went so unceremoniously to her room,
+Marguerite noticed a little creature scarcely larger than a child, but
+with the lines and expression of a man past thirty-five in his dark and
+shrunken face. Threads of gray were in the coarse, black hair, which
+fell a good deal over his forehead, and that sharp, fox-like look of the
+eyes no child ever possessed. It could only have been learned by
+experience in the world. This little personage never spoke, and seemed
+scarcely to listen; but occasionally Marguerite caught a glance of those
+keen eyes, and wondered who he was, and why he regarded her so furtively
+all the while Dame Tillery was talking.
+
+At last Jacques came, breathless with haste and bespattered with mud,
+for he had traveled at a furious rate, and almost despaired of reaching
+Versailles in time for the promised interview. The little personage we
+have spoken of was lingering near the door when Jacques passed through,
+and placed himself in a position to listen so quietly that no one
+observed him.
+
+“I am ready!” exclaimed Monsieur Jacques, wiping the beaded perspiration
+from his face.
+
+“The horse I rode fell lame; for the roads are heavy and I pressed him
+hard.”
+
+Marguerite sprang up all in a glow of expectation when she saw Jacques.
+She had waited so long, and watched so earnestly, that it seemed like a
+release from prison when his kind face beamed upon her.
+
+“You have been to Paris?” she said. “You have seen my mother? She knows
+that I am safe?”
+
+“Yes, I have seen your mother. She knows that you are safe. I left her
+upon her knees, thanking the blessed Virgin for the great hope I brought
+her.”
+
+“But you should not have been so certain—my heart fails me when I think
+of going to the palace. While she is beaming with hope, I may bring
+nothing but disappointment.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques saw that the nerves of this poor girl were shaken with
+too much thought; suspense had left her almost hopeless. He sat down by
+her side and kindly encouraged her. During the conversation he spoke of
+her father by name. “When this great and good man was set free, some
+clue would be found to the person who had sent him there, and who had
+torn out so many years of his life. That person, whoever he or she was,
+should meet with severe punishment—the people would attend to that. For
+his part, to avenge the wrongs of this one man should be the object of
+his life.”
+
+Jacques, supposing himself alone with Marguerite, spoke in his natural
+voice, and with some energy. All the time that Indian dwarf lingered
+near the door and listened. As the conversation went on his face
+contracted, and his eyes gleamed—the words he gathered interested him
+deeply, there could be no doubt of that.
+
+After awhile Dame Tillery presented herself, ready for an excursion to
+the palace. The amplitude of her dress, and the gorgeous incongruity of
+colors with which she arrayed her person, fairly brightened the old
+rooms and filled them with the bustle of her presence, as she passed
+through into the chamber where Marguerite was sitting.
+
+“Ah, monsieur!” she said, in high good-humor, “I am glad you are ready,
+for we should have been greatly put about for some one to give us
+countenance before the king, not that it is needed, now that we are
+friends with her majesty, but one likes to go with a party. Besides, you
+were of some use. I shall take great pleasure in saying that much to
+their majesties, you can depend on me for that.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques looked at the woman from head to foot, half in anger,
+half in amusement.
+
+“Are you prepared for a visit to the palace, dame?” he inquired.
+
+“What—me? Who else should go? Did not her majesty say to her deliverers,
+‘Come in the morning that the king may thank you?’”
+
+“But she spoke particularly to the demoiselle, as I understood it.”
+
+Dame Tillery turned scarlet in an instant; all her garments began to
+flutter ominously. She turned upon Marguerite.
+
+“Does the demoiselle, then, reject my company? Does she fancy herself
+able to penetrate to the presence of the queen without me, that is what
+I wish to know?”
+
+This terrified the girl. She turned pale and shrunk away from that angry
+face.
+
+“After taking her with me to that little cottage, and placing her in the
+way of favor; after saying what I did about her resemblance to my own
+precious niece, who will this day protest in heaven against such
+ingratitude to her poor aunt; after adopting her, as it were, into the
+very bosom of The Swan, she empowers this rude man to say that she alone
+was invited to the presence—that I am nobody. I, who flung myself
+headlong in the path of that infuriated cow. Oh! the ingrate—the
+ingrate!”
+
+Here the dame flung herself upon a chair, took out a voluminous
+pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her face, while heaving sobs shook
+her frame.
+
+Marguerite was distressed by all this. She arose and laid her fair hand
+caressingly on the dame’s shoulder.
+
+“You mistake,” she said. “I do wish your company. You were kind—very
+kind to me. I shall never forget it. My good friend here meant nothing
+that could wound you. Perhaps he is a little too thoughtful of me over
+others; but you will forgive that—you who are so kind.”
+
+Dame Tillery wiped her face, hushed the sobs that were heaving her broad
+bosom, and opening her arms, gathered Marguerite into a warm embrace.
+
+“I knew—I knew she could not look so much like my niece and be an
+ingrate,” she said. “It was all a mistake. Monsieur meant no harm. It is
+only my sensitive nature, that is my chief fault. I strive to conquer
+it, but cannot. Kiss me, child, and we will think no more about it. You
+understand, all is forgiven, forgotten? It must not wound her majesty by
+anything that seems like discord—we who saved her life only yesterday.”
+
+Marguerite obeyed this request, and kissed the plump lips of the dame,
+casting a pleading look at Monsieur Jacques, who was by no means
+satisfied with the conclusion of this little scene, but would rather
+have died than dispute that lovely girl in anything.
+
+“Now it is all over, except that crying always makes my poor eyes as red
+as a ferret’s; but a little fresh wind will change all that,” murmured
+the dame, drawing forth a huge green fan, with which she deliberately
+commenced cooling her face, the motive power being one fat hand laid in
+her lap, which moved the enormous fabric with a slow, continuous motion,
+that kept all her ribbons in a flutter, and soon reduced the redness of
+her face into a glow of self-complacency.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXVIII.
+ UNWELCOME GUESTS.
+
+
+One thing was certain, Dame Tillery never remained many minutes together
+without finding something to say. Just now her mind was occupied by two
+important subjects: This visit to the palace, which she had assumed the
+right to make, and the arrival of a guest at The Swan, who had brought
+her no little tribulation.
+
+“Would you believe it, monsieur,” she said, addressing Jacques in the
+most confidential manner, “just as I am getting on such excellent terms
+with her majesty, comes an annoyance—something that threatens to bring
+disaster, if not disgrace, upon our house. Last night a carriage drove
+up directly from Paris, and a lady got out so quietly that I didn’t know
+she was there until the carriage drove off, and she came in with a
+little mite of an attendant, that woke me up to what I was risking the
+minute I set eyes on him. The woman asked me for a private room. I was
+just going to say that we hadn’t an empty chamber in The Swan, when she
+walked up stairs, followed by her attendant, and, pushing a door open,
+took possession, as if it had been her house instead of mine.
+
+“‘Get me some supper, and see that my people are made comfortable,’ she
+said, throwing her cloak off and sitting down. ‘We have had a long ride,
+and are hungry.’
+
+“She spoke like a princess, and waved her hand as if that was enough to
+make any one obey her. I did not move. I knew this person. Years had
+changed her; the ups and downs of life had done their work on her
+face—but I knew her. Now, tell me, can you guess who the woman was?”
+
+Monsieur Jacques moved his head impatiently.
+
+“How should I know, dame?”
+
+“True enough. There may be found so many women travelling from Paris to
+Versailles, any day of the week, that guessing at this one might be
+hard. Well, will you believe me when I say——”
+
+Here the dame arose, drew close to Monsieur Jacques and whispered so
+loud that Marguerite heard her.
+
+“It was the Countess Du——”
+
+“What, that infamous woman!” exclaimed Monsieur Jacques, now thoroughly
+interested, “at Versailles, too? Why, it is understood that she is in
+England.”
+
+“I tell you she is in this house, with Zamara, that pestilent dwarf that
+every one hated so. I saw him prowling along the passage just as you
+came in.”
+
+“But what is the woman doing here?”
+
+“That is the question, monsieur. She looks anxious and unsettled, older,
+too, and worn; but there may be found many persons at Versailles who
+would know her at the first sight, and some of them would not mind doing
+her an injury. The truth is, I tremble to think that this person is
+under my roof. If the queen should hear of it, that would be the end of
+my visit to the Swiss cottages.”
+
+“But she must have some strong motive for venturing so near the court,
+dame; this woman, who comes from the dregs of the people, is worse than
+an aristocrat. It was her cruelty that choked up the Bastille with
+innocent victims. With her malice and her beauty she ruled the old king,
+and oppressed his people, till they hate her even yet when her power is
+gone.”
+
+“Well, as I was saying, she wanted supper, and I ordered the best of
+everything; went into the kitchen myself and made a delicate patty with
+my own hands, for she has pleasant ways; and I saw that a purse, which
+she held in her hand, was heavy with gold. When she had eaten and drank
+a glass of wine, the anxious look went out from her face, and she
+insisted that I should sit down and sip a glass of wine with her. Well,
+this was a change—I can remember when it was almost as much as one’s
+life was worth to approach her without leave. I sat down. Why not? The
+queen had permitted it in her presence, and I had no need to be afraid
+of this woman who would not dare to present herself before her majesty.
+Thinking all this, I took the glass she offered and drank the wine,
+waiting quietly to learn what she wanted of me.
+
+“Well, she began by asking questions about the townspeople; then spoke
+of the court, and wanted to know the smallest things that was going on.
+I told her everything. Why not? There is no secret about it. The king is
+getting more and more unpopular every day—the people will not trust him;
+and they hate the queen—yes, hate is the word; while I, yes, since
+yesterday, I adore him. They do not understand; but the time will come
+when Dame Tillery will enlighten them——”
+
+“But you were speaking of this woman,” said Jacques, impatiently. “She
+was questioning you about their majesties.”
+
+“I was about to say that, monsieur, when you interrupted me; but it was
+all questions—not a morsel of news did she give me in return; and when
+she had got all out of me that I had to tell, the politeness with which
+she permitted me to withdraw was enough to aggravate a saint. Now this
+is what I want to know—what brings the woman here? Her coming is an
+insult to the people. They hated her when she lived here, and they hate
+her worse now, for she was of the nobility only by the fraud of a
+marriage, and was always hard and cruel to the class she first
+disgraced, then left.”
+
+“For a higher range of infamy!” muttered Monsieur Jacques.
+
+“Exactly,” answered Dame Tillery. “That is why her coming here seems so
+wonderful; but her impudence is something beyond belief. It is not so
+very long since she came here one moonlight evening, when the great
+waters were all aflow, and seated herself, side by side, with her
+majesty. The whole town rang with this audacious boldness; but the queen
+knew nothing about it, I am told, and never dreamed that the lady who
+sat so quietly beside her, not once looking out from behind her veil,
+was, in fact, the Countess Du Berry, a creature from whom she had always
+turned her eyes in scorn while she was Dauphiness of France.”
+
+Here Dame Tillery ceased walking up and down the room, and closed the
+huge fan, which had waved faster and faster as she grew more angry and
+vehement, using it now as a baton.
+
+“I hear a knock at the door,” she said. “It is the voice of that young
+man, the duke. Do not be frightened, mademoiselle—remember, I am with
+you.”
+
+Marguerite did not hear these encouraging words; her eyes were fixed on
+the door, her breath came hurriedly. She knew that the most important
+event of her life was approaching, and the terror of it made her pale
+and faint.
+
+Monsieur Jacques arose, took his cap from the table, and stood ready for
+anything that might arise.
+
+As these three persons waited in breathless expectation, the Duke de
+Richelieu entered the room.
+
+“Come,” he said, addressing Marguerite, “their majesties will see you.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXIX.
+ THE QUEEN AND HER LADIES
+
+
+A more beautiful woman than Marie Antoinette was not to be found in all
+Paris. Above the medium height, splendidly proportioned, and graceful in
+all her movements, she possessed a presence that was more than queenly.
+In her first youth she had been gentle, caressing, and so “pure
+womanly.” Then her simplicity had been a cause of complaint with the
+royal family. But time, and the cares of her regal station, had deepened
+these qualities into the elegant repose of assured power; added to that,
+anxious lines had begun to reveal themselves faintly on her beautiful
+forehead, and around a mouth that had at one time known nothing but
+smiles.
+
+On the day we present her again to the reader she was at her toilet,
+surrounded by the ladies of her household, beautiful, stately, and given
+up to the strict etiquette of the court, as if they had never seen a
+Swiss cottage, or dreamed that butter could be made with human hands.
+
+“This young person has seen us at our play, where she, in reality, had
+no right to know the persons she met. She must be made to feel that the
+dairy-maid, whose life she saved, is a creature to be forgotten, or we
+shall have those vile prints in Paris touching up the scene with malice
+for their Paris readers.”
+
+“Ah! it was, perhaps, imprudent to admit her,” said the Duchess de
+Polignac. “Just now your highness cannot be too careful. This
+demoiselle, modest as she seems, may be nothing but a spy of the
+people.”
+
+“She is not that,” answered the queen, with generous warmth. “No one can
+look upon her face and believe ill of her. She is a brave, noble young
+creature, to whom we owe a debt of gratitude that shall be right
+generously paid.”
+
+“As all your majesty’s debts are,” murmured the grateful little Madame
+Campan, who loved the queen with all her heart.
+
+The queen turned a bright look on the fair, plump face turned upon her,
+and replied with a beaming smile,
+
+“Your flattery always comes from the heart, my Campan, and we find it
+pleasant.”
+
+All this time the queen was standing among her ladies half-dressed;
+garment after garment had been handed to her by the lady in waiting of
+highest rank; and now she stood with her neck and shoulders exposed, her
+white arms folded over her bosom, ready for the robe which was to
+complete her toilet, and a little impatient of the etiquette which
+prolonged her hour of dressing. Directly the robe of crimson velvet was
+looped back from her white brocade underskirt, and with exquisite yellow
+lace falling from her elbows and around her bosom, she walked out of her
+dressing-room a queen in every look and movement.
+
+In the audience-chamber, attached to her own apartments, she found the
+king, who had been aroused to keener admiration and deeper tenderness by
+her late danger. He approached her with smiles of welcome, and pressed
+his lips upon her hand as if she had been a goddess, and he her slave;
+happiness gave grace and quick intelligence to his face; for when Louis
+the Sixteenth thought from his heart, the result was always correct and
+full of tenderness.
+
+“We have been waiting your presence, almost with impatience,” he said.
+“My heart will never rest till it has done something to reward the man
+who saved me and France from a great calamity. This person is now in the
+outer room.”
+
+“But there is another, sire; a young girl, fair as a lily, and as
+modest. She must not be forgotten.”
+
+“We forget nothing which relates to our wife and queen. No one ever
+gives her help or pleasure unthought of. The demoiselle is also in
+attendance—shall they come in at once?”
+
+The ladies of the household had ranged themselves behind her majesty
+with more than usual regard to appearances. Some of the king’s gentlemen
+were present; in fact, it might have been some foreign ambassador that
+their majesties were about to receive, rather than a poor girl and a
+working man from the city.
+
+The queen gave a smiling glance at her mistress of ceremonies. Directly
+the door opened, and Marguerite was led into the room by the young Duke
+de Richelieu, who seemed as proud of his charge as if she had been one
+of the highest born ladies in the land. Behind him Monsieur Jacques
+walked alone, his head just visible over the broad shoulders of Dame
+Tillery, who spread her enormous fan as she crossed the threshold, and
+performed a courtesy so low and profound that she came near falling
+headlong at the queen’s feet, in a bungling effort to recover herself.
+
+The mistress of ceremonies, terribly shocked, made a dignified motion
+that Dame Tillery should draw back; but the good woman placed herself at
+Marguerite’s side, shook out her skirts, and settled into position,
+smiling broadly upon the mistress of ceremonies as if a mutual
+understanding on all subjects of court etiquette had existed between
+themselves from the cradle up.
+
+The queen, who sometimes enjoyed the discomfiture of her own hard
+task-mistress, where etiquette was concerned, cast a quick, mischievous
+glance on her ladies, and allowed a faint smile to quiver on her lips.
+But for that smile, Marguerite would have been completely bewildered.
+She saw the same faces that had met her the day before, but so changed
+in expression, so rigidly proud, that their very identity seemed
+doubtful. The long, trailing robes, the elaborate head-dresses, the
+floating masses of yellow lace were so unlike the short, rustic dresses
+in which she had seen the same persons only a few hours before, that she
+could not realize her position.
+
+The queen saw her embarrassment, and hastened to relieve it. With a
+gentle smile, she extended her hand.
+
+Marguerite fell upon one knee, and touched the hand reverently with her
+lips, then, with a gesture of exquisite humility, looked up to the
+beautiful face bent over her, and clasping her hands, broke forth in a
+voice so sweet and pathetic, that it thrilled every heart within
+hearing.
+
+“Oh! sweet lady! you promised to pardon my father. He has been in the
+Bastille since I was a little child. Only as a beautiful shadow can I
+remember him—but you will set him free. I shall look in the eyes which
+they tell me were always soft with infinite tenderness. I shall come
+here some day when you show yourself to the people in your carriage, or
+on the balcony, and together we will look upon the benefactress who has
+brought him back to life. Then his grateful heart will give you
+blessings, while I, oh, lady! I will work for you, pray for you, die for
+you! Indeed, indeed I will!”
+
+“My good little girl, you were very near doing that yesterday,” said the
+queen, taking those two quivering hands in her own, and pressing them,
+while her fine eyes filled with tears; “but it is the king who grants
+pardons. We shall soon learn if he can withhold anything from the person
+who was so ready to come in between his wife and a great peril.”
+
+As she spoke, Marie Antoinette gently raised the girl from her kneeling
+position, and led her to the king. The poor girl would have knelt at his
+feet also, for no homage seemed sufficient for the great boon she was
+asking; but Louis received her hand from that of the queen with such
+kindness, that the impulse of humiliation was lost.
+
+“Tell us,” he said, “all that relates to the father you would have us
+pardon. This is the first time that we ever heard his name, or knew of
+his incarceration.”
+
+Marguerite gave her father’s name, and told so much of his history as
+was known to herself. She spoke low and rapidly; her eyes were suffused,
+her voice was full of tears. The name uttered more than once, reached
+the queen. She was seized with a nervous dread; she seated herself; the
+whiteness of her face alarmed the persons who surrounded her, but before
+any one of her ladies could approach, Dame Tillery swept forward, opened
+her fan, and planting herself directly in front of the queen, commenced
+fanning her with both hands so vigorously that all the lace and ribbons
+on the royal dress fluttered as if a high wind were passing over them.
+
+The queen looked up. The consternation of her ladies at the ponderous
+attentions of the dame, struck her with a sense of the ridiculous so
+exquisite, that all the superstition which had shaken her nerves fled at
+once; she leaned back in her chair and laughed outright.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXX.
+ TRUE WOMANLY POWER.
+
+
+The king, who was listening intently to Marguerite, looked toward his
+queen as the light, musical laugh rippled by him, and frowning a little,
+drew the young girl further down the room, for his interest in her story
+was becoming painful.
+
+“And this Dr. Gosner was not a native of France, you say?”
+
+“No, sire, he was born subject to the great Empress Maria Therese, and
+at one time had frequent access to her highness. His name, I think, must
+have reached the queen, for she seemed to remember it.”
+
+“And you have no knowledge of the charges made against him?”
+
+“Sire, we did not know that he was in prison for many years after he
+left us.”
+
+The king looked grave and distressed. The very name of the Bastille had
+become a subject of solicitude to him. This prison had been, century
+after century, so completely a portion of his kingly prerogatives, that
+he could not hear of a cruelty practiced there without disturbance.
+“What,” he argued to himself, “will the people say when I let this
+wronged man out among them. His very presence will create a tempest of
+vituperation.”
+
+Marguerite saw the cloud gathering slowly on his face, and her heart
+fell.
+
+“Oh, sire! have compassion on him. Think what it is to live, year after
+year, without a glimpse of the blessed sunshine, without knowing of
+anything once beloved, without occupation, buried, but not dead.”
+
+The poor girl spoke with some vehemence. She was losing all hope; this
+hesitation in the king terrified her.
+
+“There is little need to remind us of all this,” answered the king; “but
+it is sometimes very difficult to redress wrongs for which others are
+alone responsible. This is an act of which we knew nothing; but when it
+once becomes public, great blame may be cast upon the throne for an
+injustice for which no living man is answerable.”
+
+“Nay, sire, the people are not so unreasonable.”
+
+Louis shook his head, and smiled gloomily.
+
+“They will rather rejoice, sire, that present mercy is strong enough to
+undo the cruelty of the past.”
+
+Louis hesitated. He was never a man of prompt speech, and the
+difficulties which this question of mercy brought to his mind were
+strong and numerous.
+
+Marie Antoinette, having recovered from the impulse of merriment that
+had seized upon her, turned her attention once more toward the king. She
+saw that the young girl had become fearfully anxious, and that a look of
+sullen thought was creeping over her husband’s face. She arose from her
+chair, and walking across the room, drew near the window to which Louis
+had retreated.
+
+“Sire,” she said, laying her hand on the king’s arm, “is it that you
+hesitate? Can the price be too heavy which you pay this brave girl for
+Marie Antoinette’s life—for she saved it? But for her intrepid act, that
+stout man, yonder, would never have sprung upon that beast as he did.”
+
+“Can we refuse her? No—a thousand times, no!” answered the king. “But
+how to accomplish it. When we release this poor gentleman, it will be to
+assail ourselves. The people clamor over every new revelation of wrong
+done by our grandfather as if we were directly in fault.”
+
+“But his release is right in itself, sire.”
+
+“It is impossible to suppose otherwise; but sometimes the most difficult
+thing in the world is to redress a long-standing injustice.”
+
+Marie pressed her white hand still more caressingly on that arm, and the
+sweet persuasiveness of her speech was enforced by the expression of her
+face.
+
+“Ah, Louis! I have promised. Remember, it was your wife who was saved.”
+
+The heavy features of the king brightened; he took the white hand from
+his arm and kissed it tenderly.
+
+“It was only of your future safety I was thinking,” he said. “The people
+are so ready to clamor against us, and this will be a new excuse. But it
+shall be done. This day I will speak to the minister.”
+
+“To the minister, sire! Ah, no! Write it yourself. I must see this young
+creature made happy before she leaves the palace. Step to my cabinet,
+Louis, and write the order with your own hand.”
+
+She drew him gently with her while speaking, and they entered a little
+cabinet, or boudoir, in which the queen usually spent her hours of
+retirement. Drawing her husband up to the ebony desk, she gently forced
+him into the chair that stood before it, arranged some paper, and put
+the pen in his hand.
+
+“Now,” she said, leaning over his chair, and bending her cheek almost to
+a level with his, “now write the order, if you would not have me
+kneeling at your feet.”
+
+Louis dipped the pen in the crystal inkstand, which stood upon golden
+supporters just before him, and began to write. A sunbeam struck the
+single, large diamond that flamed on the handle, and quivered over the
+signature as it was formed. The queen smiled; it seemed to her like a
+good omen.
+
+“Ah!” she whispered, “how pleasant it is to make others happy; but,
+alas! our lives must be spent in atoning for the wrongs that were
+perpetrated before we were born. This poor man now was imprisoned by
+your grandfather.”
+
+“Worse than that,” answered Louis gravely. “This wicked act belongs to
+Madame Du Berry. My grandfather probably never knew of it.”
+
+“That horrible woman!” exclaimed the queen. “How much misery has she
+brought upon France!”
+
+The king, who had signed the pardon, laid down his pen.
+
+“Let us be merciful, my friend, even to this woman; some good there may
+be in her. Since the people we love so well have begun to say harsh
+things about us, we should be careful not to join them in reviling
+others. Let us bury the sins of that old man in his tomb. Our Lady
+forbid that we should be called upon to excuse, though it is our
+misfortune to answer for them.”
+
+“But this woman—oh! I remember her so well! She was my enemy! She hated
+me from the moment I entered France an inexperienced girl. My cheek
+warms even now when I remember how she was forced upon me before I could
+understand her position, or protect myself from her society.”
+
+The queen spoke with angry vehemence; she had of late been subject to
+these sudden outbursts of feeling. The hard throes of life accumulated
+on her so heavily, that her sweet temper was sometimes submerged in a
+sea of troubles. The king took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly.
+
+“Be calm, my angel, be calm! It grieves me that reminiscences of this
+woman can disturb you so. Remember, my own, it was by your advice that
+we left her in undisturbed possession of the estates she had gathered
+together.”
+
+“The estates? Why—yes! Let her keep them. They could not again become
+appendages to the crown without disgracing it. Besides, at the last, she
+was humble enough; and you know, my good friend, the daughter of Maria
+Theresa never does battle with a fallen foe?”
+
+“Well, let this woman pass,” said Louis. “Pleasanter things await us in
+the next room. At least, we can give happiness to this young girl.”
+
+“And I had forgotten her; let us go! Every moment is a year to her; let
+us go!”
+
+There had been nothing but whispers in the reception-room since the
+royal personages left it. Marguerite stood where the king had left her,
+near the window, growing paler and more hopeless every moment. The
+darkened countenance of the monarch had struck her to the heart. After
+that one night of hope the reaction was terrible.
+
+Louis and the queen entered the room together, but so quietly that the
+poor girl was ignorant of their presence until they stood close by her.
+Then she looked up with sudden affright. A mist came before her eyes,
+and through it she saw a paper in the king’s hand.
+
+“Take it,” said the queen. “It is an order for your father’s release.
+Take it, and remember that now and always the Queen of France is your
+friend——”
+
+She broke off suddenly, and uttered a sudden cry. Marguerite, in
+reaching out her hand for the paper, had dropped like a dead creature at
+her feet.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXI.
+ THE JOY OF A GREAT SURPRISE.
+
+
+Monsieur Jacques, who had stood near the door, watchful, but inactive,
+came forward, and, kneeling on one knee, lifted the fainting girl in his
+arms. She was deathly white, and the stillness of the grave seemed to
+have fallen upon her.
+
+“Joy has killed her,” said the queen, pressing her hand upon the pale
+forehead. “We were so abrupt. The poor child had lost all hope, and we
+brought it back too suddenly.”
+
+“Is that the pardon?” exclaimed Monsieur Jacques, forgetting the rank of
+those he questioned.
+
+“It is the order for her father’s release from the Bastille,” answered
+the queen. “Where no crime has been committed it is impossible to grant
+a pardon.”
+
+“Ah! she will live to hear that!” cried Monsieur Jacques, gazing
+steadily down into the pale face. “Look up, look up, and bless with a
+glance of your beautiful eyes the—the—”
+
+Monsieur Jacques broke off in confusion; words were upon his lips which
+he would not have dared to utter for the whole world. He looked around,
+and made a motion to unclasp his arms from around that inanimate girl;
+but that instant her eyelids began to quiver, and her lips parted with a
+struggling breath.
+
+“Look up; do not be afraid to smile. It is a pardon—it is all you want,”
+whispered the strange man.
+
+A smile dawned softly over those pale lips, tinting them like a rose.
+
+“Are you sure—are you quite sure?” she murmured, fixing her eyes on the
+rude face bent above her.
+
+“Indeed, he is quite sure,” answered the queen, with tears in her eyes;
+“The order but now dropped from your hand. It is the king’s gift.”
+
+Now the color came back to Marguerite’s face quick and warm. She
+withdrew herself from Monsieur Jacques’ arms, and stood up trembling
+with joy, as a rose quivers when the first gush of morning sunshine
+bursts upon it.
+
+“Oh, this is joy!” she said, lifting her eyes to the queen, “this is
+joy! I never knew what it was before in all my life. Let me go—let me
+go, that I may tell her! She is waiting; she sits with her hands
+clasped, holding her breath till I come. Oh, lady, forgive me! joy has
+made me wild. I forget that it is the queen to whom I speak, or that
+this is the king, at whose feet I should throw myself. I only know this,
+the happiest mortal that ever drew breath is prostrate before you,
+overwhelmed with gratitude for which she has no words.”
+
+Marguerite was on her knees, her face uplifted, beaming with smiles and
+glistening with tears. The queen bent down and kissed her. Good-hearted
+little Madame Campan sobbed aloud, at which the mistress of ceremonies
+drew herself up and frowned darkly. In all her experience it had not
+been considered etiquette for a Queen of France to shed tears in her
+audience-chamber. No wonder the pillars of state were tottering under
+such innovations.
+
+After the first ecstacy of her gratitude had subsided, Marguerite arose
+and retreated toward the door, drawing close to Monsieur Jacques. Dame
+Tillery followed, and seeing her flushed face, opened the green expanse
+of her fan, and shed its cool air upon her, whispering,
+
+“Hush! hush, my child! do not weep any more—remember, I am here to
+protect you. See, her majesty smiles; that is because she knows that
+Dame Tillery is caring for you. Why, there goes monsieur up to the
+king—what confidence, what audacity. I, who have so much greater right,
+hesitated and lost the opportunity, being modest.”
+
+True enough, Monsieur Jacques had respectfully approached the king, but
+not before he was informed by the young duke that her majesty desired
+it. Up to this time Louis had not looked directly at the man. His
+attention had been completely taken up by that beautiful girl and he
+gave little heed to anything else. But as Jacques came slowly toward him
+he remembered the features, and a slight frown contracted his brows.
+
+“What, our strange locksmith!” he muttered. “Can this man have been of
+service to the queen?”
+
+“Sire,” said Marie Antoinette, “this is the person who conquered that
+wild animal. The heroic girl would have died for me, but his strength
+saved us both.”
+
+Louis hesitated, cleared his throat, and, after a moment, addressed the
+man as if he had never seen him before.
+
+“You have rendered the queen a great service,” he said, “and for that we
+are glad to thank you, not in words alone. A king has always the power
+to be grateful, and here he has the wish. Name the thing you most want
+without hesitation.”
+
+“Sire, I wish to speak with the King and Queen of France alone.”
+
+Again Louis frowned; he had not forgotten that interview in his
+work-shop, and the bold words spoken there.
+
+“It is an unusual request,” he said, glancing uneasily at the queen;
+“and one which her majesty must decide upon, after she has been fairly
+warned of the free speech which may await her compliance.”
+
+“Ah, Louis! I can deny nothing to this man—he has saved my life.”
+
+“I know,” answered the king; “but that does not give him a right to
+lecture his monarch.”
+
+“He will never attempt that,” answered Marie Antoinette, smiling. “Let
+us go to your private cabinet, sire; this good man has some favor to
+ask, and is modest. Why not see him alone?”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXII.
+ MONSIEUR JACQUES PLEADS BEFORE ROYALTY.
+
+
+Louis made a motion with his hand. A door was opened, and he led the
+queen from her presence-chamber into a small cabinet, to which he was
+followed by Monsieur Jacques. Here the king seated himself after first
+conducting the queen to a chair. He was very grave, and seemed to be
+dreading that some unpleasant subject might be forced upon them; but
+Jacques stood in the presence, modest, grave, and unpresuming as a
+child. The king could hardly recognize in that still face the man who
+had almost terrified him the day before.
+
+“Now speak freely,” said Marie Antoinette, who had no idea that this
+person was not an entire stranger to her husband, “speak out your
+wishes. It is our desire to gratify them.”
+
+“Lady, I but ask the privilege of free speech.”
+
+The king moved uneasily in his seat. He had grave fears that even
+gratitude would not make Marie Antoinette tolerant of such bold language
+as he had listened to the day before; but the lady answered,
+
+“But a moment since we desired you to speak freely.”
+
+“Then I will ask his majesty to remember all that I said to him
+yesterday.”
+
+“Yesterday!” exclaimed the queen; “and you saw his highness yesterday?”
+
+“Yes, madame. I intruded myself upon him, rudely, perhaps, for I am but
+one of the people; and I said things that would have cost me life or
+liberty had they been uttered to his grandfather; but they were honestly
+said, and our good king forgave their roughness because of the truth
+that was in them.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques bent his large, earnest eyes upon the king as he spoke,
+and, spite of himself, the monarch bent his head in grave assent.
+
+“Madame, this is what I said to the king: ‘The people of France and the
+nobility of France are at variance; light has broken in upon the
+ignorance of the masses. They begin to look up to heaven and ask if they
+are not men? If they are to be downtrodden forever and ever by the
+dominant nobility? They look at your nobles, and measuring them by the
+standard of real manhood, find that their strength lies in traditions,
+that their privileges are hedged in by benefits wrested from the labor
+and strength of the people they despise. Strip them of their jewels and
+their laces, and sometimes they are found less than men.’”
+
+“Be still!” cried the queen, rising from her chair, scarlet with
+indignation. “It is men like you who teach these heresies to the people.
+I wonder if, in truth, you have dared to be so bold, that the king did
+not place you under arrest. But for the service which I cannot forget;
+but for that, sirrah, you should only leave this cabinet for the
+Bastille.”
+
+“Still his majesty will not send me there for better reasons than that I
+chanced to seize an infuriated beast by the horns, when he might not
+even have been dangerous—pray mention the ridiculous feat no more. I
+claim no gratitude for that, and only remember it because it has been
+the means of bringing me here. If so poor an act can induce you to
+listen with charity, the reward will be too much.”
+
+Marie Antoinette seated herself again.
+
+“We have promised that you should speak freely, and will be patient,”
+she said, fairly biting her lip to keep back the haughty words that
+crowded to them.
+
+“Madame, I have offended you, when it was my desire to be of service.
+Forgive me!”
+
+“What is this service?” inquired the king.
+
+“There lives a man in Paris, sire, who would be a firm friend to the
+King and Queen of France, were his friendship desired. This man was born
+a noble, but his quick intellect, burning genius, and indomitable will,
+carried him out from them into the great masses of the people. Still he
+possesses the instincts of his race, its power of command, its love of
+true royalty. Above all, he adores France as the people adore him.”
+
+“Go on,” said Marie Antoinette, in a cold, almost harsh tone, “let us
+have all the noble qualities of this wonderful man.”
+
+The voice cut through Monsieur Jacques’ enthusiasm like a knife. He
+stopped, caught his breath, and looked into the proud beauty of her face
+with a glance of reproach, which was absolutely pathetic from its
+intensity.
+
+“Madame,” he said, at last, “I think you guess who I am speaking of.”
+
+“Perhaps,” answered the queen, with a cold smile. “But go on, the king
+listens.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques knew well enough that it was the queen to whom he was
+to address himself. When the two royal personages were together, her
+energy was sure to prevail. While he looked proud and unyielding, he
+seemed anxious, if not distressed.
+
+“This man, lady, can be the friend of royalty, and the friend of the
+people; take him into your councils—not publicly, that might not be
+prudent—but let him come to you, time by time, fresh from the people;
+let him bring the two elements of human power, statesmanship and labor,
+into harmony. He can do it—he will do it. It is the work for a great
+mind like his.”
+
+“And what is the name of this wonderful personage?” inquired the queen,
+speaking in cool and bitter irony.
+
+“The Count de Mirabeau.”
+
+“Enough!” cried the queen, rising from her seat. “When we need the help
+of this admirable gentleman, he shall be notified. But the King of
+France is not so near his downfall as to require support like that.”
+
+Louis arose, greatly agitated.
+
+“My angel,” he said, kissing her hand, “is not this a rash message? Can
+we afford to repulse a man like this?”
+
+“When we cannot, the monarchy of France is no longer worth preserving,”
+answered Marie vehemently. “The royalty of a great nation must protect
+itself—the trust is too stupendous for demagogues. No, sire, it is not
+rash.”
+
+“But we may, perhaps, wish to reconsider,” expostulated the kind
+monarch. “Let us send him at least a courteous message.”
+
+“Frame it as you will, sire, only let the rejection be positive. From my
+first sight of this man Mirabeau, I detested him.”
+
+“Ah, lady! you could not understand how this great man adored you,” said
+Jacques.
+
+Marie Antoinette drew her figure proudly up to its full height, glanced
+at the king, and turned upon Monsieur Jacques.
+
+“You have our answer concerning this person. Now say what can be done
+for yourself.”
+
+“Nothing! I ask nothing—accept nothing. But the time will come when you
+will seek this man—he who is now spurned a second time from your feet.”
+
+Before the queen could answer this audacious speech, Monsieur Jacques
+had left the cabinet.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIII.
+ ZAMARA BRINGS BAD NEWS FOR HIS MISTRESS.
+
+
+The woman who had given Dame Tillery so much anxiety, sat in the chamber
+she had so resolutely possessed herself of, waiting for the dinner
+ordered an hour before. She was wonderfully restive, for oppressive and
+exciting memories became peculiarly vivid and harassing in that place.
+With the royal chateau clearly in sight, it was impossible to forget the
+time when its inmates were almost her slaves; when the daughters of
+France, in all their royal pride, had been compelled to receive her with
+honors, while all the assembled nobility of the court witnessed her
+triumph. Even the haughty and beautiful queen, who reigned there now,
+had, as Dauphiness, submitted to her companionship at the royal table,
+in the first flush of her bridal honors.
+
+No wonder the woman walked to and fro in the mingled triumph and
+arrogance of these thoughts. If they brought some relief to her vanity,
+they were also full of bitterness, for never again could such homage and
+power return to her. Even now, with the scenes of her former grandeur in
+sight, she felt herself to be an intruder in that commonplace house,
+where the lowest mechanic in the town had a right to come. She knew well
+enough that one glimpse of her through the window might bring a mob
+about the house who would be glad to hunt her down. People who formerly
+considered it an honor to be soiled by the mud from her carriage-wheels,
+would, she felt sure, be among the first to hoot her out of town, and
+follow her with all sorts of coarse revilings. Madame Du Berry knew this
+well, and felt it keenly, for, depraved and despotic as she had been,
+she still possessed some good impulses, and had not yet outlived that
+first great want of womanhood, a desire to be loved.
+
+For once in her life, Madame Du Berry was possessed of a noble object.
+She had never liked Marie Antoinette in the days of her supreme
+popularity; but as years wore on, and troubles gathered about the
+throne, this woman’s sympathies grew strong in her behalf. She had
+tasted too deeply of the sweets of power not to feel for those who were
+struggling that it might not be wrested from them. Perhaps some memory
+of the old monarch, who had been more than generous to her, had aroused
+a loyal feeling for his grandson. In a wayward creature like her, it is
+impossible to give any act an undivided motive; but that day she had
+come to Versailles in a spirit of noble self-sacrifice, and was anxious
+to give back to the heirs of Louis no inconsiderable portion of the
+wealth his prodigal hand had bestowed upon her. In the mockery of her
+own royal state, she had become deeply enamored with the prerogative of
+kings.
+
+Filled with these generous ideas, anxious to fulfill them, she walked
+the floor to and fro, waiting impatiently for the return of her
+messenger, who had found his way to the palace. The dinner was brought
+in, but she could not force herself to eat. The very atmosphere of the
+place excited so many emotions that she could neither conquer nor fling
+them off. For the time this woman was both loyal and munificent.
+
+A noise in the street brought her as near the window as she dared to
+venture. She looked out and saw two females approaching the hotel. One
+was Dame Tillery, who swept her portly figure forward with a pompous
+swell of importance calculated to dazzle the citizens who had seen her
+sail through the palace gates, where the guards saluted her with all
+honor; for up to that point the young Duke de Richelieu had accompanied
+the party. The other was Marguerite, modest, quiet, and so preoccupied
+with her own great happiness, that she scarcely heeded the crowd that
+gathered after them, or cared that Dame Tillery was making herself so
+absurdly conspicuous with her gorgeous complications of dress, and by
+the solemn spread of her great fan, which she used as a screen or baton,
+as she wished to lay down law, or keep the sun from her face.
+
+Du Berry broke into an immoderate fit of laughter as she saw the
+landlady coming through the streets of Versailles in all the inflated
+glory of a late reception at court. A keen sense of the ridiculous, and
+a coarse relish of fun, had been one of the principal charms this woman
+had carried with her through life. It was, in fact, this contrast with
+the elaborately elegant women of the court, which had formed the chief
+element of her power in former years. Neither time nor misfortune had
+dulled this broad sense of enjoyment; she had thrown herself into a
+chair, and was laughing until the tears rolled down the rouge and tiny
+black patches on her face, when Zamara, who had undertaken to convey a
+message to the palace, came in and paused at the door, astonished by
+this outburst of hilarity.
+
+Madame composed herself a little, and wiped the tears from her laughing
+face.
+
+“Did you see her, my Zamara? Did you watch her progress down the street,
+wielding that green fan, kissing her hand to the crowd? Oh! it was
+delicious! Come here, marmosette, and tell me your news. I have not had
+such a laugh in years; in fact, that heavy climate of England would take
+the laugh out of Hebe herself. It is an enjoyment, and I feel all the
+better for it. Now tell me all about it.”
+
+“I have failed to reach the queen. These people were in the way, so I
+brought the letter back.”
+
+“Oh! that is bad! It will compel us to wait another day in this dismal
+place—and that I can hardly endure!” exclaimed the countess, losing all
+desire to laugh. “How unfortunate!”
+
+“But that is not the worst,” answered the dwarf.
+
+“Well, what can be worse than two long days in this hole; let me have
+it, if that is not enough. I have learned how to bear evil tidings, as
+you know, rogue—so out with your news.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIV.
+ MADAME’S CRIME COMES HOME TO TORTURE HER.
+
+
+Zamara drew close to his mistress.
+
+“Madame will, perhaps, remember a man whom she once summoned from his
+home in Germany—a learned physician——”
+
+The countess put a hand up to her forehead, and seemed to search her
+memory. All at once she looked up.
+
+“You mean that Dr. Gosner, with the ring?”
+
+“Yes; that is the man.”
+
+“Well, what of him? He was sent to the Bastille; I remember it all. It
+seems to me that I intended to let him out; but the king died, and then
+all my power for good or harm ended. Of course, there was no one to
+intercede for him. The Bastille makes quick work with its inmates. Of
+course, he died.”
+
+“No, my mistress, he still lives; and the young girl you saw yonder with
+Dame Tillery has his release in her bosom. To-morrow he will be the lion
+of Paris. All France will know that a word of yours took this man from
+his family, and shut him up in a dungeon deep below the sewers of the
+street, where his best companions have been toads and creeping things
+from which human nature revolts. In this dungeon a good man, a learned
+man, has grown old in misery. He will come forth with hair like the
+drifted snow, weak and tottering, perhaps imbecile; and the people, who
+hate you, will cry out, ‘This is the work of that monster, Du Berry. She
+kills souls! She had no mercy! She——’”
+
+The countess uttered an impatient cry, and clapped both hands to her
+ears.
+
+“Stop, Zamara—stop, if you have not resolved to kill me. All that was so
+long ago, I had almost forgotten it. Can men live forever under ground?”
+
+“Not often; but some lives defy nature, and all that outrages it.
+Another man has spent half a lifetime in those hideous vaults, and came
+out at last to exasperate the people. This will complete their frenzy.
+Gosner will appear in the clubs, in the marketplaces, everywhere. His
+white hair will madden the people like a hostile banner; his own lips
+will tell the story of his wrongs. This will draw tears from the women,
+clamors of rage from the men. They will demand the author of this
+cruelty, and he will pronounce your name.”
+
+Madame shrunk back in her chair, white and craven with fear; the dwarf
+had drawn his picture with terrible force. Shuddering, she acknowledged
+its truth, and cried out,
+
+“What can I do, Zamara? How can all these horrors be averted? They know
+that I am in France. I cannot leave; I cannot exist in that horrible
+England. Oh! why will all one’s little errors keep upon the track so
+long? I had forgotten this but for the ring—you remember the ring,
+Zamara?”
+
+“Yes, my mistress. It was only to-day that I saw it coiling around the
+queen’s finger. They tell me it never leaves her hand.”
+
+“I placed it there. It was only by the ring I remembered this man Gosner
+at all. It was to get that I obtained the _lettre-de-cachet_. You know
+how I hated her then. She scorned me so, it was natural; but when the
+king died how forbearing she was, how generous. No insults reached me
+from her; all my estates were left; she crushed me beneath the grandeur
+of her magnanimity. Then I repented; then I would gladly have taken that
+fatal serpent from her finger. I remember well what he said of its
+power—to every hand but his it would bring disgrace and sorrow. Without
+it, all these evils would fall on him. I took it from him and gave it to
+her. See how his prediction has turned out, Zamara—from that day to this
+he has languished in a dungeon; while she, who wears the ring, has seen
+her great popularity vanish from the hearts of the people. All the power
+of the throne began to crumble beneath her feet from the very hour that
+she mounted it.”
+
+“I have often thought of that,” said Zamara, who was now more than
+formerly the companion of his mistress. “When I heard that he was alive,
+a great terror seized upon me, for I saw danger to the queen in his
+release, more fearful danger to yourself. The people will know that you
+cast this learned man into prison without even naming his crime; they
+will believe that the queen kept him there through all these long
+years.”
+
+“When she did not even know of his existence!” exclaimed the countess.
+“See how just this great monster, the people, is!”
+
+“Just! It is a ferocious wild beast, with no higher reason than instinct
+of rage and greed—a wild beast that may easily be goaded into madness.”
+
+“And the release of this man may do it—I see that, I see that!” cried
+the countess. “But how to avoid the peril? The populace had almost
+forgotten me; this will arouse the old hatred afresh. Ah! if I had but
+one friend!”
+
+Poor woman! this was a mournful cry from one who had seen a whole nation
+at her feet; but of all that host of abject flatterers, this Indian
+dwarf, the creature of her bounty, the plaything of her fancy, the scoff
+of her former worshipers, alone stood faithful. This it was that wrung
+the cry from her heart.
+
+The dwarf stood near her, troubled and anxious as a dog waiting for
+orders. At last he drew close to her chair, a gleam of partial relief
+came into her face as she looked into his.
+
+“You have thought of something,” she said. “What is it, my friend?”
+
+“Mistress, this man must not come out of the Bastille.”
+
+Zamara spoke almost in a whisper, and looked warily around, as if afraid
+of being overheard.
+
+“But how can we prevent it?”
+
+“You know the governor?”
+
+“Yes. When he was young, I obtained for him a subordinate place in the
+prison,” answered the countess.
+
+“That is a pity!”
+
+“But why?”
+
+“Gratitude does not often stretch back so many years—it has neither the
+life or grasp of revenge. I would rather this man owed you nothing.”
+
+A low, bitter laugh broke from the countess as she replied,
+
+“Never fear, the man will have forgotten it.”
+
+“Then our task is easier. I do not know how it is to be done. Give me a
+little time for thought. Will it be possible to keep this young girl
+here till morning?”
+
+“Not of her own free will, if she has her father’s pardon, as you say,
+in her bosom. I have never seen so much happiness in a human face. She
+is very lovely. Ah! it is a terrible thing to break up all this joy!”
+
+“But more terrible to be driven to a strange land, or torn by a mob,”
+answered Zamara.
+
+“I know—I know. Oh! why did I not let this poor man alone! He would have
+done me no harm. Now, I think of it, the girl looks like her father; his
+face was almost as fair as hers, his eyes of the same tender blue. It is
+strange how clearly I remember them—and she is so happy?”
+
+There was irresolution in the woman’s words, and in her heart.
+Disappointment, trouble, and ingratitude, had broken down her arrogance
+and humanized her conscience. She felt a yearning desire to protect this
+young girl in her happiness, and give her wronged father back to his
+life.
+
+Zamara saw all this, and trembled. He understood better than she did the
+danger that lay before them.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXV.
+ DAME TILLERY DINES WITH THE COUNTESS DU BERRY.
+
+
+Before the dwarf could urge the conversation further, Dame Tillery came
+into the room, followed by a maid-servant, who carried a tray, on which
+were some delicate trifles, and a plate of fresh figs, for madame’s
+dessert.
+
+The good dame burst into a torrent of exclamations when she found that
+the first courses of her dinner were untouched, and became pathetic in
+her entreaties that madame would just taste the fresh fruit, and
+delicate cakes, which were to have been the crowning glory of her meal.
+
+The countess consented to taste the fruit, but only on condition that
+Dame Tillery should, in the meantime, help dispose of the viands which
+had been so long neglected.
+
+Dame Tillery was not so elated by her reception at the palace as to lose
+any portion of her fine appetite. “It was a shame,” she said, “to allow
+this delicious pâte, and that lovely pullet, without mentioning the
+delicate salad, to be taken back ignominiously to the kitchen. They
+might be a little cold; but, even then, any one must understand that a
+cold dinner at the Swan was worth a dozen hot ones at any other public
+house in Versailles. She would just cut a slice from the breast of the
+pullet; perhaps seeing her eat would give madame an appetite.”
+
+Here Dame Tillery put away her outer garments, set her fan in a corner,
+and drawing a chair to the table, buried it under the amplitude of her
+skirts, while she squared her elbows and carved the pullet with
+professional dexterity, stopping now and then to nibble a dainty bit
+from her fork.
+
+“She had known people,” the dame said, “who lost their appetite the
+moment a great honor or grief came upon them; but, for her part, she was
+well used to such things, and took them quietly. Now there was the
+little girl down stairs, who absolutely refused to take a morsel of
+dinner, just from the excitement of having spoken with the queen; while
+she, who was, in fact, the person who had introduced her to their
+majesties, was ready for a hearty meal, and felt even increased appetite
+from all the honors that had been showered upon her.”
+
+Du Berry sat quietly peeling the purple coat from a fig while Dame
+Tillery was speaking; but her quick mind was at work, and the expression
+of her face revealed a new idea.
+
+The sensual nature of this woman had, for many years, prevailed over her
+intellect. But one noble feeling had found root in her heart, and
+aroused the sympathy of her faculties. _She was grateful._ When we say
+this, it is to acknowledge that a noble capacity for goodness still
+lived in this woman, as lilies spring up, pure and snow-white, from a
+soil prolific with impurities. Thus it was that she had come to
+Versailles on an errand which would have been pronounced noble in a
+better woman.
+
+But while she seized upon every word calculated to help out her object,
+quick animal sympathy awoke her slumberous appetite. She saw with what
+hearty relish Dame Tillery devoured the savory chicken, and filled her
+mouth with the delicious salad; and the sight was appetizing. “I declare
+it makes me wish to eat,” she said, placing the half-peeled fig on its
+dish, and holding out her plate for some of the more substantial viands,
+which the good dame seemed content to monopolize.
+
+“Ah, that is pleasant!” exclaimed the landlady, heaping some of the
+white meat and savory dressing on the plate. “To dine alone is always
+desolation to me; but as madame has found her appetite, my place is no
+longer here. I only sat down to save the credit of the house, which
+would have been in peril had a dinner gone down to the kitchen untasted.
+Permit me to open a flask of wine for madame.”
+
+“Yes, certainly,” answered the countess, laying her white hand on the
+landlady’s arm, “but only as my guest. I cannot permit a person who has
+been honored by a presentation at the chateau to serve me except as a
+friend.”
+
+Dame Tillery flushed like a peony, and fluttered like a peacock under
+this compliment.
+
+“There,” she said, drawing the cork from a wine-flask with the prong of
+a fork. “It is not often this wine sees the daylight; but on a day like
+this, and with guests that may be considered as old friends—”
+
+“You know me, then?” exclaimed the countess, turning pale wherever the
+rouge on her face would permit of pallor. “You know me?”
+
+“I confess that I knew madame from the first minute.”
+
+An impulse of gratified vanity conquered the caution that Du Berry had
+resolved to maintain.
+
+“Then I cannot have changed so much; years have not entirely swept away
+the beauty which—which——”
+
+“Oh!” interrupted the dame, so full of vanity herself that she had no
+thought for that of another. “It was the little dwarf. He has grown old,
+and has wrinkles; but no one can forget the monkey, especially those who
+hated him so.”
+
+The painted woman, whose pride had plumed itself for a moment, sunk back
+in her chair with a heavy sigh; but continued despondency was not in her
+nature. She drank off a glass of the wine Dame Tillery poured out, and
+resumed the conversation.
+
+“It is not known that I am here, I trust. Zamara has been in the street
+but once, and then he was dressed like a child,” she said, anxiously.
+
+“No, the people have not yet discovered him. If they did, his life would
+not be worth the half of that fig.”
+
+“Do they, indeed, hate us so?” questioned the countess, really
+frightened. “Poor Zamara! he is the only faithful friend I ever knew. In
+killing him they would break my heart; but you will keep our secret?”
+
+Dame Tillery laid a broad hand on her broader bosom.
+
+“From every one but her majesty, the queen,” she said, solemnly; “from
+her I can keep nothing, being, as one might say, one of her council.
+When I go to her majesty to-morrow morning——”
+
+“To-morrow morning! Will you have access to the queen then?”
+
+“Of course,” answered the dame, “an especial interview. When we came out
+of the audience-chamber to-day, that little roly-poly lady, Madame
+Campan, followed after us, and bade me return again at the same hour
+to-morrow. ‘It was the queen’s order,’ she said. No doubt her majesty
+was disturbed by the way in which that man from the city put himself
+forward—I assure you his audacity was abominable. One could scarcely get
+an opportunity to look at their majesties, much less say a word.”
+
+“And you will see her to-morrow?” murmured the countess, taking up the
+fig again, and burying her still white teeth in its pulp.
+
+“To-morrow, and the next day, if I wish. Is there any one who doubts
+it?”
+
+“I certainly do not,” answered Du Berry, removing the fig from her
+mouth, and stripping away the last fragment of skin with her fingers.
+“On the contrary, I was about to ask a favor.”
+
+“A favor! Ah! madame knows my weakness.”
+
+“As you just now hinted, it would not be safe or possible for me to
+attempt an entrance into the chateau; but it is of great importance that
+I should send a message to—to her majesty.”
+
+“Her majesty! You?”
+
+The countess waved her hand with a dash of her old impatience.
+
+“A message which you can carry, and be sure of a kind reception, with a
+rouleau of gold from my hand when it is delivered. Is it understood
+between us, my friend?”
+
+Dame Tillery smiled, shook her head, and repeated, “Ah! madame knows my
+weakness!”
+
+“Then it is understood,” replied the countess, rising. “Pray see that
+Zamara is neither allowed to famish, or to expose his presence here; but
+first tell him to bring my travelling-desk, he will find it among the
+baggage. Good-day! good-day! I am sorry you are compelled to leave me so
+soon; but, of course, the citizens, who have been gathering around the
+door, will be impatient to hear about this visit to the chateau. I can
+understand that, and you describe it so well.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVI.
+ THE DISGUISED COUNTESS.
+
+
+The adroit flattery of Madame Du Berry carried Dame Tillery out of the
+room, quite unconscious that she had, in fact, been summarily dismissed.
+The moment she was gone, Zamara entered, bearing a little ebony
+travelling-desk, which he opened and placed on the table before his
+mistress.
+
+“Madame,” he said, anxiously, “they are going; before dark, they will be
+in Paris with the order for that man’s release.”
+
+“But they cannot present it before morning; no man living can gain
+access to the Bastille after three o’clock. Besides, Zamara, it goes to
+my heart to disappoint the poor child.”
+
+“If you do not, it will cost you your life,” answered the dwarf.
+
+Du Berry arose and began to walk the floor. It was hard for her to go
+back into her old, cruel life, just as some dawnings of compassion had
+made her understand how sweet goodness was. But with this woman
+existence was everything—she had enjoyed it so much; and with her fine
+constitution had years and years to enjoy yet. This man had, doubtless,
+become accustomed to his dungeon; or, if he must die, it would be a
+relief. If she could only save him without hurting herself, how pleasant
+it would be to let that poor girl depart with all her warm hopes
+undisturbed. But, after all, nothing like what the child expected could
+come to pass. She need not hope to find her father, but an old man,
+weak, blind, dazed, to whom this world would be a bitter novelty. The
+strength of manhood never could return to her victim, though a thousand
+daughters stood ready to lavish tenderness upon him. What was a life
+like this compared to hers! Even if the canaille did not accomplish her
+death, it was sure to drive her back to England, a country which was
+like a prison to her. No, no, she had concluded.
+
+“Zamara.”
+
+The dwarf approached her.
+
+“Bring the dress in which I came back from England.”
+
+“Madame shall be obeyed.”
+
+“Order the groom to have a horse saddled.”
+
+The dwarf bowed.
+
+“Say to that abominable woman that I am weary, and have a headache which
+nothing but rest and quiet will cure; on no account must any one
+approach my room.”
+
+“I will guard the door, mistress.”
+
+“That is well. Now bring the dress; it was left in your keeping.”
+
+The dwarf went out almost smiling. He knew that his argument had
+prevailed over the scruples of the countess, who walked the room in a
+restless fashion still, but with stern and settled determination in her
+face.
+
+Directly Zamara came back, carrying a heavy bundle in his arms.
+
+“Shall I prepare to attend, madame?” he questioned, anxiously.
+
+“No; the people would recognize you on horseback, and I must ride with
+speed. Follow the directions I have given, and keep guard at the door;
+be vigilant and cautious.”
+
+“Does madame find it necessary to say that to Zamara?”
+
+“Perhaps not: but there is danger here—great danger; a word, a look,
+might betray me. You have examined the house, and know all its
+entrances?”
+
+“All; there is a back door leading to the stables. No matter how fast it
+may be locked, you will find it ajar at any hour between this and
+to-morrow morning.”
+
+“Always on the alert! always anticipating my orders!” said the countess,
+patting him on the head. “At least, I have one faithful friend left.”
+
+Zamara lifted his dark eyes to the face she bent over him—they were full
+of tears.
+
+“There, there! we must not be children,” she said, giving the little
+figure a gentle push. “Go and order the horse to be saddled.”
+
+The dwarf disappeared, and instantly the door was bolted after him. When
+he came back, announcing himself with a respectful knock, a person,
+undersized, and with the air of one who had at some period of his life
+been a lady’s page, stood upon the threshold so disguised, that Zamara
+scarcely recognized his mistress.
+
+“Is the passage clear? Will no one see me go out?”
+
+“Everything is clear.”
+
+Zamara glided away as he spoke, and the page followed. Through a back
+door, only used by servants, across a yard strewn with worn-out
+vehicles, empty boxes, broken bottles, and refuse lumber, he led the way
+into the stables, where a horse stood caparisoned for the road.
+
+The page lifted himself to the saddle, and bending down, whispered,
+
+“No sleep; watch and listen till I come back.”
+
+Zamara smiled till all his white teeth shone again; then laying a tiny
+hand on his bosom, he bent low muttering,
+
+“Did Zamara ever sleep when his mistress was absent?”
+
+These words were lost in the clatter of hoofs, as horse and rider passed
+out of the stable. There was nothing about this page to draw particular
+attention; he might have belonged to any nobleman at this time in
+Versailles, and thus have passed unquestioned. A few turned to look at
+him as his horse trotted leisurely through the town, wondering to whom
+he belonged; but no one became really interested, and he passed away
+into the country unmolested.
+
+Some three or four miles along the road to Paris, the page saw two
+persons on horseback just before him—a man and a woman, who seemed to be
+urging their unwilling steeds to unusual exertion.
+
+The page touched his beast with the spur, and in a few minutes brought
+himself on a level with the travelers.
+
+Marguerite, when she saw a stranger so near, drew the hood of dark silk
+over her face, and made a fresh effort to urge her horse forward.
+Monsieur Jacques turned in his saddle, looked keenly at the new comer,
+and once more gave his attention to the road.
+
+“Rough roads,” observed the page, addressing Jacques.
+
+“Very!” answered Jacques, glancing at Marguerite with a sense of relief
+as he saw that the hood had been drawn over her beautiful hair, and
+almost concealed her face.
+
+“Going towards Paris?” continued the stranger.
+
+“Yes,” was the laconic reply.
+
+“Then, perhaps, you will not take it amiss if I offer to bear you
+company; in these disturbed times, there is safety in numbers.”
+
+“We travel but slowly,” answered Jacques; little pleased with the
+proposal, for every moment that he spent alone with Marguerite was a
+grain of gold to him. “You seem better mounted than we are, and will
+find it hard to keep to our dull pace.”
+
+“I think not; these rough roads fret my poor beast all the more because
+of his spirit; besides, the country between Versailles and Paris is not
+always free from highwaymen! I trust you have nothing very precious
+about you?”
+
+Marguerite raised a hand to her bosom and gave the page a terrified
+glance from under her hood. The most precious thing on earth lay close
+to her heart—that order for her father’s release.
+
+Jacques gave no answer to this adroit question, but allowed the page to
+talk on while he listened in sullen silence.
+
+After a few more efforts to be sociable and enter into conversation, the
+page rode on, but now and then took a sweeping circuit back, keeping the
+two travellers in sight until they entered Paris. After that, he
+followed them at a distance, saw them dismount, and took note of the
+residence in which they disappeared. This object obtained, the page
+turned his horse and rode toward that portion of the city in which the
+Bastille stood, dark, grim, and terrible to look upon.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVII.
+ JOYFUL NEWS.
+
+
+“Mamma! Mamma! I have come! He is saved!”
+
+A woman started up, still and white as a ghost, from the dim shadows
+that had settled around her. She would not believe the joyful news. The
+very sound of a voice cheerful, and ringing as that which startled the
+silence of the room had a thrill of mockery for her. She had been so
+long used to disappointment that joy fell away from her heart
+unrecognized.
+
+“Mamma! dear mamma! do you understand? I have spoken to the queen, the
+beautiful queen, and the king; so kind, so gentle! Oh, mamma! his
+goodness is unspeakable! To-morrow, one more night, and you will see my
+father!”
+
+The woman gave a deep gasp, flung out her arms, and fell to the floor
+insensible—the whitest living thing that joy ever prostrated.
+
+“Oh! it has killed her! What can I do? What can I do?” cried the poor
+girl, appealing piteously to Jacques.
+
+“Give her air! Give her water! We broke up the pain of her suspense too
+suddenly,” answered Jacques, lifting the lady in his arms, and laying
+her on the bed. “She was strong to battle against sorrow, but this good
+news has almost taken her life.”
+
+Marguerite flung open the windows, and brought water, with which Jacques
+bathed that white face; but it was very long before a faint breath
+proclaimed that the locked heart had commenced to beat again.
+
+“Mamma! Mamma! Can you hear me?”
+
+The woman turned her great eyes wistfully upon that eager face.
+
+“Let me tell you slowly, mamma. Do not try to take it in all at once,
+but word by word.”
+
+Madame Gosner sat upright, but she seemed like a person coming out of a
+dream. She swept the hair back from her temples, threading it through
+her fingers, and whispered,
+
+“There is white in it. He would not know me.”
+
+Then she turned slowly toward Marguerite, and questioned her. “You were
+saying something about _him_?—or is it that I have dreamed?”
+
+She said this mournfully and in doubt, not yet having come out of her
+bewilderment; but as her heavy eyes were uplifted to the girl’s face,
+they kindled under the glow of happiness which met them in every
+beautiful feature.
+
+“Is it true? Did they give us hope?”
+
+“Mamma, I have an order for his release.”
+
+“No! Tell it me again. I do not believe it—of course I do not believe
+it, such words have mocked me so often; but you look as if it might
+be—and this man. Ah! it is Monsieur Jacques; tell me, monsieur, and I
+will believe you. Is there really a hope?”
+
+“Dear lady, have a little patience, try and compose yourself. To-morrow
+your husband will be here!”
+
+“And you say this? To-morrow! Oh, mother of God! how I have prayed,
+worked, suffered, and now my heart refuses to receive this great joy. It
+is so used to sorrow—oh, my friend! it is so used to sorrow.”
+
+“But a brighter day is coming,” said Monsieur Jacques.
+
+“I cannot believe it. God help me, I cannot believe it.”
+
+The poor woman lifted both hands to her face, and, all at once, burst
+into a storm of tears. Thus she sat, rocking to and fro, while the ice
+in her heart broke up and let the sunshine of a mighty joy shine in.
+
+When the woman lifted her face again it was wet, but radiant. Marguerite
+threw herself upon her knees before the transfigured woman.
+
+“You are beginning to believe, I see it in your face, I can feel it in
+the heaving of your bosom, in the trembling of your hands. Mamma, mamma!
+it is true.”
+
+“I know; but to-morrow seems so far off. Could we not go at once? After
+so many years, they might cut off an hour or two.”
+
+She appealed to Monsieur Jacques, who shook his head.
+
+“I should feel sure then?” she said, piteously.
+
+“Be sure, as it is; no one would deceive you.”
+
+“He might—I mean the king.”
+
+“Not so. Louis is a kind man, lacking somewhat in courage to act
+promptly; but there is neither treachery or falsehood in him.”
+
+Madame Gosner drew a deep breath, and a look of forced resignation came
+to her face.
+
+“It seems but a little time,” she said, “and I have waited so long; but
+these few hours seem harder to bear than all the lost years.”
+
+“But they will soon pass.”
+
+“Yes; and he will be here. You have seen him, monsieur? Tell me, has
+imprisonment made him old as sorrow has left me?”
+
+“It was an old man that I saw in the dungeon.”
+
+“Yet my husband should have been in the prime of life; and I, when he
+went away, monsieur, I was not much older than Marguerite, and so like
+her.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques glanced at the lined and anxious face of the
+middle-aged woman, from which perpetual grief had swept away all the
+bloom, and hardened the beauty into a sad expression of endurance. Then
+his eyes turned upon Marguerite, more lovely a thousand times than he
+had ever seen her before; for the happiness had left bloom upon her
+cheeks, and lay like sunshine in the violet softness of her eyes. The
+contrast struck him painfully. Was grief then so much more powerful than
+time? How many women in France even then suffered as she had done? Was
+this to be a universal result? Would oppression in the end destroy all
+the sweets of womanhood, by forcing a sex, naturally kind and gentle,
+into resistance wilder and fiercer, because more unreasoning, than men
+ever waged on each other?
+
+These thoughts disturbed the man. In admitting the unnatural influence
+of women into their revolutionary clubs, had they not already begun to
+uproot all that was holy in social life? In order to gain liberty, were
+they not giving up religion, and trampling down all the beautiful
+influences of home life? He looked at Marguerite where she stood, in all
+the gentle purity of young maidenhood, wondering if she could ever be
+drawn into the vortex of those revolutionary clubs in which he was a
+leading spirit. Why not? Others as young, as lovely, and as good, had
+followed the cry of liberty and equality into places quite as dangerous
+and unnatural. Might not the time arrive when in the turmoil and
+disorganization of a government which France was beginning to hate, even
+he might seize on any help, to carry out the wild idea of liberty which
+was driving the people of France mad. Might not he urge her, and
+creatures innocent and enthusiastic like her, into the surrender of
+everything that makes a woman’s life beautiful, in order to obtain that
+political liberty which France never knew how to use or keep.
+
+Monsieur Jacques sat moodily in a corner of the room, and thought these
+things over as Marguerite knelt by her mother, and told her in detail
+all that had happened during her sojourn at Versailles. He saw that the
+narrative did more to convince the mother that her husband’s release was
+a reality than all his reasoning could have done. Once or twice he
+observed a faint smile quiver across that firm mouth, while Marguerite
+caught the infection as flowers meet the sunshine, and laughed while
+telling Dame Tillery’s mishap.
+
+Jacques felt the influence of this low, rippling laugh, a sound he had
+never heard in that gloomy place before, and thought to himself how
+naturally happiness brought back all the soft, sweet traits of womanhood
+in these two persons.
+
+“No, no!” he said, “from the strongest to the weakest, women should be
+the creatures of our care and protection. It is unnatural that they
+should struggle and fight for us—more unnatural that we should assail
+them. Thank God this great happiness will rescue a noble woman from the
+vortex toward which she was drifting! The moment her husband is free, I
+will myself take them across the frontier. In their old home they shall
+find rest while the storm bursts over France.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+ MIRABEAU AND HIS FOSTER BROTHER IN COUNCIL.
+
+
+“Monsieur Jacques!”
+
+Jacques started up and went to the door, which had been slightly opened.
+It was the voice of Mirabeau.
+
+“Come out, I would speak with you in your own room,” said the count,
+abruptly. “It seems to me you are never at home now.”
+
+“But you know where to find me,” said Jacques, good-humoredly.
+
+“Yes, always with these women. I think the girl has bewitched you, my
+friend.”
+
+Jacques made no answer, but his face flushed crimson as he unlocked the
+door of his own room, and stood back for Mirabeau to enter.
+
+“Well, what news have you that will give me pleasure!” demanded the
+count, the moment they were alone.
+
+“Nothing, my count; but I fear much that will anger you.”
+
+“From that woman? Well, speak out. It will only be another rejection of
+the power that could save her.”
+
+Mirabeau refused a seat, and kept walking up and down the chamber like a
+wild beast in its cage. While Jacques hesitated how to tell his story
+best, he turned fiercely upon him.
+
+“Well, my friend, has the Austrian struck you dumb?”
+
+“No, count; but I can scarcely relate my interview with a hope that you
+will understand it as I did. The words were discouraging enough; there
+was something in the king’s manner that convinced me of his wish to
+accept your help.”
+
+“No doubt. He has some little discernment; but the woman is guided
+entirely by her prejudices. Tell me what she said.”
+
+Jacques did tell him word for word; but he said nothing of the look of
+scornful pride that made each syllable so bitter. Mirabeau paused in his
+walk and listened.
+
+“And this is all?” he said, when Jacques paused. “Why, man, this is
+better news than I expected—the woman leaves a loop-hole for the future;
+the stubborn pride would not all come down at once, but it is yielding.
+We must not speak discouragingly to my father, or all his generous plans
+may freeze up again. He has set his proud old heart on making me the
+saviour of the monarchy—and so it may be, Jacques; so it shall be.”
+
+“But the people—who shall save them?” questioned Jacques, a little
+sternly; for with all his fond admiration of the man, he could not blind
+himself to the sublime egotism of this speech, or the utter selfishness
+which inspired it.
+
+Mirabeau turned suddenly; the grand ugliness of his face was illuminated
+by a smile.
+
+“Will you never understand, my friend? When Mirabeau has saved the
+monarchy, he will, in fact, be king. This haughty queen once at his feet
+the creature of his power, subdued by his genius, as many a woman, proud
+and self-sufficient as she is, have been, who shall dare oppose any
+reform he may decide upon for the consolidation of his power, or the
+benefit of the people? Mirabeau is already made sovereign, by his own
+will, of the great revolutionary movement, which has terrified the
+Austrian into something like civility. A few months later and she shall
+implore the aid she now dares to reject. This will make his father the
+happiest man on earth, and give this irresolute, good-hearted king the
+quiet he so much craves.”
+
+“But the people—the clubs—the women of Paris? Remember how they
+worshiped Necker, yet he failed to satisfy them.”
+
+“Necker!” exclaimed Mirabeau, with infinite scorn in his voice. “A man
+of money, a financier, whom the insane populace expected to bring corn
+out of the parched earth by magic. Failing in this, he had no resources
+within himself by which to win the discontented back again; but it is
+different with Mirabeau. His voice is persuasive, his will potent, his
+power over multitudes is supreme; with his foot upon the throne, he will
+reach forth his hand to the people, and sustain their rights. You, my
+friend and foster-brother, shall be a connecting-link between Mirabeau
+and his old followers. Thus he will control the court, the assembly, and
+the populace.”
+
+“That would be a glorious combination, if it could be carried out,” said
+Jacques.
+
+“If,” repeated the count; “can you doubt it? Think what the pen and
+eloquence of one man has accomplished already. Ah, Jacques! this idea of
+reaching the people through newspapers and pamphlets, was an inspiration
+of liberty. This is a power which we have learned how to wield with
+force, and which can be used in behalf of the throne as well as for the
+people.”
+
+“But not against the people, at least with my poor help,” said Jacques.
+
+Mirabeau turned upon him angrily.
+
+“Will you never understand that it is by the power of the people alone
+the monarchy can be sustained?” he said, in his rough, dogmatical way.
+“There is but one man living who can bring these great elements in
+harmony; because it requires the union of two extremes in the same man;
+a nobleman who carries in his own person the traditions of the past, but
+whose life and sympathies have been with the people. A man God-gifted
+with eloquence both of speech and with the pen; in short, a being who
+concentrates in one existence two distinct and opposing characters. Does
+France contain more than one man of whom you could say this, my friend?”
+
+“No; France has but one Mirabeau.”
+
+“Then have no fear, for on all sides our prospects are brightening. This
+coalition once made, our good father opens his money-bags, then all this
+harassing anxiety about finance will be at an end. You did me good
+service with the old gentleman, my brother, though he did wince now and
+then, as the conviction was forced upon him that we were in fact, as
+well as in sentiment, equals before the people, in defiance of the blue
+blood of his ancestors. It was amusing to see how the old man’s
+prejudices rose against this simple fact. He did not comprehend that the
+people glory in having persons of the old pure descent advocating their
+cause; why that old buffoon, the Duc de Orleans, has seized upon the
+idea, and even now is using it against the king. If this old renegade
+only had brains, he might prove a dangerous man. As it is, he is sure to
+make some stupid blunder, from which even that clever woman, De Genlis,
+cannot save him; so the best wisdom is to leave him to work out his own
+ruin. This prince has ambition, and nothing else. Now tell me all that
+passed at Versailles.”
+
+Mirabeau had by this time exhausted his excitement, and sat down to
+listen. Monsieur Jacques informed him, in a few brief words, of all that
+had passed during his absence. When he had finished, the count arose and
+took his hat from the table.
+
+“Let us go and pay our respects to Madame Gosner,” he said. “It will be
+pleasant to congratulate her.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques arose reluctantly, and the two men went out together.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XXXIX.
+ A VISITOR AFTER DARK.
+
+
+The governor of the Bastille had retired to his own apartments within
+that grim old fortress. All the duties of the day had been performed.
+The allowance of black bread and impure water had been doled out to the
+prisoners, and the doors closed, leaving them in utter darkness. All
+these horrible duties being settled to his satisfaction, the governor
+was ready for his own luxurious supper, and sat waiting for it with some
+impatience. Originally this man was neither hard-hearted or cruel; but
+holding a position where these qualities were exacted from him, they had
+gradually become a part of his nature. Unlimited power of the worst kind
+had made him a tyrant, and hardened his heart to iron.
+
+As this man sat, calm and indifferent, in an atmosphere of misery, which
+rose around him like a miasma, a grim, stalwart man, in the dress of a
+keeper, knocked at the door and stood upon the threshold, removing the
+cap from his head in token of respect for the presence he was in.
+
+The governor turned in his chair and recognized the man.
+
+“Well, Christopher, what news from the city? A little more quiet, I
+hope.”
+
+“Not a bit,” answered the keeper, promptly. “I have been among the
+clubs, as you bade me, and have made my observations. The feeling of
+discontent grows stronger and stronger.”
+
+“Well, what do they expect to accomplish by grumbling, the varlets? I
+wish we had them here, Christopher; a week or two of such lodgings and
+fare as we could give them, would bring down their courage. We have that
+whole lower range of cells unoccupied now, for our Louis is
+chicken-hearted about sending his subjects here, merely to oblige his
+friends; and he has no favorites, Marie Antoinette looks well to that.”
+
+“Yes; and she it is who prevents the prison being full, as it was in the
+good old time, when we registered a _lettre-de-cachet_ every day. It is
+this clemency that emboldens the people, and sets them clamoring for the
+thing they call ‘liberty!’ Liberty, indeed, we would give them enough to
+quarrel about if we had them all here but for a single month.”
+
+“Ah!” said the governor, who seemed on excellent terms with his man.
+“But how are we to get them here, when we never see the king’s
+signature, except it be to empty our cells of their prisoners? He seems
+to forgive all men before they are sentenced, especially his own
+enemies. I tell you, Christopher, this king, in his leniency, has
+brought this fortress of the Bastille down to the level of a common
+jail; and his conduct fills me with such disgust, that I am at times
+half resolved to throw up my commission.”
+
+The keeper looked through one of the narrow windows, and took a survey
+of the ponderous walls; then, turning with a grim smile, he said,
+
+“If the walls were less thick, a resignation might be prudent just now;
+but I think they will defy all the clubs in Paris.”
+
+“Or in all France,” answered the governor, laughing. “My draw-bridge
+once up, and no monarch in Europe sits as firmly on his throne as I do.
+Would to heaven his majesty was half as safe in Versailles!”
+
+“Nay, I think the people hate the man they call their tyrant of the
+Bastille worse than they do the monarch at Versailles,” said the keeper,
+a little maliciously—“for cruel men are very seldom kind to each other.”
+
+“Let them hate,” laughed the governor. “It will be a long time before
+their malice can reach him.”
+
+“Yes, as I said, the walls are thick.”
+
+“And here comes my supper, Christopher, which your news from the city
+shall not spoil,” cried the governor, interrupting his subordinate, as a
+door was opened, and a daintily-arranged table revealed in the next
+room. “Step in, though, and let me hear all the news you have gathered.”
+
+The man entered the supper-room, and stood leaning against the
+door-frame, while his superior placed himself at the table.
+
+“It is the Bastille against which the people hurl hatred, and launch
+their curses most bitterly,” he said. “Thinking me one of them—for I
+wore this—they spoke freely enough.”
+
+Here Christopher took a red cap from his pocket, and shook it viciously,
+as if he hated the very color.
+
+The governor looked up and laughed again.
+
+“So they thought you one of their order, my poor Christopher, and took
+you into their confidence on the strength of that red abomination. Well,
+when do they intend to tear down the Bastille?”
+
+“Tear down the Bastille! Have we not decided that the walls may defy
+them?” replied the keeper, uneasily. “If I thought otherwise——”
+
+“Well, what then, my good Christopher?”
+
+“Why, then I should be glad to exchange places with any prisoner in the
+cells.”
+
+“A hard alternative, Christopher,” said the governor, smiling over his
+well-filled plate, “and one not likely to happen. But we must be
+careful. If the rabble hate us, as you say, we must do nothing to arouse
+them.”
+
+That moment the loud clangor of a bell sounded down the passages of the
+building.
+
+“What is that, Christopher?” inquired the governor, laying down his
+knife and fork with something like consternation.
+
+“Some one claiming admittance, who rings boldly, either an enemy, or an
+officer under authority of the law, I should say,” answered the keeper.
+
+“Go and see, Christopher.”
+
+The keeper went out, passed from the prison to the draw-bridge, and
+looked across. Beyond the huge timbers and drooping chains, he saw a
+single, slight figure claiming a passage over, both by voice and
+gesture.
+
+“Why was the bell rung?” asked Christopher of the guard.
+
+“Because it is some one with an order for the governor. He held up a
+paper.”
+
+“Is he quite alone?”
+
+“Yes, I saw him dismount from a tired horse, which you may yourself
+discover standing within the shadow of yonder building.”
+
+“Let down the draw-bridge; but see that but one man enters—it may be a
+messenger from the court.”
+
+Directly the great chains of the draw-bridge began to shake and rattle,
+the mighty hinges turned with ponderous heaviness, and the great mass of
+wood fell slowly downward.
+
+A slight figure crossed the bridge with a quick, nervous step, which
+soon brought him to the keeper, who keenly regarded him during his
+progress.
+
+“A letter for the governor,” said the stranger, promptly taking a folded
+paper from his girdle.
+
+“Where from?” questioned Christopher.
+
+“Directly from Versailles. Besides this, I am entrusted with a message
+which can only be given in person; oblige me by saying so much in my
+behalf.”
+
+Christopher took the letter and held it between his teeth, while the
+ponderous machinery of the bridge was put in motion again, and the whole
+fabric loomed up.
+
+The stranger started as he saw the huge timbers uplifted like some
+massive gate rising between him and the world he had left; but he made
+no protest, and only grew a little paler than before, as the awful
+blackness of its shadow fell upon him.
+
+“There is no danger from any one on this side,” muttered the keeper,
+moving slowly away, leaving the stranger standing by the guard; “but in
+these times it is hardly safe to admit even a stripling like that after
+dark.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XL.
+ THE GOVERNOR AND THE PAGE.
+
+
+Christopher found the governor deep in his meal, which he enjoyed with
+the zest of a man who has few sources of occupation or amusement, and,
+therefore, gives free scope to the appetite. He was just filling a glass
+of wine as the man came in, and holding it up, smiled to see its amber
+hues sparkle in the lamplight. Indeed, he was too pleasantly occupied
+for any remembrance of the errand on which the keeper had gone.
+
+“Ah! is it you again, my Christopher?” he said, draining the glass with
+a mellow smack of the lips. “Well, what news? The bell rang, if I
+remember. What unreasonable person was so bold?”
+
+“It is a person from Versailles, your excellency; some one with a
+letter, and a special message to yourself.”
+
+“From Versailles? Let him in; let him in. It is not often that Louis the
+Sixteenth requires my services. That is why the rabble has dared to lift
+its clamor against the Bastille. If he would open its gates to the
+populace and crowd the old prison from foundation to roof with the
+disaffected, there would be no more cries of ‘Down with the Bastille!’
+in the streets of Paris. Let the king’s messenger present himself, he is
+welcome.”
+
+Christopher went out, and directly returned with the page in close
+company. When this person was seen in the full glare of the light, his
+appearance of extreme youth vanished. He was slender, elegant, and
+bright; but there was something in the curve of the mouth, and a depth
+of expression about the eyes, which belied the boyish air and foppish
+costume so completely, that the governor arose to receive him with
+unusual courtesy.
+
+“This letter,” said the page, “will inform you of my business; after
+that let me pray that we converse alone.”
+
+“Christopher, you may go,” said the governor, filling another glass of
+wine, and holding it toward his visitor with one hand while he
+replenished his own glass with the other. “Now, sir, sit down while I
+read this missive.”
+
+The page accepted the wine, and drank it off, for he felt the need of it
+after a long and wearisome ride of hours. While the slow color came back
+to his face, the governor was earnestly perusing the letter. It
+evidently caused him some disturbance, for a flush of hotter red than
+the Rhenish wine could give, rose into his face, while his eyes grew
+large and opened wide with astonishment.
+
+“From her,” he muttered, uneasily. “Why it is years and years since I
+have seen her name. How came she at Versailles? Must talk freely with
+her messenger! As if I wanted anything to do with him or her either! Why
+it might cost me dear with his majesty, and set the rabble to hunting me
+down like a dog! My own safety! Danger! Humph! Humph!”
+
+All this was muttered incoherently by the astonished governor, while the
+page sat keenly regarding him, catching up here and there a disjointed
+word, which made his eyes sparkle and his lips curve scornfully.
+
+“Well,” said the governor, crushing the letter slowly in his hand, where
+he rolled it indolently between his thumb and finger, “you come to me
+from Madame Du Berry—a beautiful woman in her time, and in some sort a
+friend of mine.”
+
+“In some sort?” repeated the page, almost with a sneer. “I thought from
+what madame said, that she had been a most earnest and all-powerful
+friend to you in times when her friendship was a fortune, and her enmity
+ruin.”
+
+“Did she say that? Very natural. The importance of objects magnifies as
+they recede. It is many years since I knew the madame; and in those
+years she has ceased to be powerful, either in love or hate. Even her
+beauty, they tell me, is all gone—and in that lay the power she makes
+such boast of. Still I have a tender remembrance of the madame, who had
+a kind of loveliness that was distracting. At one time I almost adored
+her; as for the lady herself—Well, it would not be quite proper to state
+how much of her boasted kindness sprang from a more tender sentiment
+than she would have liked to acknowledge before the king; but I have my
+memories.”
+
+Here the page sprang to his feet, clenched one white hand under its
+frills of common lace, advanced a step, as if to dash it in that flushed
+face, and let it fall again with a sharp, unnatural laugh.
+
+“Another glass of wine,” he said, unclinching the hand; “these
+reminiscences are so pleasant they amuse me!”
+
+The governor lifted the bottle near him, and dashed a flood of the amber
+liquid over the white hand which held the glass, for his own was
+rendered a little unsteady by the sudden action of the page; who tossed
+off the wine with a laugh that rang mockingly through the room.
+
+“Well,” he said, “as you and the Du Berry were such intimate friends, we
+can talk with the more freedom. Both you and the lady are just now in
+imminent peril.”
+
+“Peril! How?”
+
+“Both with the king, which is not so threatening, but with the people,
+who are getting dangerous.”
+
+“As how? Speak out! This is the second time to-day I have been warned of
+the people’s hate. But the king—in what way have I offended him?”
+
+“In nothing that I know of. But occasions arise in which our best
+friends act, unconsciously, with our worst enemies. The king, in his
+goodness, works hand-in-hand with the people, who hate him and us.”
+
+“In what way?” inquired the governor, now deeply interested. “Why should
+his majesty do aught to imperil an old and faithful officer like me?
+That he should hold some malice against Du Berry is not remarkable. She
+was impudent enough while he was Dauphin to account for any ill-feeling
+he may have toward her now; but with me, who have always been a
+favorite, the thing is impossible.”
+
+The page still kept on his feet and walked up and down the room,
+forgetting all forms of politeness in his excitement. He paused at last,
+and flashed a glance of brilliant scorn upon the governor.
+
+“There is no such thing as impossibilities where the selfishness or
+ingratitude of men are concerned,” he said. “The idol of the people
+to-day is not sure of his position for a week.”
+
+“Of the people? Yes. But I claim nothing of them; my strength lies in
+the king.”
+
+The page gave his antagonist—for such these two persons were fast
+becoming—a sharp glance, but made no answer to his last speech, which
+had apparently made little impression upon him.
+
+“The king, the queen, and, most of all, you and the lady on whose behalf
+I come, are in danger. A single new cause of discontent against this
+prison, and the smouldering hate of the people will break forth. Louis
+foresaw this, but had not force of will enough to prevent it. One word
+from his wife, and he was ready to brave everything.”
+
+“But what has he done?”
+
+The page drew close to the table and leaned one hand upon it.
+
+“Years ago, the very last of our old king’s reign, a man was brought to
+the Bastille—his name was Gosner.”
+
+“Gosner—why that man is alive yet. Neither dampness or famine seem to
+have any impression on him. He was brought here under a
+_lettre-de-cachet_, and was one of Madame Du Berry’s enemies. I
+remember, she came here to the prison, just after the old king died, and
+upbraided this man with having killed him by his necromancy. She was
+very bitter against the prisoner, and seemed afraid that he might be
+pardoned out. That woman had a hard heart.”
+
+“Yes; she had a hard heart,” repeated the page; “but often, ah! so
+often, she was forced to be cruel in self-defence. It is so now—it is so
+now!”
+
+Once more the page commenced walking up and down the room; he paused
+suddenly.
+
+“This man, Gosner, was, at the request of madame, put into the
+underground cells,” he said, “where he has been until within the last
+year. When we took him out for a week or two, and found him almost
+blind—a poor, enfeebled creature, hardly worthy of the new life we gave
+him.”
+
+“And now?” questioned the page.
+
+“Now he is but little better—a gleam or two of light and air does not
+change a prisoner of many years so much as you might imagine; besides,
+this man was feeble from the first, but lived on, withering away into
+the shadow he is; we have put him back again; the sight of his decay was
+too much.”
+
+“Well, this is the man they will parade before the people as a proof of
+the terrible cruelties practiced here.”
+
+The governor half rose from his feet in sudden alarm.
+
+“Who will do this?” he exclaimed.
+
+“The king; or, rather, his Austrian wife.”
+
+“The king!”
+
+“Who has pardoned this man, Gosner.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLI.
+ THE COUNTESS AND HER VICTIM MEET.
+
+
+The ruddy countenance of the governor lost its tone, and a cold
+whiteness crept over his lips. At last he turned a blanched and scared
+face upon the page. The great danger of his position had forced itself
+upon him.
+
+“And the king has done this? I cannot believe it.”
+
+“You may, for to-morrow will bring the proof. The order of Gosner’s
+release was signed this morning, and is now in Paris.”
+
+The governor was on his feet at once.
+
+“What is to be done? You came here for something more than this. Madame
+Du Berry has heard of Gosner’s pardon. She sent you here. What does she
+propose? This is a case that concerns us all, and may destroy us all.”
+
+“Unless proper steps are taken,” said the page, in a low voice.
+
+“But what steps can be taken?”
+
+“You ask me that?” answered the page, with a strange smile on his lips;
+“you, who know all the mysteries of this prison, who receive men without
+record, and send them forth for burial with a number instead of a name?”
+
+“Who told you these things?” demanded the governor, with a sudden panic.
+
+“No matter; I know, also, that this man, Dr. Gosner, is not an inmate of
+this prison. He was buried within the month, and the number attached to
+his name is registered against it.”
+
+“You know this?” cried the governor. “Rather you suggest it.”
+
+“Yes, I suggest it. This man must not be let loose to prowl the streets
+of Paris, and drive the rabble wild with his stories of the Bastille,
+its cruelties, its dungeons, and its underground horrors. He was a man
+of wonderful eloquence, and freedom will touch his tongue with fire. His
+white hair, the wonderful pathos in his eyes, and that shadowy form,
+will excite the people to terrible wrath.”
+
+The governor was trembling visibly throughout his entire frame. He
+leaned his hand so heavily on the table that the glasses, with the amber
+and ruby-tinted drops left in them, shook and rattled together beneath
+his pressure.
+
+“Madame Du Berry was the person who cast this man into prison, the
+people hate her already,” continued the page, who was himself growing
+strangely pale. “This man will first assail her; as for yourself——”
+
+The governor dropped into the chair he had left, and gazed upon the page
+with frightened eyes and parted lips, a remembrance of all he had done
+to the prisoner since his incarceration, of the neglect, starvation, the
+awful solitude in which he had been left, year after year, scarcely
+speaking to a human being, swept over him in all the blackness of its
+horrors.
+
+“As for yourself,” continued the page, “all the enormous cruelties
+practiced in the Bastille, during the last twenty years, will be heaped
+upon your shoulders. This man has been an inmate of the lower-cells; he
+has been chained by the waist to your dank walls, over which reptiles
+were eternally dragging their slime across and around him; he has heard
+the perpetual lapping of fetid waters against the enormous walls, which
+were not thick enough to keep the poisonous drops from creeping down
+them and dropping on his hands, his hair, and his emaciated limbs——”
+
+“Hold! hold!” cried the governor. “If this man says but half of these
+things to the people, they will seize upon me in the street and tear me
+limb from limb.”
+
+“But the danger must be avoided. It is a question of life and death with
+you and the madame. The king in his clemency is flinging fire-brands
+among his own enemies, with which they will consume him.”
+
+“When did you say the pardon would come?” inquired the governor.
+
+“In the morning, very early.”
+
+“We will be prepared!”
+
+The color was coming back to that broad face. The governor had arrived
+at a conclusion—his prisoner should never go forth to the world to fire
+the hearts of men against him. He rang a little house-bell that stood
+upon the table with a sharpness that soon brought Christopher to the
+room.
+
+“Bring me a light, Christopher, and lead the way to the office where our
+books are kept.”
+
+Christopher lighted a lamp, and led the way into a dark stone chamber,
+which contained several oaken desks, on which lay ponderous books
+chained to staples driven deep into the wall. The governor opened one of
+these imposing volumes, and, after turning over several of its leaves,
+ran his finger down a column which bore a date that ran back to a period
+in which Louis the Fifteenth reigned in France.
+
+“Only two entered at this period left,” he muttered; “and this delicate
+man one of them. How fearfully strong life is. It seems as if some men
+never would die.”
+
+“Who are you seeking for—the man who died this morning?” inquired
+Christopher, who was greatly astonished that the governor should have
+entered that room, or thought of examining the books.
+
+“Did a man die this morning?” demanded the governor, quickly. “What is
+his name? How long has he been here?”
+
+“His name,” answered Christopher, with a grim smile, “has died out long
+ago; but we can trace it by the number, if you will give me time. As to
+the how long—I cannot remember when he was not here.”
+
+Here the page stepped forward.
+
+“You have seen the man who remains, I suppose—tell me, was he fair or
+dark, large or small, old or young?”
+
+“He was fair, young, sir, when I first knew him, slender, too, and of
+most gentle bearing. As to age, men grow old here rapidly.”
+
+“But he seems old?”
+
+“Yes, a little, worn, old man.”
+
+“That will do,” said the governor, promptly. “Now let us see this
+person. Get the keys, Christopher, I will go with you to the cells—there
+is the number.”
+
+Christopher took the scrap of paper, on which a number was written, and
+selecting a bunch of keys from a heap that lay in one of the desks, took
+the lamp in his disengaged hand. The governor made a sign to the page,
+and all three plunged at once into the black labyrinth of passages which
+led into the stony heart of the prison. Through long, vault-like halls,
+down narrow chasms, that seemed hewn from the original rock, far into
+the very bowels of the earth, these three persons penetrated. After a
+time, they heard low, sobbing murmurs, indiscribably mournful, which
+came to them out of the darkness, as if the very stones were saturated
+with tears. Once the clank of a chain broke sharply through these
+murmurs, and the grinding sound of a curse broke across the blackness of
+their progress.
+
+At last they stopped before an oaken door, studded heavily with great
+iron knobs, over which time and dampness had woven a coat of reddish
+rust. A great, clumsy lock of iron spread far out on the ponderous oak,
+into which Christopher thrust an equally clumsy key, which ground its
+way through the rasping rust, and was only turned by a vigorous wrench
+of both the keeper’s powerful hands.
+
+At last the door was forced open, and there, sitting upon the bare, wet
+stones was a human being. He had just been aroused from a dreary sleep,
+and, supporting himself by the palms of both hands pressed upon the
+floor, was peering at them through a fall of snow-white hair, which
+drooped over the most mournfully white face that human eye ever gazed
+upon. When he saw the light, and more than one human face looking in
+upon his misery, this man, who scarcely knew what the presence of a
+fellow-creature was, began to tremble with strange apprehension, and
+crept half across the floor, whispering,
+
+“Has she come—has she come?”
+
+His eyes were bright as diamonds, his white face was full of piteous
+entreaty; his voice sounded like the heartbroken prayer of a dying man.
+
+They did not speak to him, but drew back, and partly closed the door
+upon him. Then a wild shriek broke from the dungeon, a cry of anguish so
+terrible that the page covered his face with both hands, and went
+staggering through the dark passage like a drunken creature.
+
+“Oh! if I could but take it back—if I could tear this one sin from my
+soul!”
+
+The governor heard this cry of anguish, but did not comprehend the
+words. He had witnessed too many scenes like the one they had left to
+tremble at the sight.
+
+“Have no apprehensions,” he said. “They will not find him here in the
+morning, rest content; not even the king knows all the secrets of the
+Bastille. There exist lower dungeons yet.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLII.
+ THE PAGE TRANSFORMED.
+
+
+At daylight the next morning, a dashing page, clothed in the livery of
+some great house, which no one in Versailles could satisfactorily
+identify, came riding up the streets of the town entirely at his
+leisure, and looking around curiously as if the place were new to him.
+He dismounted in front of The Swan, and calling for a hostler in the
+affected and somewhat effeminate voice so fashionable among his class,
+entered the inn.
+
+“What do I please to want?” he said, giving a twirl to the long
+love-lock that waved down his shoulder. “First, I shall want some
+breakfast, and a room in which this dilapidated toilet can be arranged;
+for, upon my honor, madame, I am ashamed to stand in this guise before a
+lady of so much taste, and so fine a presence—queenly I might say, but
+that I fear so much familiarity might——”
+
+“Nay, speak out—speak frankly, my friend,” said Dame Tillery, fluttering
+heavily. “It is true, the air of a court may cling to one; indeed, I
+feel that it is so. Since yesterday this inn, large and commodious as
+every one will admit, seems too small for me. There is no room for the
+expansion that comes natural after a free intercourse with royal
+personages.”
+
+“Ah! I understand; but there is nothing surprising in the fact that
+royalty knows where it can bestow favors.”
+
+“Not favors, but confidence,” interposed the dame.
+
+“Yes, confidence. I dare say it is you who have granted favors.”
+
+Dame Tillery drew close to the page, first looking over her shoulder to
+make sure that no one was listening.
+
+“Would you call it a favor if a person I will not mention, being modest,
+had saved the queen’s life?”
+
+“Would I?” answered the page, stepping back and throwing a world of
+reverence and astonishment into his air; “that would be to make one’s
+self immortal. Ah! if the chance had been given me.”
+
+“You could not have done it. Such things require strength and wonderful
+presence of mind.”
+
+“I dare say; in fact, the thought was presumption. If I could but obtain
+an audience with her highness, it would be glory enough for me, even
+though I do bring her good news.”
+
+“Indeed,” said the dame. “Is that your business? Good news for her
+highness, and no one to introduce you. Well, we shall see what can be
+done.”
+
+“Kind and noble, as they told me,” answered the page, with enthusiasm.
+“‘Go to Dame Tillery, of The Swan. She has power, she has influence with
+the court; her introduction will be the making of you.’ This was what
+was said to me.”
+
+“But who said it? Pray tell me, who said it?”
+
+“Ah! that is my secret. Some one who knows you well and understood how
+you are considered up yonder;—but we will mention no names—diplomacy
+forbids it.”
+
+“Diplomacy!” said the dame, somewhat puzzled by the word. “Certainly, I
+understand. He is the lord you serve, who sends good news to the queen.
+It would be a shame, a pity, if you could not reach her; but, as I said
+before, we shall think of it.”
+
+“And now for the room and the breakfast,” answered the page, accepting
+her patronage with a profound bow.
+
+“The breakfast I can promise you—in that respect The Swan is never
+wanting; but as for a room, the truth is, I have a person here whose
+name I need not mention, as it might be an offence to some one we know
+of—a lady whom one neither wishes to entertain or offend, but who has
+taken every room in my house for herself and her train; but there is a
+closet next her own chamber, which a little marmosette of a page sleeps
+in; I will turn him out and give the room to you. Only move softly and
+speak low, for the partition is thin, and there is danger of being
+overheard.”
+
+The page bowed low again with a hand on his heart.
+
+“I see that the praise I heard of madame’s goodness is well bestowed.
+Place me anywhere, I shall be content, so long as there is a pallet on
+which I may snatch a few hours’ rest, and light enough to refresh my
+toilet by.”
+
+“The room has a glazed window, and you shall not be disturbed.”
+
+“Meanwhile, perhaps you will think of some method by which I can speak
+to the queen.”
+
+“It is difficult, very difficult; but there are few things that Dame
+Tillery cannot accomplish when all her energies are set upon it. This is
+the room; marmosette has arisen—go in, go in; if he has left anything
+there, set it outside the door, and draw the bolt. I see his bed has not
+been touched.”
+
+The page stepped over the threshold, saying,
+
+“I will not disturb the lady with any noise.”
+
+“Oh! never mind her—she cannot rule here! The time was—but no matter; a
+good morning’s sleep to you. When the breakfast is ready you shall be
+informed.”
+
+The page entered the little room assigned to him, threw himself on the
+pallet-bed, and burst into a low, rich gush of laughter, that was little
+in keeping with the promise he had made not to disturb the lady in the
+next room. A few minutes after Zamara came to the door. The page sprung
+up, drew the bolt, and gave the dwarf a glimpse of his laughing face.
+
+“Go away!” he said, “I am here safe and well. Your lady will sleep late;
+she is ill—has an abominable headache. I should not wonder if she keeps
+her bed all day.”
+
+Zamara left the door infinitely relieved, for he had been very anxious
+during the night. In the passage he met Dame Tillery.
+
+“How has your lady rested?” she inquired. “Have you seen her this
+morning?”
+
+“No; but I will inquire,” answered the dwarf.
+
+“It is time, we must be thinking about her breakfast.”
+
+“I fear madame will have but little appetite; she was not well last
+night.”
+
+“Still we must take her orders. Yes, yes, I am coming! Was ever a house
+like this! Dame Tillery here, Dame Tillery there! If I could cut myself
+into a dozen, it would not be enough. You hear how they are calling me,
+marmosette. In ten minutes I will be back again—expect me.”
+
+Zamara went at once to the door which he had just left, and, after a
+faint knock, put his lips to the key-hole, and whispered something to
+the person he heard moving inside. Then he sauntered away, waiting
+patiently for the reappearance of the dame. She appeared at last,
+breathing heavily, and flushed with the exertion she was forced to make
+in lifting her ponderous weight up the stairs.
+
+“Now you will make inquiries about madame,” she said. “It is important;
+I have so much to accomplish before presenting myself at the chateau.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLIII.
+ THE LAST ROULEAU OF GOLD.
+
+
+Zamara walked softly to Madame Du Berry’s chamber and knocked at the
+door. A voice bade him come in, and he disappeared. Directly he came
+back and beckoned to the dame, who was glad enough to enter the
+sleeping-room of her guest. She would not have known the room in her own
+house, so completely was it metamorphosed. Silken hangings fell over the
+windows through which the light came, richly filling the chamber as with
+a warm sunset. The only table in the room had been covered with a
+scarlet cloth, on which golden scent-bottles, pomade-boxes, and caskets,
+shone in gorgeous profusion. Instead of the best sheets and blankets
+that her linen-closet could afford, Dame Tillery saw sheets of the
+finest linen peeping out from blankets of delicate lamb’s-wool, and over
+them was a coverlet of pale green satin, which swept the oaken floor
+with a border of delicate embroidery.
+
+In this bed, with her hair all loose, and her night-dress open at the
+throat, lay Madame Du Berry, with all the rouge washed from her face,
+and her head resting languidly on the snowy whiteness of her pillows.
+She certainly had all the appearance of an invalid. The countess held
+out her hand with a gentle smile.
+
+“This is kind,” she said; “I have been so ill in the night. You are
+looking at these things. It is foolish, I know, but they please me—they
+have become necessary; so, when I travel, Zamara always has them ready.
+I hope you are not offended.”
+
+“Offended! Well, I was, almost! Her majesty, I think, would not have
+scorned to sleep in my best room as it was.”
+
+“Ah, dame! but she is the queen. She has everything, while I possess
+nothing but old memories and habits, that make commonplace things
+repulsive.”
+
+“I do not know about it. Princes have slept in this room before now, and
+never seemed to feel a want. Well, madame, if you are so dainty, the aid
+of Dame Tillery can be nothing to you. I shall not take your message to
+the queen, remember that.”
+
+“Ah, dame! this is unkind.”
+
+“I think it is only prudent.”
+
+“Well, if you really refuse, I have nothing more to say. There was a
+time when the most courageous woman in Versailles would have been afraid
+to refuse a request of mine.”
+
+“But now it would take the bravest woman in Versailles to grant a
+request from the Countess Du Berry.”
+
+“But you have courage for anything.”
+
+“Not for that. When the Queen of France selects a favorite from the
+people, she expects discretion—and that she shall find with Dame
+Tillery.”
+
+“But you have already introduced a stranger—that young girl.”
+
+“Ah! but that is another matter; the difference here is that Madame Du
+Berry is not a stranger.”
+
+Du Berry almost laughed at the blunt frankness of this speech.
+
+“Well, well,” she said, “if you will have nothing to do with me, I
+cannot help it; but you have lost a rouleau of gold which I had already
+counted out.”
+
+Dame Tillery had evidently forgotten the gold, or she might not have
+been in such haste to assert her determination. Her countenance fell;
+her fat fingers worked nervously in the folds of her dress.
+
+“Well,” she said, “tell me what the message is and I will
+decide—everything depends on that.”
+
+A mischievous smile quivered around Du Berry’s mouth, and amusement
+twinkled in her eyes.
+
+“No,” she said, “I will not embarrass you; perhaps I shall myself go to
+the chateau.”
+
+“What, you?”
+
+“Possibly. At any rate, I will bring no one else into disrepute.”
+
+Dame Tillery was crestfallen enough. She had expected to be argued with
+and implored, but found herself utterly put aside.
+
+“But I did not mean to be altogether unaccommodating. It was the slight
+you put upon my room that aggravated me. There is not a more obliging
+woman in the world than Dame Tillery, if she is a little restive at
+times. So, if your message is a safe one——”
+
+Du Berry rose to her elbow, and with her still fine hair falling around
+her shoulders, drew a ponderous gold watch, flaming with jewels, from
+under her pillow.
+
+“It is getting late,” she said. “You will have scarcely time to prepare;
+as for me, talking makes my head ache.”
+
+Dame Tillery arose, feeling the poorer by a rouleau of gold.
+
+“Madame has had no breakfast,” she said, still lingering.
+
+“Not a morsel,” murmured Du Berry, closing her eyes with an appearance
+of disgust. “I shall not eat a mouthful to-day.”
+
+“But, shall I send nothing?”
+
+“On the contrary, I must have profound rest. No one but Zamara need
+approach me. He will understand if I want anything.”
+
+Dame Tillery went out, feeling herself put down; but she had no time to
+dwell on her disappointment. The breakfast of that dashing page had not
+yet been served, and the time was fast approaching when she was to
+appear at the royal chateau. She hurried down to her kitchen, saw that
+the stranger’s meal was in reasonable forwardness, and then gave herself
+up to the mysteries of a most wonderful toilet, in which she appeared an
+hour after, armed with her fan, and rustling like a forest-tree in
+October.
+
+The dame joined her latest guest, who seated himself at the table, with
+his hair freshly curled, his laces spotless as gossamer, and the ribbons
+on his dress fluttering airily.
+
+“Ah! but this is magnificent!” he said, with an affected lisp. “Who
+shall say after this it is the nobility alone that understand what is
+befitting the presence of royalty? Under such protection I shall be sure
+of success.”
+
+Dame Tillery had found such unthought of success in her last protégée
+that she was emboldened to test her fortune again, and, being a woman,
+was particularly pleased that this time her companion would be a
+handsome and dashing fellow, who would not feel abashed by anything he
+might see at the palace.
+
+“You are in haste, I see,” observed the page, helping himself to the
+nearest dish; “but this omelet is delicious, and I must detain you for
+another plate.”
+
+“Take your time; take plenty of time,” answered the dame, charmed that
+he should have praised the dish she had herself prepared; “it will be
+half an hour before her majesty can be kept waiting, so there is no
+especial haste; still it is always well to be ready.”
+
+The page finished his omelet, shook off a crumb or two of bread, that
+had fallen among his ribbons, and arose.
+
+“Pray, my good dame, glance your eyes over my person, that I may be sure
+that all is right,” he said, pluming himself like a bird. “It seems to
+me that this love-lock might be brought forward the fraction of an inch
+with good effect. Pray let me have your judgment on the matter.”
+
+Dame Tillery took the glossy curl between her fat thumb and finger, laid
+it very daintily a little forward on the shoulder, and stood back with
+her head on one side to mark the effect.
+
+“That is perfect,” she said. “The Duke de Richelieu’s love-lock fell
+just in that way when he presented us yesterday. He is a handsome man, a
+little younger than you, I should think; but if I were to choose——”
+
+“Younger than me, dame, that seems impossible. Look again.”
+
+It seemed as if the page were determined to challenge the woman’s most
+critical attention, for he went close to her that she might scrutinize
+his face, and exclaimed at last,
+
+“Now, can you persist in saying that I am not younger than the Duke de
+Richelieu?”
+
+“Well, I am not sure. At a little distance I should say no; but with the
+light on your face—”
+
+“There, there! do not say it, the very thought breaks my heart,” said
+the page, interrupting her airily. “One does so hate to feel the bloom
+of his youth going. But I am keeping you. It is time—it is time.”
+
+Dame Tillery took her fan from a corner where she had placed it, and
+settling all the amplitude of her garments, led the way into the street,
+and sailed off toward the palace like a frigate with all her canvas set
+to a stiff breeze.
+
+The people of the town, who had by this time heard pretty generally of
+her good fortune, crowded to their doors and windows to see the dame
+pass. Children paused, open-mouthed, in the street, wondering at her
+finery; and those who met her stood aside, as if contact with royalty
+had given her some mysterious prerogatives, which they were bound to
+reverence.
+
+The dame felt all this glory with wonderful exhilaration. She bowed
+graciously, right and left, as she moved on; gave one or two near
+acquaintances the tips of her plump fingers in passing, and swept
+through the palace gates like an empress.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLIV.
+ DAME TILLERY OBTAINS AN AUDIENCE IN THE PARK
+
+
+There had been no audience arranged for Dame Tillery that day. The queen
+wished to see her, that some proper reward might be given for the danger
+she had run, and, perhaps, promised herself some little amusement from
+the eccentric vanity of the good woman, whose superb airs had excited
+the merriment of all her ladies. But the day happened to be very lovely,
+and Marie Antoinette forgot her gratitude so far that she went into the
+Park with one or two of her favorites, ready for any amusement that
+might present itself, and in a humor to enjoy the bright, fresh air of
+those green glades with peculiar relish. She was unusually happy that
+day—kind acts bring a glow of contentment with them. She was pleased
+with the great blessing her interposition had secured for that young
+girl; she was grateful that an outstanding wrong of such terrible
+duration had been redressed. No harassing intelligence had reached her
+from the city, and she went forth from her palace cheerfully, like a
+child let out from school before the stated hour.
+
+“After all, my Campan, this is a beautiful world,” she said, lifting the
+folds of her dress enough to reveal her dainty high-heeled shoes, as she
+descended the broad flight of steps that led to the grand fountain. “It
+is full of music and lovely colors. How greenly the trees overarch that
+arcade; how bright the grass is. Oh! if these people in Paris would only
+let us alone for a little while we might be very happy here. The king
+asks so little; and I—tell me, my Campan, am I very unreasonable? Do I
+require so much more than other women?”
+
+Madame Campan lifted her soft eyes to the handsome face bent upon her,
+and Marie Antoinette saw that they were misty with tears, such as sprang
+readily from her affectionate heart.
+
+“Ah, my mistress! if the people only knew how little would satisfy you,
+how earnestly you seek their welfare, rather than your own, all the
+discontent we hear of might pass away as yonder mist arises from the
+lawn, and turns to silver in the sunshine.”
+
+“How I wish it might,” answered the queen, fervently. “Sometimes I think
+it is my presence in France that has occasioned all this broad-spread
+discontent. Yet the people seemed to love me once. You remember how they
+would go into a tumult of delight if I but waved a bouquet to them from
+my box at the theatre; how they would crowd around my carriage only for
+a sight of my face. Tell me, Campan, was it because I was younger then
+and more beautiful, or is it that they have really learned to hate me?”
+
+Campan shook her head, and heaved a deep sigh while her affectionate
+glance rested on that queenly face.
+
+“The people loved their queen once, and will love her again when the
+terrible clamor of the clubs has worn itself out,” she said, speaking
+from her simple wisdom, for she could not comprehend any of the great
+causes of discontent which lay seething in the riotous city of
+Paris—causes that were rooted so deep in the past, that it has taken
+almost a century to discover and trace them back through the awful
+convulsion they led to. “The people have their caprices,” she added,
+“and change easily. Wait a little, and all this popularity will come
+back.”
+
+“God grant it!” said Marie Antoinette, clasping her hands, and looking
+upward where the blue sky, bright with silvery sunshine, bent over her
+like a promise. “I did not know how sweet it was to be beloved until
+this terrible change came.”
+
+The queen was growing anxious, the bright spirits with which she had
+left the palace were saddened by the turn her conversation had taken.
+She walked on awhile thoughtfully, and with all the beauty of her face
+clouded, as it was so often of late; but after awhile she seemed to
+throw off this depression, and looked up with a smile.
+
+“You are a kind prophet, my Campan, and I will believe you. Why should a
+people I have never wronged hold me in perpetual dislike? I will not
+believe it! I will not believe it!”
+
+Madame Campan smiled till all her round face was aglow. She was
+delighted that any words of hers should have brought courage to her
+beautiful mistress. The queen had more genial sympathy with Campan than
+any other person in her household. During all her residence in France,
+this cordial, kind-hearted woman had been so closely knitted with her
+domestic life, that a spirit of sisterhood had sprung up in the queen’s
+bosom toward her. The little woman herself fairly worshiped her
+mistress, while she never forgot the vast distance that lay between
+them.
+
+“Let us turn down this shady path,” said the queen, who, for the moment,
+had outwalked all the ladies that had followed her, except Campan; “no
+matter if we do lose them. It is so pleasant to be alone; but we must
+talk of more cheerful things, my Campan. I, too, will believe that this
+black cloud will be swept away from France, and that our bright days
+will come back again. It shall be my policy, as it surely is my
+pleasure, to conciliate the people. That was not an unwise thing which
+his majesty did yesterday—I mean the pardon of that poor girl’s father.”
+
+“It was an act of justice—a brave act, because just now dangerous,
+perhaps.”
+
+“Dangerous, my Campan! How?”
+
+“Because the awful wrong done this man by one king, has been continued
+so far into the reign of another, that the people will never distinguish
+which has been most in fault.”
+
+“I did not think of this,” said the queen, thoughtfully, “but the pardon
+was right in itself; and if it had not been that lovely girl did, in
+fact, save me from being torn to pieces, I could not have refused her,
+though the life she gave me had been at stake.”
+
+“Our Lady forbid that I should say anything against a clemency as
+fearless as it was just. I did but speak of the unreasonableness of the
+people,” said Madame Campan, glancing anxiously at the queen’s face,
+which was again overclouded.
+
+The king must have had some apprehensions when he hesitated, she
+thought; but in my impulsive gratitude I forgot everything but the fact
+that this poor man was unjustly incarcerated, and that his child had
+flung herself between me and death. Well I am glad, only these ideas
+were in my mind; too much caution makes cowards of us all. I, also,
+might have hesitated, for these times harden one’s heart fearfully.
+Still, with those wistful eyes looking into mine, I must have done
+it—and I am glad it is done.
+
+When she came to this conclusion in her mind, Marie Antoinette lifted
+her head from its bent attitude, and looked around smiling.
+
+“I think we have escaped our ladies,” she said, with a gleam of the
+sparkling mischief in her eyes which Madame Campan knew well, but had
+seen so rarely of late. “Oh! here they are coming, I can see their
+dresses through the branches. We must take up our state now, my Campan,”
+she said with a sigh, “there is no escaping it.”
+
+“But it is not the ladies,” said Campan, shading her eyes and looking
+through the trees; “but—but——Why, your highness, it is the woman who
+taught us how to churn.”
+
+“What, my dame of the dairy! I had forgotten all about her,” answered
+the queen, laughing. “Well, I am glad, she finds us here. But who is
+this coming with her?”
+
+“A page; but I do not know the livery,” answered Madame Campan. “He
+lingers behind, now that he has seen your highness. Shall the woman
+approach?”
+
+“Oh, yes! We shall find amusement in her, if nothing more. You have my
+purse; it will be needed, for, after all, the woman has done us a
+service; but for her we should never have met that young girl, or the
+man who took that fierce animal by the horns. Let her approach.”
+
+Madame Campan laughed with the faintest, mellow chuckle in the world,
+spite of the high sense of etiquette that reigned at court. In fact, she
+could not help it; for Dame Tillery was approaching toward them, her
+face all smiles, her dress in a flutter of gorgeous colors, her closed
+fan held in the middle like a baton, and her body swaying forward now
+and then in a ponderous salutation, which was repeated over and over
+again as she approached the queen.
+
+Marie Antoinette had too keen a sense of the ridiculous to think of
+reprimanding her lady; in fact, she put up one hand, and gave a little
+cough behind it to break up an impulse to laugh, which was almost
+irrepressible with that woman in sight; but as Dame Tillery drew close
+to her, a gentle gravity covered this feeling, and she kindly bade the
+dame draw near.
+
+With all her boastfulness, there was something in that presence which
+subdued the exuberance of Dame Tillery’s self-conceit. So she came
+forward smiling and blushing like a peony in the sunshine, and waited in
+a flutter of expectation for the queen to address her.
+
+“So, my good dame, you have found your audience, though we had forgotten
+it,” said Marie Antoinette.
+
+Dame Tillery performed one of her profound courtesies, which swept the
+grass with the swelling circumference of her garments.
+
+“The gentleman up yonder knowing that the queen desired my company, bade
+me and my companion walk in the Park until the pleasure of your highness
+should be known; these were his very words.”
+
+“So you came out here to see our Park, and chanced upon this spot. Well,
+dame, all places are proper where a service is to be rewarded. Madame
+has a purse of gold that I have desired her to present to you.”
+
+Madame Campan arose, smiling, and placed the purse in Dame Tillery’s
+hand, which was rather reluctantly extended. The queen who was not
+accustomed to see her favors received with awkward silence, looked a
+little annoyed; but before she could speak, Dame Tillery had dropped
+down on her knees in the grass, making what a school-girl would have
+called enormous cheeses with her dress, and clasped her plump hands in a
+passion of entreaty.
+
+“Take the money back. Oh! your royal highness and sacred majesty, take
+back the gold! It is another reward I want.”
+
+“Another,” said the queen, scarcely caring to check the burst of
+sunshiny humor that came over her face. “Well, let us hear what it is
+that you love better than gold.”
+
+“Oh, madame! Oh, my queen! I love the wife of our king ten thousand
+times better than gold or precious stones. I want to serve her; I want
+to adore her. I pine to go forth among the people and say how good, how
+grand, how beautiful she is! I wish to say that it is not always from
+the nobility she chooses those who serve her; but where the people have
+ability, she is ready to acknowledge it.”
+
+“And so I am,” answered Marie Antoinette, looking at Madame Campan for
+sympathy with this new idea. “So I am, if that would please our
+subjects; but how to begin.” The queen had addressed her companion in a
+low voice, but Dame Tillery heard her. Leaning forward, and pressing one
+hand into the grass, she lifted herself up and spoke with great
+earnestness, before the little governess had time to collect her
+thoughts.
+
+“I do not ask to be made a lady of the palace!”
+
+Here the smile that had hovered about the queen’s lips broke into a
+laugh, so clear and ringing that the dame stopped abruptly, and looked
+around to see what object could have given her majesty such amusement;
+but discovering nothing, she went on,
+
+“No, I ask nothing of that kind; but there is a position, a title, as
+one may assert, that a woman of the people might fairly claim. Make me
+the Dame of the Dairy.”
+
+Again that laugh rang out louder and more prolonged, until tears
+absolutely leaped down the queen’s cheek, and so sparkled in her eyes
+that she was obliged to use her handkerchief.
+
+Dame Tillery drew slowly back, and her broad face clouded. She began to
+comprehend that the laughter was for her.
+
+“Is it so strange,” she said, with something like dignity, “that a woman
+of the people should ask to be mistress of the queen’s cows?”
+
+Marie Antoinette arose, and continued wiping the tears from her laughing
+eyes. Dame Tillery’s face grew more and more stormy. She cast the purse
+at Madame Campan’s feet, and was turning away in hot anger, when Marie
+Antoinette’s voice arrested her.
+
+“Strange, dame—no, it is not strange. Only the title; but, after all, it
+is a good one, and expresses the duties well. So, henceforth, consider
+yourself as belonging to the court, and Mistress of the Dairy at the
+little Trianon. But all positions have a salary attached, so take up the
+purse, it contains yours for the next half year.”
+
+Dame Tillery stooped with some difficulty, and lifted the purse from
+Madame Campan’s feet. Her broad face was rosy with happiness as she
+turned it on the queen.
+
+“The people shall hear of this—they know Dame Tillery. When she speaks
+they listen and believe. The queen has enemies among the people of
+Versailles—they shall disappear.”
+
+When the good woman ended this speech, tears stood in her eyes. She
+turned to go away, but saw the page lingering a little way off, and was
+reminded of her promise.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLV.
+ ONE VIRTUE LEFT.
+
+
+“Madame, your highness.”
+
+The queen, who had been somewhat moved by Dame Tillery’s earnestness,
+met her return with a pleasant, questioning look.
+
+“Your highness, before coming here I made a promise. Yonder page, who
+has something that he wishes to lay before your highness, besought me to
+let him follow my poor footsteps to the royal presence. Bethinking me of
+the great good which chanced to the young demoiselle who was made so
+happy yesterday, simply because she came under Dame Tillery’s wing, I
+could but give this young man his opportunity.”
+
+The good-humor with which Marie Antoinette had received the woman, who
+took such extraordinary liberties, was not yet exhausted. She glanced
+toward the page, and her practised eye discovered at once that he must
+belong to some powerful family. She made an assenting gesture with her
+hand, which the page comprehended even better than Dame Tillery, and he
+advanced at once.
+
+Marie Antoinette’s keen eyes were bent on his face as he came clearly
+out of the shadows. Somewhere, it seemed to her, that she had seen it
+before, but she could not recognize the colors that ought to have
+distinguished him as the follower of any great family well known to the
+court, and was a little puzzled to guess who he was.
+
+Nothing could be more courtly than the manner of the page as he drooped
+his hat, and bent his perfumed head low before the queen.
+
+“You have some message? You would speak with us?” she said, with that
+gentle grace in which she was surpassed by no queen in Europe.
+
+“Your highness, may I crave an especial indulgence, and ask that my
+message may be given to your majesty alone?”
+
+The queen looked at her strange visitor searchingly a moment, then waved
+her hand; at which Madame Campan drew discreetly out of ear-shot, after
+giving Dame Tillery the signal that she was expected to withdraw.
+
+“Now,” said the queen, “what is the message you bring, and from whom?”
+
+She lifted her hand as she spoke, from which the glove had been
+withdrawn, and among the jewels that blazed on the slender fingers was
+the serpent holding that scarabee in its folds. Marie Antoinette saw
+that the face she looked upon was turning coldly pale; this agitation
+disturbed her a little, and she drew a step back, watching it keenly.
+
+“I come,” said the page at length, recovering from what seemed to have
+been a sudden shock, “I come from one who wishes to be a friend to the
+Queen of France, and who may have some power to aid her; but at present
+I am forbidden to reveal the name.”
+
+“This is a strange message,” said the queen.
+
+“Not strange, unless gratitude is unusual,” answered the page, with
+profound respect. “This person has once received great kindness and much
+undeserved forbearance from the King and Queen of France, and she would
+gladly prove, in some way, that the favors so royally conferred have not
+been thrown away.”
+
+A faint and almost bitter smile curled the lips of the queen.
+
+“This is, indeed, a stranger thing than I dreamed of. Does some one
+offer the king help out of simple gratitude?”
+
+“Out of simple gratitude, nothing more. Nay, so anxious is the lady——”
+
+“Then your principal is a lady,” cried the queen, interrupting him, “and
+one who has been the recipient of royal favors, too; this is more and
+more remarkable. Well, what is it that she wishes?”
+
+“Only this, your highness; through the royal munificence this lady has
+become rich.”
+
+The queen lifted her hand while she seemed to reflect; but after a
+little she shook her head.
+
+“There have been so many such, that I fail to guess at your mistress
+from the number: but out of them all she seems to be foremost in finding
+a memory for thanks.”
+
+“My mistress would do more. She has heard—it may not be true—but she has
+heard that in these disturbed times the royal exchequer is often in want
+of money. She has some to spare, that is, to give back, if it will help
+the king to struggle through the difficulties that beset the throne.”
+
+Marie Antoinette drew herself up as the object of this speech dawned
+upon her; but the color gradually grew fainter on her face, and a flush,
+as of hardly suppressed tears, came about her eyes when the page ceased
+speaking, and with downcast look awaited her answer.
+
+“This is kind, but very, very strange,” she said, as if reasoning with
+herself. “Where and when have we dealt so generously with this lady,
+that she is ready to stand by the throne when so many that should have
+upheld it to the last are ready to flee anywhere to save themselves even
+from unpopularity.”
+
+“I was forbidden to explain further than I have already done,” answered
+the page; “but of this your highness may be certain, so long as my
+mistress possesses a Louis d’or, it belongs to the Queen of France.”
+
+Marie Antoinette was touched by this strange offer. Such generous acts
+had been very rare with the court of late; and she felt this all the
+more keenly. She would have given much to know who the friend was who
+offered such help, and yet concealed everything.
+
+“That your highness may have no doubt,” continued the page, “I was
+empowered to beg your acceptance of this, and to say that twice the
+amount will await the royal order whenever it is needed.”
+
+The page took from the bosom of his dress a slip of paper, which
+represented so large a sum of money that the queen opened her eyes in
+astonishment.
+
+“There is no need of this now,” she said, with deep feeling; “take it
+back to the generous lady who sent it. Say that the queen is grateful,
+but can yet look to the people of France for such support as the throne
+may need.”
+
+“But should the time ever come?” said the page, receiving the order with
+hesitation.
+
+“Then we will refuse help from no loyal man or woman of France who has
+power or wealth to give—for it will be for the nation not ourselves that
+we shall receive.”
+
+“May the time be far away when France shall be so menaced,” said the
+page, looking wistfully at the queen’s hand, from which the green tints
+of the scarabee stood out in dull relief among so many jewels. “But the
+time may come when even the best friends of the monarchy may not find
+easy access to the queen, when even the little help my mistress could
+give would not find its way to the royal coffers.”
+
+“Nay, this is a dark view to take even of gloomy times. Those who love
+their sovereigns have seldom found it difficult to gain access to them
+through friends or enemies.”
+
+“Even now,” said the page, “when my object was a loyal one, I was
+compelled to crave assistance from yonder good-natured dame, who almost
+forced a passage for me through the guards.”
+
+The queen looked toward Dame Tillery, who was walking up and down in a
+neighboring avenue, watching the interview between her protegé and the
+queen with some jealousy and impatience. The smile which brightened that
+beautiful face seemed to encourage the page.
+
+“If I had anything that would insure me entrance to the royal presence
+without such delay as has impeded me now,” he said, looking so wistfully
+at the queen’s hand that she observed the glance.
+
+“That is easy,” she said, with the quick imprudence of action which cost
+her so dearly, “one of these——”
+
+She was about to take one of the jewels from her finger, but with an
+impulse he could not control, the page cried out,
+
+“Not that; not that, your highness, it is of value; but that serpent
+with the dull-green beetle in its coil. Oh! I pray you, let me have that
+as a token!”
+
+Marie Antoinette drew the scarabee half off her finger, then thrust it
+back, remembering how little she knew of the person before her.
+
+“No,” she murmured, “this is a talisman;” and with a sudden gesture of
+dismissal, she walked toward Madame Campan, leaving the page standing
+there, trembling under what might have seemed a trivial disappointment.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLVI.
+ WAITING FOR THE MORNING.
+
+
+All night long Marguerite Gosner lay by her mother’s side, with that
+precious paper folded close to her heart. She did not sleep, though the
+last two days had been full of excitement and fatigue; but her wild,
+bright eyes were wide open, looking through the darkness, and picturing
+there a scene of exceeding joy that would come to them upon the morrow.
+How often during that night did she steal her hand under the pillow, and
+draw forth the ivory crucifix hidden there, that her lips, all quivering
+with thankfulness, might kiss it in blessing of the Holy Mother for the
+great happiness that filled her heart. Yet all this was done so quietly
+that the woman by her side thought the girl asleep, and scarcely dared
+to draw an irregular breath lest she might disturb her. Thus the morning
+found both mother and child so restless with happiness, that it amounted
+almost to pain.
+
+“What if they would not give him up,” thought the poor woman, who had
+been so often thrust back from her hope, that nothing good ever seemed
+quite sure to her; “or he may be taken suddenly ill and unable to move.
+The king might be persuaded to retract his mercy—she had heard of such
+things.”
+
+Thus the poor woman, who had been so long inured to suffering that she
+did not know how to be happy, tormented herself through that long, long
+night; but when the day broke and Marguerite’s eyes looked into hers all
+this changed. Her heart leaped toward the hope held out to it. She
+reached forth her arms, and drawing the young girl to her bosom with an
+intensity of affection never known to her before, cried out,
+
+“To-day, this very day, we shall see your father, so good, so learned,
+so wonderfully beautiful! Ah, Marguerite, my child! I almost feel his
+last kiss on my lips, my forehead, my hair. You were clinging to me, one
+arm about my neck, the other reaching forth to him. ‘Only a few days,’
+he said, ‘and I may come back covered with honors. The King of France
+has sent for me—Louis has learned that Gosner is wise, that he has a
+knowledge of wonderful things. Perhaps, my wife, we may yet lay up
+honors and riches for our little one.’ Then in this beautiful hope he
+would come back and embrace us again. I was weeping, for a strange,
+black presentiment of evil crept over me; but you sent kisses after him,
+fluttering that little hand in the air like a butterfly. He waved his
+hand in adieu; I saw him through my blinding tears; I watched him
+depart. His voice sounded like a knell through my whole being; the
+sorrows of an eternal parting fell upon me. Then I felt your arms around
+my neck, and the soft pressure of your lips on my face; your tiny hands,
+soft and white as rose-leaves brushed away my tears. Oh! how I loved
+you, how I do love you—_his_ child, his child and mine.”
+
+She threw her arms around the girl in a passion of love; then she pushed
+the young creature away, and looked down in her face with a wild
+consciousness of the great change that had fallen upon her. Beautiful as
+the face was, it seemed to fill her with infinite regret.
+
+“But his child is gone,” she cried out; “this is a woman who holds up
+her arms and tries to comfort me. Gosner will not know her; he will not
+know me. This child is the creature I was when he left us, young,
+beautiful, delicate. In her he may recognize the woman he loved; but in
+me what will he find, lines of sorrow where he left dimples, golden hair
+turned to ashes, which long years of suffering strews upon the head.
+Alas, alas! this is not all joy; these cruel people have dug a gulf
+between us since I was like you, my child. When we meet, the young man
+and that girlish wife will have disappeared forever. A man and a woman
+will clasp hands, broken down with sorrow, each carrying a weight of
+years that cruelty has rendered a dead blank. The king has pardoned him,
+the queen has smiled on you; but is there in all their royalty power
+enough to take back the awful wrong that has been done to us?”
+
+Marguerite trembled and grew pale in her mother’s arms. Never, since her
+first remembrance, had she seen that look of wild excitement on her
+face, or heard that thrill of agony in her voice. And this was the
+morning that should have been so resplendent in their lives. What did it
+mean? Was it possible that the woman who had suffered so long and
+struggled so bravely was lost to all sense of enjoyment? Had sorrow
+absolutely killed hope in her bosom?
+
+“But, mamma, you would both have grown older even if this great calamity
+had not fallen upon you,” said the young girl, striving to reassure her
+mother.
+
+“Yes; but not here, not here,” cried Madame Gosner, pressing a hand upon
+her heart. “Ah! this is terrible—we shall meet and not know each other.
+We shall look into each other’s eyes and see nothing there but wondering
+sorrow.”
+
+“But there will be love also,” murmured the girl.
+
+“Love? Yes, but never again the old love; regret, compassion, that
+infinite tenderness which springs out of infinite sorrow will be ours;
+but the darkness of the past will forever cast its shadows upon us.”
+
+“Not so, mamma. We will leave this terrible country; back in your own
+home, you and my poor father will yet find that life has its sunshine.”
+
+“But this is my own native land.”
+
+“I know it, mamma; but it has only given you sorrow.”
+
+“And what have I given it? Nothing but the selfishness of my grief.”
+
+“What else had you to give? Alas! what else?”
+
+“My life, my energies, every thought of my brain, every pulse of my
+heart; but I was selfish—one idea filled my existence. In my love for
+him all other duties, all other wrongs merged themselves. I was a wife,
+and could not be a patriot.”
+
+“God be thanked that it is so!” said Marguerite. “The woman who loves
+her husband and her home best is a patriot in spite of herself, for she
+gives strength and power to the man whose duty it is to govern.”
+
+Madame Gosner kissed the lips that uttered this noble truth, and lay
+back upon her pillow silent and thoughtful. Then she murmured to
+herself, “He will know, he will decide.”
+
+Marguerite was also silent, the words uttered so passionately by her
+mother troubled her. Did she, indeed, think with so much regret of the
+country they were in? Could that overbalance the gratitude for the royal
+clemency? Could she accept this noble act of pardon with a feeling of
+revolt in her mind?
+
+“Henceforth,” said Marguerite, with gentle firmness, “it will be our
+duty to pray for the King and Queen of France, to live for them, die for
+them, if need be.”
+
+The mother was silent; to her this obligation of eternal gratitude was a
+question of sacrifice. In her heart she loved France; but her life in
+Paris had gradually uprooted all love of royalty there. To save her own
+life she would not have asked mercy at the hands of a Bourbon king; to
+save her husband she had done more, sunk upon her knees at the roadside,
+only to be covered with mud by the royal cavalcade as it swept by her.
+She remembered, though her daughter did not, that the pardon had been
+granted as a reward for services rendered to the queen, not from an
+absolute sense of justice. With all the passions and prejudices of a
+Jacobin strong in her bosom, it was hard for this woman to accept simple
+obligations of gratitude from a king she had learned to hate, and a
+queen slander and misrepresentation had taught her to despise.
+
+All this passed while the gray dawn was breaking, and after a night of
+utter sleeplessness; but when the sunshine came, warm and golden, into
+the windows, the woman arose in her bed, held out her arms to the light,
+and thanked God for the blessed day, which was to give back her husband
+from his living tomb! Then a feeling of intense gratitude possessed her.
+She flung aside the dark thoughts that had haunted her soul in the
+night, and was once more pure, womanly. All that she asked, was, that
+_he_ might share her life in any peaceful place that promised safety and
+shelter for the coming age which would soon be upon them.
+
+Marguerite saw the change, and it completed her happiness. To her
+gratitude had been prompt and natural as rain is to the earth. Heart and
+soul she was devoted to the royal couple of France. Next to her mother,
+and the father she expected to see, at perfect liberty, that day, her
+thoughts were given to the two persons who had been so good and kind to
+her.
+
+The sun was scarcely up when these two persons were ready for the
+summons which they expected from Monsieur Jacques. The remnants of a
+poor wardrobe were brought forth and arranged by Marguerite so deftly
+that an air of youth and refinement was imparted to the mother, which
+gave back something of her lost loveliness. Never had that girl’s face
+looked so bright; never had the eyes danced with such living joy; those
+slender fingers absolutely seemed to be doing fairy-work with the
+ravages of time.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLVII.
+ DEAD SEA FRUIT.
+
+
+It was a great relief to Marguerite that there was something for her to
+accomplish; but for that the suspense would have been terrible. As it
+was, Monsieur Jacques called an hour before there was any hope of being
+admitted into the prison. “They would walk slowly,” he said, “and be
+there at the moment. It would not be the first time he had wandered
+around that old moat, and watched the grim towers as they blackened the
+sky. Now, thank God! he could look upon them with hope.”
+
+Marguerite lifted her blue eyes to his face as he said this. They were
+bright as stars, and for the first time this strong man felt a thrill of
+something like hope in his bosom. But for him Marguerite knew well
+enough that her father’s freedom would never have been wrought out, and
+she longed to throw herself at his feet, and bless him for all the joy
+that made the morning a heaven to her.
+
+They set forth more than hour before the time—Marguerite still carrying
+the precious pardon in her bosom; the mother, pale as death, for to her
+the next hour was momentous beyond anything a human life can experience
+but once; and Jacques, so strong, so hilarious in his rejoicing, that
+his very steps seemed regulated to martial music, and his face was
+almost handsome in its exceeding brightness.
+
+“Another hour,” he said, as he came in sight of the Bastille, “another
+hour, and the sun will shine on him.”
+
+All at once a new idea struck the man. He had been to the Bastille in
+disguise more than once, through that means many of its secrets had
+become known, among the most important that of Dr. Gosner’s identity. If
+he presented the king’s pardon, the keeper might recognise him, and thus
+destroy all chance of further information.
+
+This fear made Monsieur Jacques hesitate. Madame Gosner saw this, and
+the color left her face. At every step she had feared some delay, for
+nothing but disappointment and trouble seemed absolutely real to her.
+
+“What is it?” she said, in breathless terror. “Why do you hesitate?”
+
+Monsieur Jacques explained the cause of his uneasiness. But directly the
+cloud left his face. “It proves nothing,” he argued, “except that I am
+connected with those who have power with the king. Let them recognize my
+face, the paper itself is our indorsement of loyalty.”
+
+Madame Gosner drew a deep breath, and the light came back to
+Marguerite’s frightened eyes.
+
+“I feared you were about to forsake us,” she said.
+
+“Did you, indeed, fear it?” he asked, kindling with gratitude.
+
+The intensity of his voice surprised her; she looked up wonderingly. To
+her Monsieur Jacques was like a brother on whom her weakness could lean
+with a certainty of support. Could she have seen the smothered passion
+that lay crouching like a lion in his heart, ready to leap forth at a
+word or smile from her, the truth would have frightened her. As it was,
+she gave him a pathetic smile; for, with her whole being so preoccupied,
+she could do no more than that, but it touched him to the heart.
+
+By this time they were in sight of the Bastille, which was approached
+through a tangle of narrow streets, and surrounded, so far as the
+defences would permit, by low and squalid buildings, for the very
+atmosphere of the prison drove thrift and cheerfulness away. Nothing but
+misery itself could be forced into propinquity with the fetid waters of
+that moat, or the sounds that came across it sometimes, when the night
+was still.
+
+Those three persons stood before the draw-bridge, which led to the
+governor’s quarters; and looked across it with eager, wistful glances.
+The gaunt towers, blackened with age, into which the light crept
+sluggishly through narrow loop-holes that gashed them like wounds; the
+flat, dead walls, thick almost as the quarries from which they were dug,
+pierced in like manner with deep slits, which drank up all the light
+before it penetrated to the dungeons, flung their terrible shadows in
+the distance. Before them was the draw-bridge, with its ponderous
+timbers uplifted and held in place by bars of iron that seemed to have
+rusted in their staples, against which it strained and wailed like a
+monster bolted to the wall.
+
+Madame Gosner was deadly pale. She was looking upon the tomb of her
+living husband. Would it ever be opened? Was there force enough in that
+little slip of paper to loosen the hinges of the massive draw-bridge,
+and unlock the iron-clad door that frowned behind it?
+
+Time wore on. They saw the golden sunshine creep slowly down the towers,
+bathing the top, but leaving the base in eternal shadows. Then there was
+a movement at the draw-bridge, the chains began to rattle, the timbers
+groaned, swayed, and settled heavily downward. Guards were being placed
+for the day.
+
+Monsieur Jacques advanced to the guard house and presented his order.
+The guards passed him and his companions without a word—the king’s
+signature was enough. In the guard-room they found Christopher. A grim
+smile quivered across his mouth as he read the paper. Madame Gosner
+shuddered. She could not mistake that smile for one of pleasure that a
+prisoner was to be released. Still nothing could be more urbane than
+this man. “He would call the governor; when an order of release came
+directly from his majesty, it was usually honored by that high
+functionary in his own person. Would monsieur and the ladies walk this
+way?”
+
+There was something forced and hollow in all this politeness, that made
+the heart in that poor woman’s bosom sink like lead as she followed
+Christopher into the presence of his master. Marguerite, who remembered
+the good Doudel, remained outside with Jacques, afraid that the governor
+would recognise her as the flower girl who had sought his presence once
+before.
+
+The governor, like his subordinate, was eloquent in expressions of
+pleasure that the good king had at last extended mercy to a prisoner
+whose fate had so much in it to deplore. “But he had a doubt, a fear,
+that the prisoner might be unable to leave the Bastille for a day or
+two. There had been a report that he was not quite well; indeed, that
+was not wonderful. Dr. Gosner was almost the oldest prisoner now in the
+Bastille, that is, counting from the date of his entrance into the
+fortress. But the goodness of the king might give him new life. Madame
+should judge for herself; they had no concealments in that place. When
+the relatives of a prisoner come with an order from the king, all doors
+were flung open. Would madame please to descend?”
+
+Christopher appeared with the keys, and taking upon himself the air of a
+commander, led the way into the heart of the prison. There was something
+unnatural in this man’s demeanor, an air of bravado, which they all
+noticed without comprehending.
+
+“I think,” he said, loitering by the side of Jacques, “that I have had
+the pleasure of meeting monsieur before, but where, I cannot remember.”
+
+Jacques had dressed himself that morning with unusual care. A suit of
+clothes, discarded during the last year, had been brought forth for the
+occasion; and though Jacques was deficient in the high breeding which so
+strongly distinguished the man of birth at that period, he possessed the
+air and look of a man who had thought much, and would act his part
+bravely, whatever it might be. The wild masses of hair that usually
+half-concealed his eyes, was now parted, perfumed, and curled in waves
+that revealed the white breadth of his forehead, and the keen power of
+those deep-set eyes. With his coarse clothes he had flung off the
+slouching gait and heavy tread of a workman, and it was with the air of
+a person who considers the familiarity of strangers an impertinence,
+that he turned full upon the head keeper.
+
+“If you have been much in Paris when gentlemen happen to stir abroad, it
+is possible,” he said, “though I have no recollection of the honor.”
+
+He looked earnestly at Christopher as he spoke, and moved on with an
+appearance of so much tranquillity that the man was baffled, and
+muttering an excuse, walked on swinging his keys.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLVIII.
+ THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH.
+
+
+That little group moved forward in silence; the guards restless and
+preoccupied; the two females, pale with expectation, and faint from the
+nauseous atmosphere into which they were descending. Along dark, damp
+passages, down slippery stairs, in and out of vaulted corridors, they
+made progress toward that dungeon one of the party had visited only the
+previous night. The door was heavy, and so sodden with damp, that the
+iron-headed spikes rattled in their sockets as it was swung open, and
+they could see water-drops glistening thickly on the walls as the light
+was held into the dungeon a moment before Christopher entered.
+
+At last he stepped in, and advancing to some mouldy straw that lay in a
+corner, spoke to the man outstretched upon it, motionless, and
+apparently asleep.
+
+“Wake up, number five!” exclaimed the keeper, swaying his lantern to and
+fro over the prostrate man. “Dr. Gosner! Dr. Gosner! Look up, if you
+have not outlived the name; here is your wife come to take you home!”
+
+The man did not move, his face was turned to the wall, a mass of gray
+hair swept back and mingled itself with the straw, in which there was
+the stir and sound of something creeping away from sight.
+
+Madame Gosner pushed the keeper aside, and falling upon her knees, took
+the gray head between her trembling hands. The moment she touched it, an
+awful whiteness came to her face. Seized with trembling, she turned upon
+the guard, her eyes full of horrible questioning, her lips apart, her
+teeth gleaming. She spoke no word, uttered no sound, but fell down by
+the dead body, lifeless, and still as it was.
+
+Marguerite saw it all, and recognized the calamity that had fallen upon
+them; but the disappointment was too mighty for words, far too awful for
+tears; the light reeled before her eyes, the dungeon seemed to contract
+itself into a grave. She felt herself falling, but Monsieur Jacques
+caught her in his arms, and carried her from the dungeon. With the speed
+and strength of a wild animal he threaded that labyrinth of horrors,
+mounted the broken stairs, and carried her out into an open guard-room,
+through which the morning air swept. Here he bathed her face with water,
+rubbed her hands—but all was in vain; the dead man he had just left upon
+the straw did not seem more lifeless than this young girl.
+
+Jacques had left two living persons in the cell with the dead man, but
+they were more like ghosts than human beings. The guard was
+terror-stricken; the lantern shook in his strong hand.
+
+“Is she, too, gone?” faltered Jacques, who had left Marguerite when she
+returned to life, and stood looking down at the pale form lying by the
+dead upon the straw. “God help us! This is fearful!”
+
+“I do not know, she does not seem to breathe,” answered Christopher,
+holding the light on a level with the deathly face. “If it were so, a
+world of trouble might be spared us,” he whispered to himself. “I almost
+wish we had not meddled with this. I fear me his death will bring us
+greater evil than if we had turned him free into the street.”
+
+“She is not dead,” exclaimed Jacques. “She moves, her eyes open.
+Heavens, how they look!”
+
+The woman arose upon her hands and knees painfully, and with evident
+dizziness. Then she stooped over the dead man, and turned his face to
+the light. The whole body moved in the straw as she did this; but
+wonderful strength seemed given to her, and though it was like turning a
+statue of marble, she did it tenderly. She put the scattering locks back
+from the worn face, and pored over it with yearning fondness, as if she
+had parted from her husband but yesterday, and hoped yet to arouse him.
+
+“Changed! Oh, my love! how changed! and it seems such a little time, now
+that we are together. Wake him for me—you can; it is the chill and the
+damp of this awful place. No wonder he is cold! I, too, am shivering.
+Wake him, I say—you should know how.”
+
+“My poor woman, he is dead! I have no power over him now,” answered the
+guard, shrinking from her outstretched arms.
+
+Madame Gosner arose and stood upright, regarding the two scared faces
+with a fixed look.
+
+“It was you that killed him,” she said; “but who gave the order? Was it
+the king?”
+
+“The king! Madame, this is treason!”
+
+“And this is death!” cried the woman, pointing downward with her finger,
+“death! for which there shall be a terrible atonement. Where is my
+child? Is she afraid of this poor clay, which was her father—her father?
+Oh, my God! and he was alive but yesterday. Only one day too late. Where
+is my child, I say? There is something for her to do.”
+
+“She has gone away with your friend; he was here a moment ago, but has
+gone back again; doubtless they are in the guard-room. Shall I show you
+the way, madame?”
+
+“No. Bring them to me here—my daughter and my friend.”
+
+Christopher went out, glad to leave the woman whose very presence
+terrified him. He found Marguerite just coming out of her fainting fit,
+and besought her to go down and persuade her mother to leave the
+dungeon.
+
+Marguerite arose, shuddering at the thought of going down those horrible
+passages again; but she gathered up her strength, and half supported,
+half-carried by Monsieur Jacques, moved away into the darkness.
+
+“Come hither! Come hither, my child! it is your father who speaks. It is
+he who asks us with those mute lips to avenge his murder. Kneel down, my
+child—kneel down, my friend. It is he who commands it. It is the dead
+who speaks.”
+
+Awed by her words, and the deep solemnity of her manner, Marguerite sunk
+upon her knees and touched the cold hand of her mother that lay upon the
+dead man’s forehead. Marguerite felt the chill strike through her
+fingers, but she was brave, and did not once attempt to draw back.
+Madame Gosner turned her eyes upon Jacques; he, too, knelt and bent over
+the dead.
+
+Madame Gosner lifted her right hand,
+
+“Listen, oh, my God! here, in this awful place, and in the presence of
+my dead, I swear, that I will neither rest or take thought of any other
+thing, until the place in which my husband met his slow murder is razed
+to the ground, and those who slew him are brought to justice. This child
+in her innocence, this man in his strength, shall bear witness to my
+oath.”
+
+The woman arose slowly to her feet as she spoke, her hand still
+uplifted, her finger pointed heavenward, the fire of a terrible resolve
+burned in her eyes; her lips were set, her form dilated. She turned to
+the guard, commanding him like a sibyl.
+
+“Bring men hither who shall carry forth my dead. The people of Paris
+must know how innocent men can be tortured out of their lives. Send two
+of your guards. I will not leave the dungeon save with him.”
+
+“It cannot be, madame. The king’s order demands the living body of
+Doctor Gosner. It is not here. The man who died was a prisoner, and as
+such he must be buried. This is the law.”
+
+“But I, his wife, having the king’s order, command you.”
+
+“Hardly, if the king himself commanded, could I obey him, for even he
+must bow to the law.”
+
+“Even he and his myrmidons shall bow to that stronger and grander power
+than kings—the people!” she exclaimed; and turning to the dead man, she
+took off her muslin scarf and laid it reverently over his face.
+“Stronger now than in his life,” she said, passing out of the dungeon
+with a firm step. “The last stone of this fortress shall be his
+monument, and the people of France shall build it for him.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XLIX.
+ A WOMAN’S NATURE TRANSFORMED.
+
+
+Madame Gosner moved through the door, as she uttered a threat which was
+treason in itself, leading Marguerite by the hand. Monsieur Jacques
+remained behind, though Christopher stood waiting for him to depart,
+holding the door with his hand. He had set down the lantern in the
+passage that those who went out might have more light.
+
+All at once, Jacques took up the lantern, passed through the door, and
+lifting Madame Gosner’s scarf from the dead man’s face, held down the
+light and closely examined the features. A quick intelligence came to
+his eyes. He glanced at Christopher, and saw that he watched these
+proceedings uneasily.
+
+“Monsieur forgets that his friends are standing in the dark,” said the
+guard, impatiently.
+
+“No,” answered Jacques; “monsieur forgets nothing.”
+
+Saying this, he set down the lantern, drew a knife from his pocket, and
+stooping down, cut a lock of hair from the dead man’s temple. All this
+was done with his back to the guard, who sprang forward and snatched up
+the light at the moment, and thus was unconscious of the act.
+
+A moment after the two men passed into the passage, the dungeon-door
+fell to with a crash, and Christopher turned his key in the ponderous
+lock with a smothered exclamation of thankfulness.
+
+In the upper corridor Madame Gosner turned and addressed a sentence to
+the guard, who was walking fast as if anxious to escape from the gloom
+of the place. She paused a moment while speaking, and stood close by the
+oaken door which marked the position of some cell which her voice had
+penetrated. From that cell came a cry so wild, so plaintive and
+thrilling, that the whole group stopped awe-stricken.
+
+“Move on,” said the guard. “It is only some prisoner who has heard our
+voices. No wonder he cries out; few strangers are ever admitted here,
+and conversation in these vaults is an unknown thing.”
+
+Marguerite went close to her mother, who stood immovable, listening
+keenly.
+
+Again the noise commenced, and a tumult of words seemed forcing
+themselves through the oaken door, against which some heavy weight flung
+itself with a violence that made all the rusty iron holding it together
+rattle in staples and sockets.
+
+“Move on! Move on!” cried the guard, stamping his foot with vehement
+impatience. “Move on, madame! The prison has laws, and you are in the
+act of breaking them.”
+
+Christopher, who carried the light, walked forward with rapid strides,
+and the rest were forced to follow him.
+
+When Madame Gosner came into the light of the guard-room her eyes
+gleamed like stars, and the deadly pallor of her face was terrible to
+look upon. It seemed as if she had been walking through burning
+ploughshares, and was ready to go still further along the fiery path.
+The disappointment, which would have taken away all strength from
+another woman, had given to her almost superhuman power.
+
+When they reached the governor’s quarters, Christopher desired them to
+enter, but Marguerite saw Doudel by one of the guard houses and went to
+him, thus separating herself from the rest. The good man saw by her face
+that some great evil had fallen upon her, and placed her on a stone
+bench near him where she could rest in peace while her mother and
+Monsieur Jacques followed Christopher into the governor’s presence. Here
+the guard reported the death of his prisoner, which was received with an
+appearance of profound commiseration.
+
+The governor had recovered all his silky equanimity. With urbane
+politeness he invited madame and her friend into his own apartments,
+offered them wine and confections, as if people so disturbed could
+partake of such dainties; and with elaborate hypocrisy regretted the
+event which had made their visit to the prison so severe a
+disappointment.
+
+Madame Gosner listened to all this dumbly, and like one in a trance. Had
+the man been a statue of granite, she could not have looked into his
+face with less consciousness of the life that was in him. Some new idea
+had taken possession of her faculties and locked up her whole being.
+
+Glances of unrest passed between the governer and his subordinate; the
+marble stillness of this woman seemed to threaten them with danger; her
+appearance puzzled them. In her dress, and somewhat in her air, she
+might have belonged to the people; but her language was pure, her manner
+commanding. If she really was of the lower order, she must be one of
+those who wield a powerful influence among her compeers, for when she
+spoke, her words were impressive; when passion swayed her, as it had
+done in the dungeon, they swelled into powerful eloquence that would
+have stirred crowds with enthusiasm. She was the very woman to sway
+ignorant masses; and such women were even now kindling up terrible
+discontent among the people of Paris.
+
+It was for this reason the governor strove to conciliate the woman
+before she left the Bastille.
+
+But Madame Gosner would neither eat or drink in his presence. Once she
+crossed the room suddenly, as he was speaking, and laid her hand on his
+arm, as if about to question him. But a change evidently came over her
+purpose, and she drew back without having uttered a word.
+
+Then, in dread silence, she left the prison, pale, haggard, and so
+depressed by bitter disappointment, that she seemed more like a
+prisoner, worn out with suffering than a human being acting from her own
+free will.
+
+Madame Gosner entered her room, and bade her two companions enter also.
+Up to this time she had not spoken, but walked rapidly through the
+streets of Paris, looking straight ahead and pressing her lips firmly
+together, as if some sharp cry were attempting to break forth which she
+would not permit to escape her.
+
+When the door was closed and bolted, she turned upon Monsieur Jacques,
+and looked him steadily in the face.
+
+“Monsieur, you visited the prisoners once. Was the man we saw lying dead
+in a dungeon of the Bastille my husband?”
+
+“Madame, you ask me a hard question. I had my doubts, I have them still.
+This man was of the same size, thin, emaciated, tall, with masses of
+gray hair—all these belonged to your husband; but his eyes were closed,
+all the sweet expression which made his face beautiful, even in that
+dungeon had disappeared. It may have been the work of death, but my mind
+rejects the identity.”
+
+“My God, help us! How are we to know? In what way can the truth be
+discovered?” exclaimed the woman passionately.
+
+Monsieur Jacques drew a lock of hair from his bosom, which he held
+toward her.
+
+“I cut this from his head. The suspicion was strong upon me, and I
+thought it might aid us in discovering the truth. Look! You should know
+the color of his hair, for this is not all gray.”
+
+Madame Gosner reached forth her hand, but drew it back again, shrinking
+from a touch of the hair. She dreaded the conviction it might bring, for
+wild as the hope was that had sprung up in her heart, she felt that all
+strength would go from her if it should utterly fail. She took the hair
+at last, something in the color reassured her.
+
+“It is darker, less silky, coarser!” she exclaimed. “His hair was like
+an infant’s, almost flaxen, with gleams of pale gold in it.”
+
+“But time changes the hair more than anything else,” said Monsieur
+Jacques. “I was wrong to think it a sure test. We must have some more
+certain proof.”
+
+“For another this may be insufficient, but I ask nothing more. My
+husband’s hair never could become so dark or coarse as this.”
+
+“Still opinion is no proof. Why should an imposition be practiced upon
+us? How did the governor know that a pardon was coming?”
+
+“Only through one channel. The king who signed the pardon may have taken
+this method of evading it.”
+
+“No, no! he never did that,” cried Marguerite.
+
+“No one else had the power,” answered Madame Gosner. “If my husband is
+yet alive, as I solemnly believe he is, and that I have heard his voice
+this day, the fraud practiced upon us was known to the king, and done
+under his sanction.”
+
+“I would give my life to know the truth,” murmured Marguerite. “Oh! if
+they would have taken my liberty in exchange for his!”
+
+Monsieur Jacques drew close to the girl and bent over her.
+
+“Would you give the man who searched out the truth, and afterward saved
+your father, something dearer than liberty, your love?” he said.
+
+She looked up earnestly.
+
+“As God witnesseth the promise, I will try!”
+
+Monsieur Jacques fell upon his knees, pressed a burning kiss upon her
+hand, dropped it, and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER L.
+ THE DAME OF THE DAIRY.
+
+
+Dame Tillery called her household together, maids, grooms, and helpers,
+and standing at a long table in one end of the most public room in her
+house, proclaimed to them the high honor that day conferred on her by
+the queen.
+
+“Not altogether to myself has her majesty done this honor,” she said,
+lifting her closed fan on high, and looking around benignly on her
+retainers; “but as the sun sheds light on the weeds and the grass, as
+well as the flowers, my glory shall, in some sort, fall on the humblest
+of my servants; from this hour you may look upon yourselves as next in
+service to the retainers of the high nobility of France. I have not
+decided yet upon a livery or a badge, all that will be left to more cool
+deliberation; but you can go forth with a feeling of high preferment;
+and as such honors can no longer be kept secret, you have my free
+permission to promulgate this good news throughout the town as occasion
+may offer. Now, my humble friends, you may disperse for a holiday. In
+the tap-room a cask of wine has been broached, free to every man and
+woman in my employ. All that I ask is, that you drink the health of
+their majesties, and your liege lady, The Dame of the Dairy.”
+
+Dame Tillery opened her fan with the slow spread of a peacock’s tail,
+waved it once or twice with superb dignity, and closing it into a baton
+again, retired amid the bewildered shouts of her household. On her way
+from the room she met the strange page, who came in hurriedly and
+flushed with excitement. He was about to pass the landlady, but she
+stood smiling in his way, and rendered that impossible.
+
+“You had an audience, and such an one as no other person outside the
+court could have obtained for you,” she said, in high good-humor. “Did
+her majesty speak of the great honor conferred on your humble servant?
+Did she say that, in her serene goodness, she had lifted Dame Tillery,
+who stands here before you, into the nobility of France? Did she tell
+you that this day a new order has been created, and Dame Tillery, of The
+Swan, stands at its head?”
+
+The page listened impatiently and did not seem to comprehend what the
+woman was talking about; but, with a sudden start of memory, he drew a
+rouleau of gold from his pocket and handed it to her.
+
+“What is this? For whom is it intended?” she inquired, drawing her
+portly figure up with a swell of importance.
+
+“It is the gold I promised for the service you have rendered me, with
+enough added to cover the cost of my lodging here,” answered the page.
+“I give it now, because in a few minutes I shall take the road again.”
+
+“Nay,” replied the dame, waving the gold aside with her fan, “that was
+all well enough yesterday, when I was only mistress of The Swan; but I
+have my doubts about it now. Can a person of my rank receive money in
+her own person? I—I am in doubt—I think not.”
+
+“I crave pardon,” said the page, and a laughing imp came dancing into
+his eyes. “If there is any person in your household who can act as
+treasurer, I will give the money to him.”
+
+Dame Tillery, who had been all the while eyeing the rouleau of gold
+askance, broke into an approving smile, and called aloud for one of the
+men she had left in the public room, whom she ordered to take charge of
+the money, and see that it was properly bestowed in her strong coffer;
+then she turned to address the page again, but he was gone.
+
+“Zamara.”
+
+The dwarf started up and opened the door through which the page came in
+haste.
+
+“Zamara, I have failed; the ring is on her finger, but I cannot get it
+off. Oh, Zamara! how often I have wished that wretched man had never
+crossed my path!”
+
+“It was a great misfortune, my lady. Nothing seems to have gone well
+with us since that terrible ring was taken from his finger.”
+
+“If we could only get it back again—if we could devise some way. Zamara,
+can you think of no device by which it can be obtained? The poor queen
+has given us nothing but kindness, and to her we have brought perpetual
+disappointment—perhaps undreamed of trouble. Try, marmosette. In the old
+times you were never at loss for invention—help me in this strait. I
+cannot go away and leave that accursed serpent clinging to her hand.”
+
+Tears stood in this hard woman’s eyes, she was passionately in earnest.
+Zamara started up, and seizing her hand, kissed it with heathenish
+devotion.
+
+“Madame has spoken; Zamara has seen her tears, and will give his soul to
+the task she appoints him.”
+
+“My good Zamara, my kind, kind friend! I know that you will wrest this
+talisman from her hand, if human ingenuity can do it. If I have trust in
+mortal being, it is in you, my poor marmosette. But to help me in this
+you must stay at Versailles, while I go up to Paris. Ah! this task of
+uprooting the wrongs one has perpetrated is a hard one. Something
+baffles me ever when I strive to do good, while it was so easy to be
+kicked. Why is this, I wonder! Ah me! how different it might have proved
+had I been born among the great, rather than forced upon them.”
+
+“Madame, I hear some one at your chamber-door.”
+
+“Go, go. It is doubtless that tiresome woman.”
+
+The next moment Zamara stood by Dame Tillery, who was knocking loudly at
+the door of Madame Du Berry’s chamber.
+
+“Ah!” he said, “let me congratulate you, Dame; all the house is in
+commotion—such joy, such unheard-of good fortune. Why, it is like being
+made a princess. They wanted me to come down into the public room and
+drink to this new dignity—but I said no. When madame herself appears, I
+will drink to her health, but not with servants, only in her own august
+presence. This was what I said, madame.”
+
+Zamara pressed a tiny hand upon his heart, and bent low as he finished
+speaking.
+
+“That was the thought of a person endowed with most gentle breeding,”
+said the dame, wheeling from the door full of hospitable thoughts. “Come
+with me to my own room, where you will find something better than the
+people down yonder would know how to relish. You shall taste of Burgundy
+from the best bin in my cellar, the more readily because I wish to send
+a flask to your mistress. It was this that took me to her door but now.”
+
+Zamara stood by bowing and smiling, while the dame filled a goblet with
+wine from a bottle that seemed to have rested years in her cellar, and,
+though compelled to hold it between both hands, he drained it to the
+bottom.
+
+“Now,” said the dame, giving him a salver to carry, on which she had
+placed a second bottle and glasses. “Follow me to madame’s room; she
+must not be neglected when the lowest scullion in the kitchen rejoices.”
+
+There was no difficulty of access now. The page had disappeared. His
+clothes lay huddled in Zamara’s closet, and Madame Du Berry was in bed,
+resting in a recumbent position on her pillows in a demi-toilet, but
+with her hair less elaborately arranged than usual. She received Dame
+Tillery with a smile, congratulated her warmly when she heard the good
+news, tossed off a goblet of the sparkling Burgundy, and declared that
+the exaltation of her friend had made her well—so well that she would
+start for Paris within the hour, leaving Zamara behind to arrange the
+baggage, and follow her when she should send for him.
+
+Dame Tillery expostulated a little; but finding her guest positive,
+allowed her to depart, but not till the bottle of Burgundy had been
+drained in honor of her new dignity. What Du Berry refused to drink, the
+jovial dame insisted on dividing with Zamara, whose eyes twinkled with
+infinite mischief when she sat down with the bottle on her knee, and
+proposed that he should drain glass for glass with her.
+
+So confused became the happy landlady of The Swan before the hour was
+gone, that she arose in the morning with a vague idea that the page had
+left rather abruptly, but of the period when Madame Du Berry took her
+departure, she had no recollection at all.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LI.
+ EFFORTS AT ATONEMENT.
+
+
+Madame Gosner was absent from her apartments. The terrible
+disappointment which had fallen upon her preyed so heavily upon her mind
+that anything like repose was impossible. For the time she was at war
+with life itself. The doubt that her husband was still living haunted
+her like a cry of destiny. She said little, and scarcely tasted food.
+The never-ending pain of her existence renewed itself, and threatened
+destruction to both reason and life.
+
+Marguerite felt the change and was so wounded by it that her young life
+was doubly embittered. She did not share in her mother’s doubts of the
+king and queen; but honestly believed that her father had perished in
+prison, as thousands had died in that terrible place.
+
+All these thoughts weighed down the heart of that young girl, for now
+she felt more lonely than ever. She was crying bitterly in her solitude
+when Monsieur Jacques came in. The man was greatly changed, both in
+person and manner, since she first saw him. He had gradually thrown off
+the rude dress and seeming of a plebeian, and assumed the garments and
+habits of a gentleman of the second class. His hair no longer concealed
+a noble forehead under its tangled masses; his hands were cleansed from
+the dust of the work-shop; his features, having thrown off their heavy
+expression, were grand rather than harsh. Marguerite did not know that
+she herself had won this man out of his extreme radicalism, and lured
+him back to his old nature, but it produced a kind and winning
+impression on her, which deepened the gratitude already in her heart,
+and would have made love a possibility but for the face she had seen
+that day in the streets of Paris, when her first flowers were offered
+for sale.
+
+“Why is it that you weep?” he inquired, seating himself by the girl, and
+taking her hand tenderly in his, as if it had been a lost bird he feared
+to frighten.
+
+“You ask me this, as if I had not double cause for tears,” she said,
+lifting her eyes to his face with a look of pathetic desolation. “My
+poor father is dead, I can no longer have a hope for him; my mother is
+silent, stern, self-absorbed—she leaves me alone. Still you ask me not
+to weep.”
+
+“Marguerite!”
+
+She looked up quickly; then her eyelids drooped, and the slow color came
+to her cheeks. “You were about to say something, monsieur,” she said,
+very softly.
+
+“Is there nothing else that makes you unhappy? Has repentance for the
+words you spoke the other day nothing to do with it? Is it that you
+think it a promise, and so weep?”
+
+“I think it a promise, but do not weep for that,” she answered, lifting
+her mournful eyes to his face. “But, oh, monsieur! it will never be—my
+poor father is dead.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques dropped her hand. Was it the certainty of her father’s
+death that had made Marguerite so willing to give that promise?
+
+“Marguerite!”
+
+It was the second time he had called her by that name, in a voice so
+sweet and low that it thrilled her to the heart. She attempted to
+answer, but could not.
+
+“Marguerite, I love you! How much no human being can ever know, and I
+dare not attempt to tell you, lest you think me mad; but I do love you,
+and hope to win some little return. You did promise to _love_ the man
+who brought your father alive from the Bastille. Or was that one of my
+wild dreams?”
+
+“It was a promise,” said Marguerite, timidly.
+
+“And if I give freedom to your father?”
+
+The color left the face on which his pleading eyes were fastened. It
+seemed to him that a look of affright broke into her eyes; but after a
+moment she held out her hand.
+
+“It was a promise,” she said, simply.
+
+Monsieur Jacques flung himself on his knees before that young girl. He
+grasped her hands and covered them with kisses; and then she felt great,
+warm tears falling over them, as if in penitence he was striving to wash
+the kisses away.
+
+“If it is in the power of mortal man to break through those walls to
+find and liberate your father, it shall be done,” he said, rising from
+his knees.
+
+Marguerite followed him with her eyes, which slowly filled with tears.
+
+“It will be all in vain,” she murmured, “my poor father must be dead. It
+was no fraud that the beautiful queen and that good king committed. How
+can my mother, how can you, Monsieur Jacques, believe them guilty of
+this cruel deception?”
+
+“Wait! Do not let us judge yet! By-and-by we shall know; for as there is
+a just God in heaven, not a stone shall be left upon another of that
+hideous building!”
+
+As Monsieur Jacques spoke, a clear, ringing knock sounded at the door of
+the room. Marguerite arose, but it was flung open, and a man, dressed as
+a page, and with the audacious air of a superior, entered the room.
+
+“I was ordered,” he said, looking around, “to find a lady, the wife or
+widow of one Dr. Gosner, who died last week in the Bastille. Is this her
+apartment, or have I been directed amiss?”
+
+“Madame Gosner has gone out,” answered Monsieur Jacques, for Marguerite
+was so taken by surprise that she could find no voice.
+
+“Then I must wait,” said the page, seating himself; “it is my orders.”
+
+“Fortunately, that is madame’s step on the stairs,” answered Monsieur
+Jacques; and that moment Madame Gosner entered the room, her noble
+presence, the air of refinement and authority with which she presented
+herself, brought the page to his feet, and prompted a low bow, to which
+madame turned a calm and questioning look.
+
+“Madame will forgive what may seem like an intrusion,” said the page;
+“but I am ordered by a personage that I dare not venture to disobey, and
+must do my errand. This personage has heard with profound regret that
+the husband of madame has perished in the Bastille just as the royal
+clemency had ordered that he should be set at liberty. There is no power
+in France that can bring back life, but all that justice and sympathy
+can offer to his widow and child I am empowered to give. In this
+portfolio, lady, are twenty thousand francs, which I am ordered to
+present to your daughter as a marriage portion, should she ever choose
+to leave her mother’s protection. For yourself there is an annuity
+already secured, which will make your future life free from care.”
+
+The page paused, and held out a small portfolio; but Madame Gosner put
+it gently back.
+
+“Did this come from the king?” she inquired.
+
+“Madame, I am forbidden to answer.”
+
+“Or the queen?”
+
+“Here also I must be silent.”
+
+“If it comes from either the King or Queen of France, take it back, with
+this message: say that the wife of Dr. Gosner accepts no bribes, and has
+no price for her husband’s liberty. Say that she knows——”
+
+Here Monsieur Jacques laid his hand on her arm, and checked the
+imprudent words that trembled on her lips—words that had left the cheek
+of the page suddenly colorless.
+
+“The lady simply means to say that she can accept no bounty from the
+King or Queen of France,” he interposed with dignity; “therefore your
+errand is so far accomplished.”
+
+The page put away the portfolio in the folds of his tunic, and moved
+toward the door, but a sudden thought struck him, and he turned back,
+drawing it forth again.
+
+“Madame, this money does not come from their majesties, who are at this
+moment, for aught I know, ignorant of Dr. Gosner’s death; nor is it a
+gratuity. In his early life, that learned man did a service to the
+person who sent me here—a service which has never been repaid, and
+which, at this time, nothing but money can repay. Hearing of his hard
+fate, that person was conscience-stricken. A debt so justly due should
+have been paid to his widow or his heirs; but it was unknown in France
+that the unfortunate gentleman had either a wife or child. You will not
+wrong a person who wishes to redeem a neglect that may have caused much
+trouble by refusing the privilege of restitution.”
+
+“But what was the nature of this debt? In what way was it created?”
+demanded Madame Gosner.
+
+“Without danger to the person in question I cannot explain,” answered
+the page; “but of this be assured, it is justly due, and this money will
+never be used for any other purpose. Indeed, a portion of it is invested
+in your name beyond recall. The rest I will not carry from this room—it
+is my orders.”
+
+The page waited for no answer, but laid the portfolio on a table, and
+went swiftly out of the room, leaving its inmates gazing on each other
+in blank amazement.
+
+“Follow that man Monsieur Jacques,” exclaimed madame; “I will receive
+none of his money. Who has dared to force a charity on me in this way?”
+
+Monsieur Jacques took the portfolio and hurried with it down stairs. He
+reached the door just in time to see the page spring upon his horse, and
+flung the portfolio at the animal’s feet. The page dismounted, took up
+the portfolio, and rode away with a dejected air.
+
+Monsieur Jacques entered Madame Gosner’s room again.
+
+“Have you done right to reject this money?” he said. “Perhaps his story
+is true. With all his knowledge and power, it would be strange if your
+husband might not have performed some act which would entitle him to a
+sum like this.”
+
+“But I will not take it! Who in all France, save the royal pair at
+Versailles, knew that my husband was supposed to have died so lately? No
+one but the governor of the Bastille; and he is not likely to have
+appeased his conscience in this way.”
+
+“But even from the king it might have been accepted in behalf of France!
+It would help to feed many a famished mouth.”
+
+“The people of France! Oh! I had forgotten them!” cried Madame Gosner,
+with enthusiasm. “But, no, no! I could not have taken it even for them.
+Gold coming from the man or woman of Versailles would blister my palm.
+Let us think no more of it; while they have hands to work, neither
+Gosner’s wife or child will ever accept alms.”
+
+“God grant that the good man still lives!” said Monsieur Jacques.
+
+“God grant it!” answered the woman, sadly; “but sometimes it seems such
+a forlorn hope. If he is alive? How the words torture me! Oh! of all
+torments, uncertainty is the greatest!”
+
+“Trust me it shall not long be uncertainty.”
+
+“What do you mean—is this a promise?”
+
+“Upon which more than my poor life depends. Within three days we will
+know of a certainty that Dr. Gosner is alive and still a prisoner in the
+Bastille, or dead. Then it becomes our duty to save or avenge him.”
+
+“But in either case?” questioned the woman, wistfully.
+
+“In either case that monstrous pile is doomed. It shall no longer crouch
+like a monster on the heart of France. Will you not breathe one prayer
+for me?”
+
+These gentle words were spoken to the young girl, who lifted her
+beautiful eyes and met his gaze with a gentle smile.
+
+“I shall not cease to pray till we meet again,” she said.
+
+Madame Gosner heard this conversation, and was struck by the thrilling
+tenderness of Monsieur Jacques’ voice.
+
+“What is the meaning of this?” she inquired, sharply. “I do not
+understand.”
+
+“It means,” answered Monsieur Jacques, “that I love her better than my
+own soul. When I have rescued her father from his dungeon, this will be
+the reward I shall dare to claim.”
+
+The strong man fell upon his knees as he spoke, and pressed Marguerite’s
+hand to his lips. Then he arose, saying aloud, “God and our Lady prosper
+this day’s work—the reward is so great that it makes a coward of me.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LII.
+ MONSIEUR JACQUES TURNS BLACKSMITH AGAIN.
+
+
+Monsieur Jacques went to his room and prepared, with more trepidation
+than he had ever felt in his life, for the enterprise which would give
+him the only object he asked for on earth, or throw him back into utter
+disappointment. Once more he flung off all the appearances of a
+gentleman, and put himself on a level with the rudest workmen of the
+city. The thick masses of his hair were dulled with powdered dust, his
+brows and lashes were darkened, and with a few touches of the pencil,
+dark circles under the eyes deepened them almost to blackness. Directly
+a stout, high-shouldered mechanic, in coarse workman’s clothes, and
+carrying a box of tools in his hand, came out of the room; a cap of
+faded cloth was on his head, and his hair fell in unkept locks over his
+forehead, half concealing his eyes. Marguerite saw him pass the door,
+and a faint smile stirred her lip. It was in this guise she had first
+seen him, and the memory of all his kindness since that day made the
+heart swell in her bosom. Monsieur Jacques cast one glance through the
+door, and went on his way, nerved by the look with which those beautiful
+eyes had followed him. He passed through several streets, nodding now
+and then to a fellow workman whom he chanced to encounter, and at last
+entered the shop of a gunsmith and general worker in iron, where he
+seemed to be well known.
+
+“Is the master no better?” he inquired of an apprentice, who was working
+at a vise near one of the windows.
+
+The boy looked up, blew some iron-filings from his fingers, and answered
+carelessly,
+
+“No better, and cross-grained as a file. Step in yonder, you will find
+him there, I suppose.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques went into the inner room to which the lad pointed, and
+found his friend in a great easy chair, with his night-cap on, nursing
+an unfortunate leg, which was cruelly tortured with the rheumatism.
+
+“Ah! you have come at last; that young reprobate out yonder protested
+that he did not know where to find you. Can anything be more
+aggravating? Here is the governor wanting me at the Bastille. Some
+prisoner has nearly battered down one of the crazy doors, and so
+wrenched the lock, that they can neither get in or out of his cell. So
+there is a chance that the fellow may starve to death for his pains, for
+I could not walk a step to save my life.”
+
+The locksmith gave a dash at his aching leg, as if violence could help
+the matter, and, settling back in his chair, waited for his visitor to
+speak.
+
+“I heard that you were ill, and happened to remember that this was your
+usual day for service at the prison. Having represented you before, I
+suppose they will accept me again. If there are keys to be fitted, let
+me have them; and if you will write a line to the governor, saying that
+I am sent as the most trusty of your workmen, it will save all trouble
+about the admission.”
+
+“You are kind, my friend. So good a craftsman is not often found ready
+to take a sick man’s place. Give me pen and paper, I will write a line
+to my friend Christopher—it is not necessary to trouble the governor;
+but you must put forth all your strength here, for they are getting
+terribly anxious about the safety of their prisoners. No wonder, the
+damps of those vaults are enough to corrode the best lock ever forged in
+a single month, and after that there is no key that will turn against
+the rust. Still I ought not to complain, it rolls up my bill handsomely
+at the end of the year; and there is no lack of good wine at the
+Bastille after the work is done.”
+
+“I remember it,” said Jacques, with a relishing movement of the lip;
+“one does not readily forget such wine. I hope they will be as liberal
+to the man as they are to the master. Oh! you have finished the paper,
+and I have no time to lose.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques took up his case of tools, put the paper in his pocket,
+and went out, smiling cheerfully. In half an hour he stood before the
+draw-bridge of the Bastille, presented his note to the guard, and was
+admitted to the interior of the prison. He found Christopher in a
+guard-room, where he was giving some extra orders to half a dozen of the
+prison-guards, who had done something to displease him. He looked around
+as Jacques entered, recognized him as a person who had done duty there
+before, and went on with his lecture, not considering a humble
+blacksmith worthy of his immediate attention.
+
+Jacques sat down his tool-case, and seemed to be absorbed in the pompous
+reprimand Christopher was dealing out to the poor fellows who had been
+so unfortunate as to offend him. This attention touched the keeper’s
+vanity, and he launched out into more fervid eloquence for his especial
+benefit. At last he sent the delinquents away with a lofty wave of the
+hand, and bestowed his entire attention on the locksmith.
+
+“So,” he said, reaching forth his hand for the paper which Jacques gave
+him, “the old locksmith is down again, chained by the leg as fast as any
+prisoner in the Bastille. It is no time for strange hands to be let into
+the fortress; but if he is so ill, there is no help for it. Wait a
+moment; if I remember rightly you have been here before?”
+
+Monsieur Jacques would have betrayed himself by a sudden flush or pallor
+but for the brown hue which had been liberally imparted to his
+complexion that morning. As it was, a flickering light in the eye alone
+revealed the panic that seized upon him. It was needless. Christopher
+only alluded to the workman whom he remembered to have come on the same
+errand once before. He had not the remotest idea that he had so lately
+seen this man in another capacity, nor did he recognize the voice which
+was peculiarly rich and deep, for Jacques had put a leaden bullet under
+his tongue, which confused all the tones and vulgarized his speech.
+
+“Shall I go to work now?” he asked, in an awkward, deprecating way. “It
+will need a light, I suppose.”
+
+Christopher took a lantern from the wall and lighted the candle within.
+
+“I will go with you myself,” he said. “In these times we trust but few
+of the keepers where you are going, not even our oldest guard Doudel,
+who is suspected of having fed a prisoner.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques’ heart fell. He had hoped that a common guard would be
+sent with him, one whom it would be possible to evade for a moment; but
+Christopher took some keys from the drawer of a desk, and moved toward
+the interior of the prison.
+
+Perhaps in his whole life that brave man had never felt such keen
+anxiety as stirred every nerve in his body during his descent into those
+gloomy corridors. How was he to prosecute the investigation he had come
+purposely to make? By what means was he to reach the particular cell,
+from which that cry came, with Christopher on the watch? There was not
+one chance in a hundred that it was the lock that poor prisoner had
+shaken, with so much violence, that wanted mending; yet a wild hope
+possessed him that he might be led there. No, he was conducted down a
+damp corridor that branched off in another direction, and shown into an
+empty cell, from whose wall the staples had been wrenched out by some
+desperate man, to whom suffering had given a giant’s strength.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LIII.
+ LIGHT OUT OF DARKNESS.
+
+
+The disappointment which fell upon Monsieur Jacques was terrible. Still,
+actuated by a despairing thought that God, in his mercy, would open some
+way to the truth, he went vigorously to work with a heavy sledge, and
+drove the staples back into the granite wall with a force that echoed
+through those vaulted passages like the roar of a wild beast. When this
+ponderous work was done, he turned upon his companion, and, with a
+faltering voice, asked if that was enough.
+
+Christopher hesitated, and answered,
+
+“Follow me, and remember, not a word must be spoken to any prisoner. The
+man who breaks this rule will stand a fair chance of occupying a cell
+himself. Am I understood?”
+
+Monsieur Jacques took up his tools, muttering that he had nothing to
+say, and had no wish to talk with any prisoner, but to get out of that
+unwholesome place as soon as possible.
+
+While he was speaking, Christopher turned into a passage he recognized,
+and Jacques scarcely drew his breath till they came opposite the very
+door which had so painfully fastened itself on his memory. There the
+keeper paused, and set down his lantern.
+
+“It is seldom we permit any workman to enter a cell in which prisoners
+are—but this door cannot be opened. It is some days since we have been
+able to get food or water through, and we must reach him now, or he will
+starve to death.”
+
+Jacques sat down his tools and tried the lock with his hands, but they
+shook violently, and fell away red with wet rust.
+
+“The bolt has got twisted, no doubt,” said Christopher. “The whole lock
+must be taken apart, and the hinges fastened. Pah! that was a lizard
+creeping across my ankle, and here drops a spider into my very hair. It
+makes the flesh creep on my bones. Come, come, my friend, have done
+sorting your tools, this is not a pleasant place to linger in. The light
+is burning blue already. Oh! there it goes! that was a powerful wrench!
+Pry away! pry away! force the staple! Hercules! what powerful arms! How
+the door trembles—open at last. Ah! our friend has fainted, so much the
+better.”
+
+Christopher entered the cell first, and stooping lifted a truss of
+straw, which he flung over the deathly face of a man who lay in the
+furthest corner. Then he placed himself directly between the prostrate
+form and Jacques, who was examining the door. Without appearing to
+observe these movements, he went on with his work, and seemed to be
+laboring with great zeal, but made so little progress that Christopher
+became impatient.
+
+“Why, man, at this rate we shall not get away from here in an hour,” he
+said, casting impatient glances around the dungeon.
+
+“An hour! Why if I get through all that is to be done here in three
+hours, it will be better than I expect.”
+
+“Then, by our Lady! you will not spend them here! Come out into the
+passage, and mend the lock there. I see little chance that this poor
+fellow will be disturbed by the noise; but, in common charity, be quick,
+or he may die on our hands.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques had hoped to weary the man out by naming so many hours;
+but failing in this, he answered that it was impossible to remain all
+the time outside the door, he must go in and out while repairing it;
+but, for the prisoner’s sake, he would lose no time.
+
+“Well, see that you don’t,” answered Christopher, setting his lantern on
+the floor. “I wouldn’t spend three hours in this place to save the
+Bastille from destruction.”
+
+The seeming locksmith muttered that it was equally disagreeable to him,
+and went on with his work; but his eyes were now and then turned upon
+the lantern, and Christopher might have seen that the hand which was
+turning a screw in one of the hinges worked unsteadily. After an
+interval of some ten minutes, he swung the door back, as if to try the
+hinge; it struck the lantern, overturned it, and the next instant they
+were in profound darkness.
+
+An oath broke from the keeper, and he began to grope for the lantern;
+but Jacques had been before him, the lantern was in his hand, the door
+open, and he was about to grasp the candle, when a sudden jerk sent it
+flying into the darkness.
+
+“What is to be done?” questioned Jacques, rising from his knees. “How
+are we to get a light?”
+
+“Confound your awkwardness!” answered the keeper, fumbling about for the
+lantern. “The door is broken open and the candle gone. This is an awful
+fix. You may thank your stars that the only man in the Bastille who can
+thread its passages by night, is in this infernal place with you.”
+
+“Thank heaven it is only an inconvenience!” said the locksmith.
+
+“If to sit here from fifteen minutes to half an hour in the dark,
+breathing this pestilential air is only an inconvenience, you may,
+perhaps, be grateful. For my part, I have no fancy for groping my way
+through the black labyrinth of passages that lie between us and the
+guardrooms; and you can tell your master, from me, that when we want
+work done again in the Bastille, he must come himself. We want no more
+bunglers.”
+
+“I beg ten thousand pardons—it was an accident!”
+
+“We do not permit of accidents here!” answered the man, by no means
+appeased by the humility with which the workman strove to atone for his
+fault. “For ten thousand francs I would not grope my way through the
+places that lead to this, with those slimy things creeping around one.
+Pah! It is bad enough when a light is there to frighten them away; but
+now, curses on your blundering! if I come back without a battle with the
+rats, it is more than I expect.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques knew by the keeper’s voice that he was outside of the
+cell. He could hear the lantern rattling against the stones of the wall
+as he staggered forward in the darkness; but he did not hear the
+muttered words which followed.
+
+“Confound the fool! he is safe enough from any chance of mischief. The
+prisoner hasn’t got the strength to speak; and as for seeing his face,
+let him try. One might as well look through sheet-lead as that darkness.
+Steady! Steady! How close the walls are together! How plainly you can
+hear the waters of the moat licking the stones. Heaven have mercy! Help!
+Help!”
+
+Christopher’s foot had slipped on the wet slabs of the floor; he caught
+at the wall but his hand had no power to clutch the dripping stones, and
+he went down with a crash, which reached the locksmith, who sat in the
+darkness, listening keenly. After a little Jacques heard a volley of
+muttered curses, and slow footsteps, picking their way through the
+distance. Then all was still, save the horrible lapping of waters
+against the walls, and the hard breathing of his fellow-prisoner, who
+seemed to stir faintly in the straw. For a half minute Jacques held his
+breath, and listened for those footsteps, or that voice to renew
+themselves. Then he reached cautiously forward and began to feel for
+something in his tool-case. A moment of stillness followed, then the
+sharp click of steel striking flint, and a few sparks of fire ignited on
+the dungeon floor. Quick as thought the man sprung to his feet, snatched
+a wisp of straw, and held it close to the sparks, blowing them with all
+the slow strength of his lungs into a tiny flame.
+
+The sparks flashed upward, the straw blazed, and for one instant the
+whole dungeon was illuminated. Jacques caught one glance at a deadly
+white face, with the eyes wide open, looking at him. He had no time for
+recognition, but was searching for the candle. It lay at his feet, and
+had been trodden upon. What of that? A wick was there, and tallow enough
+to last a minute—he asked no more. He began to tremble, for the wick had
+gathered moisture from the floor, and refused to ignite.
+
+“Great God! stand by me this one minute!” he exclaimed, passionately,
+forcing his hand to hold the burning straw with steadiness. He had given
+the straw a twist, and it kept fire. The spluttering wick broke into an
+uncertain flame, trembled, half went out, and rose to a clear light.
+
+“Thank God!”
+
+Jacques went close to the prisoner with these words on his lips. He held
+the light down to that white face. The wild glitter of those eyes
+frightened him.
+
+“Speak to me! If you remember a name, tell it before any one comes.
+Speak! For God’s sake, speak! Are you Dr. Gosner?”
+
+The prisoner began to tremble violently; his thin hands clasped
+themselves; every feature in his face quivered, and from his white lips
+dropped these faltering words;
+
+“That was my name when I had one.”
+
+Jacques blew out the candle, and flung it into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LIV.
+ A DETERMINED BENEFACTOR.
+
+
+The Count De Mirabeau had just come in from an exciting debate at the
+club. This man seemed to have changed places with his foster-brother;
+for while one had, to a certain extent, cast off the coarseness which
+made him a favorite of the people, the man of noble birth had been
+striving to brutalize himself down to a level with the lowest strata of
+civilized life. Marie Antoinette’s rejection of his advances had plunged
+him deeper and deeper into the abysses of popular favor. But there was a
+natural revolt in all this; Mirabeau would much rather have been the
+saviour of monarchy than the leader of the mob, and his very power as a
+demagogue sometimes filled him with disgust.
+
+That particular night the count was in a restive frame of mind; by
+bringing out the very coarsest powers of his nature he had excited the
+crowd that day into the most clamorous homage—homage that never would
+have been given to the splendid genius and great powers that he knew
+himself to possess, unaided by the rudest and lowest passions. It is
+doubtful if even his powerful intellect foresaw the terrible scenes that
+the eloquence of men like him was destined to fasten upon France. That
+night his better nature recoiled from the hideous work his genius was
+doing, and he flung himself down on a chair, weary and sickened by the
+clamorous adoration of his followers.
+
+Some one knocked at the door of his chamber while he was in this
+dissatisfied mood, and he called out roughly for the person to come in,
+thinking that, perhaps, it was some messenger from the printing-office.
+
+A woman entered, elegantly dressed, and scattering a delicate perfume
+from her garments as she moved. She held a small mask before her face,
+such as ladies sometimes carried to protect their complexions from the
+sun; but when the door was closed, she dropped it, and moving softly
+across the room, bent over the chair on which Mirabeau was sitting.
+
+He started up in surprise, stood a moment irresolute, and then broke
+forth,
+
+“Madame Du Berry, and here!”
+
+“So you did know me,” she said, with a gleam of pride and thankfulness
+that he had so readily recognized her features.
+
+“Know you?” answered the count, reaching forth his hand to grasp hers
+heartily, as if she had been a man. “When will the time come when
+Mirabeau can forget——”
+
+The woman held up her finger.
+
+“Ah, count! that was before the days of Versailles, when you were the
+gayest young scapegrace among the nobility, and I one of the people. I
+wonder if either of us are the better for having changed places.”
+
+“I was just asking myself that question,” said Mirabeau, gloomily.
+“After all, the greatness that springs out of a false position must ever
+be unsatisfactory; but tell me of yourself, fair countess. It is years
+since I have known much of your good or evil fortune.”
+
+Du Berry shrugged her shoulders.
+
+“The last few years I have languished in England—that cold, cruel
+country, where the sun never shines fairly out as it does in France. Is
+not that enough of misfortune? But I must not talk of myself. Of course,
+I did not come here simply for the pleasure of seeing you. There is a
+man in whom you take interest—a person who calls himself Monsieur
+Jacques.”
+
+“My foster-brother, and as true-hearted a man as ever drew breath; but
+how did he come to attract your notice, my friend?”
+
+“No matter, it is a long story; besides, it is not the man that I am so
+much interested in, but a young woman whom he loves.”
+
+“A young woman! You cannot mean Mademoiselle Gosner?”
+
+“Yes, that is the young person, a fair girl, whose father, I, in some
+sort, wronged in the days of my power. I wish to make atonement for that
+wrong, and cannot—she rejects it; so, in the desperation of my good
+intent, I come to you. My belief is that these two persons love each
+other.”
+
+“Love each other! What, will he persist in loving that girl?” cried
+Mirabeau, starting to his feet. “Does he not know that Mirabeau has
+honored her with his admiration?”
+
+Du Berry flung herself into the chair from which the count had risen,
+and burst into a fit of laughter.
+
+“An excellent reason why no honest man should think of her for himself,”
+she said, wiping away the quick tears of merriment that flashed down her
+painted cheeks. “Oh! but you are droll as ever, my friend.”
+
+“But the girl is beautiful!”
+
+“So much the more reason that your foster-brother should be desperately
+in love with her, as he certainly is—that is what brings me here.”
+
+“But I tell you that he will not presume——”
+
+“My dear friend, he has presumed; and what is more, the girl will marry
+him!”
+
+“What, after I had condescended to be pleased with her? Du Berry, you
+have ceased to be discriminating.”
+
+“Come, come, be pacified. She is only one, and Paris has so many; let
+the poor fellow have his love unmolested—I ask it of you.”
+
+“Now I remember,” said the count, “it is weeks since I called; in fact,
+I neglected her after the first impression. Of course, it was my own
+fault, and, as you say, Mirabeau can afford to be magnanimous. Besides,
+I really think it is the fellow’s first love. Nay, do not go off into
+another fit of laughter—such things do happen. Then again, I remember he
+asked my forbearance, and I almost promised it. Well, the best thing I
+can do for him is not to go near the demoiselle—that might unsettle
+things.”
+
+“If you would be so good,” said the countess, with a droll look of humor
+in her eyes, “it was a part of the favor I was about to ask. This man
+is, I believe, poor—he possibly cannot afford to marry.”
+
+Mirabeau thought of the little estate, whose income had been so
+generously given up to his extravagance, and had the grace to hesitate
+in answering. Was the countess going to suggest that he should
+relinquish that income? Had that, indeed, been the truth, she might have
+found more difficulty than had accompanied his renunciation of the girl;
+but she promptly set his mind at rest.
+
+“I take it for granted that he cannot afford to marry,” she said, “and
+in this I want your help. Be my banker; let me leave money enough for
+their comfortable independence in your hands!”
+
+“In my hands!” exclaimed Mirabeau, laughing. “My dear friend, you should
+know better. It would melt away while the priest was giving his
+blessing. If you have any sharp notary who will arrange it so that it
+may be a trust; in short, that will insure it to him, and save it from
+me—I should not mind undertaking the business—I dare say that can be
+done.”
+
+“But it must seem to come from you. They would not touch it else,” said
+Du Berry.
+
+“He will never believe it; but we can manage that; it can be done in my
+father’s name. Now, fair lady, as your conscience is at rest, tell me——”
+
+“Not yet—not yet! I have another thing to ask.”
+
+“Of the same kind? I warn you now, do not lead a reckless man too far.
+Money is a sad temptation, when one needs it so much.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LV.
+ GENEROSITY AND DIPLOMACY.
+
+
+Du Berry hesitated, and sat for some moments in silence, now and then
+casting a doubtful glance at Mirabeau, while the color came and went
+under her rouge. She had lost all delicacy years before; but there was
+something in what she wished to propose that taxed all her ingenuity. At
+last she spoke out.
+
+“Mirabeau, you are the enemy of royalty.”
+
+“Well!”
+
+“You hate the queen.”
+
+“And if I do?”
+
+“This cannot be real, there is something personal under it all.”
+
+“What makes you think so?”
+
+“You are the idol of a people you despise!”
+
+“Go on.”
+
+“And might be the saviour of France; should be a close friend to the
+queen.”
+
+Mirabeau laughed again; but there was angry fire in his eyes, and a
+curve of scorn on his lips.
+
+“How long is it since the Countess Du Berry became the advocate of Marie
+Antoinette?” he demanded.
+
+“Ever since she was too generous for the persecution of a fallen enemy;
+ever since she has been cruelly unfortunate, and most unjustly reviled.
+Of all the people in France, I have most cause to love the woman for
+whose overthrow you are toiling.”
+
+“Nay, let me tell you a secret. You are a woman of sense, and can
+comprehend the situation—Marie Antoinette rejects the friendship of
+Mirabeau.”
+
+“Has it been offered her?”
+
+“Twice, indirectly.”
+
+“But the time may come when that friendship will be implored. Then,
+Mirabeau, be generous, be noble, use your great power for the defence of
+the throne. Earn the queen’s gratitude, force her to acknowledge the
+power of your genius, the grandeur of your magnanimity—promise this, my
+Mirabeau.”
+
+“When Marie Antoinette seeks my aid it will be time enough to promise.”
+
+“But if she does seek it—if she asks your influence with the people,
+your protection from her enemies—what will be your answer?”
+
+“Perhaps, that it is too late.”
+
+“The time will come, and then you must remember Du Berry, who wishes to
+aid in this; who implores your permission to pay a vast debt of
+gratitude to the grandson of Louis the Fifteenth—to the daughter of
+Maria Theresa, who was so pure and good herself that she never went out
+of her way to taunt and insult those who were less fortunate. To the
+clemency and forbearance of Louis, and his most persecuted queen, I am
+indebted for every franc that makes up my wealth; I ask nothing better
+than to employ it all in their service. When you are a friend of the
+monarchy, let me find the money which the cause will so much need. Thus
+you and I will unite in a holy work, which shall redeem much evil that
+we may have done. You, with your eloquence, and I, with money, which
+justly belongs to the crown, may, perhaps, be so fortunate as to save
+the monarchy of France.”
+
+The woman spoke earnestly, sometimes with passionate warmth, that
+astonished the man she addressed. He knew that she was in earnest, that
+a grander element than could be found in his heart was speaking through
+her words. Perhaps he felt, through all its subtle indirection, that
+something like a bribe for his influence lay under all this real
+generosity; but Mirabeau was not a man to revolt at an idea, so long as
+it took no offensive clearness. On the contrary, he reflected that his
+own power would be wonderfully enhanced by wealth, let it come in what
+form it would. If his proud old father fell short of his expectations,
+here was a resource.
+
+“Have you spoken of this to the queen?” he inquired.
+
+“How could I? She would reject it. No, there is but one way, and that I
+have pointed out. The time will come when this persecuted lady will seek
+the friendship of a man who controls the people of Paris, who knows how
+to excite or depress the passions of her enemies. When that day arrives,
+the money she would scorn now can be used in her behalf.”
+
+“God grant that the rabble does not get beyond all control before she
+comes to her senses,” said the count, thoughtfully. “Ignorance and
+passion are hard things to manage; but if Mirabeau cannot control
+them—where is the human power that can?”
+
+Du Berry laid her hand on his arm.
+
+“Some day your old friend may ask that protection for herself,” she
+said.
+
+“It shall not be asked in vain,” answered the count, holding the door
+for her to pass.
+
+When Madame Du Berry reached her lodgings she found Zamara, who had just
+come in from Versailles. His clothes were muddy, his face heavy with
+disappointment.
+
+“Madame, Zamara has failed; I could not get the ring; she never takes it
+from her finger,” he said. Madame only answered,
+
+“The fates are against us, Zamara.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LVI.
+ THE ENERGY OF MADNESS.
+
+
+Madame Gosner and Marguerite were alone in their room, which had become
+more gloomy than ever since their disappointment. All the spare time
+these two women could obtain from their sorrow was given to the toil
+which earned their daily bread. Marguerite spent every day in the
+street, carrying her sweet burden of flowers from purchaser to
+purchaser. Her evenings were occupied generally in preparing bouquets
+for market, but on this particular night Madame Gosner was employed on
+some embroidery which was wanted in haste for a court-dress. The very
+nature of her employment, perhaps, exasperated the poverty of the elder
+woman, whose hatred of the monarchs of France amounted almost to
+monomania. She went on sewing with sharp energy, taking her stitches
+with jerks, as if she picked them out with the point of a dagger. Her
+breath came heavily as she worked, and her lips were pressed
+together—she had not spoken in an hour.
+
+Marguerite was sewing also—for the work must be done at a given time—but
+her thread came out with a more even pull, and the delicate surface of
+her work revealed no imperfect stitches. The dull, heavy gloom which lay
+upon her mother was not dark enough to kill all the girlhood in that
+young bosom; and more than once a faint smile flitted across her lips,
+as if the thoughts in her mind were not altogether melancholy.
+
+At last the young girl looked up from the dull monotony of her work,
+and, pausing with her thread half-drawn, listened eagerly. She had heard
+a step on the stairs, though her mother had not; for one moment the
+heart leaped in her innocent bosom, and a smile of loving expectation
+trembled on her lips, the next it died away and her face bowed in
+disappointment over her work.
+
+Madame Gosner heard the step also, and suspended her work. Was it
+possible that some one was coming with news! Even in her despair this
+poor woman was always expecting news, and holding her breath as a
+footstep passed her door.
+
+It opened now, and Monsieur Jacques came in, pale, worn, and so weak
+from protracted excitement that he fell upon a chair, and wiped the
+heavy drops from his forehead before speaking a word. Madame Gosner
+looked at him earnestly. He understood the question in her eyes, and
+answered as if she had spoken.
+
+“Yes, my friend, I have been to the Bastille. I have wandered through
+those infernal vaults, and seen such sights.”
+
+“Have you been in _that_ cell?”
+
+Madame Gosner’s voice was sharp as the cry of an eagle. She had lost all
+control over herself.
+
+“Yes, I have been there, and I have seen him—your husband——”
+
+“Alive?”
+
+“Alive! I held his hand—I spoke with him. He told me his name. It was he
+who cried out when your voice penetrated his dungeon. They have
+practiced a foul fraud on us—one that shall be answered by the thunders
+of stones as we hurl down that accursed building.”
+
+Madame Gosner stood up, and lifted her clasped hands on high.
+
+“So help me God, I will never rest till this thing is done!”
+
+She spoke like a woman inspired; her very stature seemed to rise higher;
+her chest expanded itself.
+
+“Be it so. I have already sworn,” said Monsieur Jacques; and the two
+went out together, leaving Marguerite alone upon her knees, where she
+had fallen.
+
+All was changed now in the humble dwelling of Madame Gosner. No more
+work was done; scarcely was there food enough prepared to sustain the
+strength of that excited woman. Solemn duties lay before her—a gigantic
+task, which she would perform or die. The people of France were to be
+aroused into keener vindictiveness—the women organized—the clubs urged
+to swifter action. Stern and terrible had been the effect of Monsieur
+Jacques’ intelligence on the woman who had refused to consider herself a
+widow. Her whole being rose up in bitter wrath against what she deemed a
+horrible fraud. So fixed and deep were her prejudices against the royal
+family, that she never, for a moment, doubted that the king himself, if
+not the queen, had sanctioned the awful wrong that had been done, rather
+than cast a new witness of royal cruelty among the people to bear
+testimony against them.
+
+With these feelings, it is not strange that all the sweet sentiments of
+undisturbed womanhood was swept out of her nature. No amazon, born to
+war, ever suffered or felt a deeper thirst for vengeance than possessed
+this wronged wife. From that day her very face changed; all its fine
+features were set, and locked with the iron resolution that possessed
+her. In some way her husband should be set free, or fearfully avenged.
+Many a woman besides herself had equal wrongs and equal sufferings to
+redress or avenge; but, lacking a leader and organization, this great
+force, this underlying principle, which was enough to stir the already
+excited passions of the lower order into anarchy at any moment, had as
+yet been allowed to exhaust itself in complaint and denunciation. Now it
+should be centralized and spread forth from an organized power.
+
+Madame Gosner knew that she was eloquent, and felt within herself the
+force of great individual strength. That which had been an idea before
+was a fixed resolve now. In order to liberate her husband, freedom must
+first be given to the French people. She could only reach his dungeon
+through the ruins of the Bastille, only avenge him by hurling the king
+from his throne.
+
+That day a strange sight was witnessed in the marketplaces of Paris. A
+lady, being clad like the commonest working-woman, but of commanding
+presence, was seen moving from stall to stall with the firm, energetic
+tread of an officer mustering recruits. At each stall she uttered words
+that burned and thrilled through the heart of the occupant like the
+blast of a trumpet, yet they were spoken in a low voice, and circulated
+through the market from lip to lip, drawing the women together in
+clusters, who told each other the story of this woman, and swore to
+avenge her.
+
+Her low, stern utterance of wrongs that seemed without a parallel, was
+like a spark of living fire flung into their own smouldering passions.
+
+That night a Jacobin club-house was crowded with eager women. From the
+market, the garrets, and the cellars of Paris, they gathered, crowding
+their husbands and sons aside that they might hear something of their
+own wrongs from the tongue of a terribly persecuted woman.
+
+Gosner’s wife stood among them like a priestess. Unlike the women around
+her, she was educated, eloquent, powerfully impassioned, but capable of
+deep reasoning. She had dwelt so long on the wrongs of France that her
+acute mind searched down to the very roots of all the grievances that
+disturbed her people, and laid them bare before the rude women, who
+seized upon them as hounds fasten upon game, routed from bush and covert
+by the huntsman.
+
+For two hours she filled that Jacobin stronghold with such burning
+eloquence as never before had fired the hearts of those rude, impetuous
+women, not cruel then, but who afterward leaped into the fight, unsexed,
+fierce, wicked female tigers, who, having tasted blood, lost forever
+afterward all relish for the milk of human kindness.
+
+It was this awful element that the genius of Madame Gosner aroused in
+the heart of France; it was this which cast eternal shame upon one of
+the greatest nations of the earth; it was this which makes all true and
+refined women tremble when they are called upon to plunge into the arena
+of politics, or the strife of nations.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LVII.
+ UNSEXED WOMANHOOD.
+
+
+The women of France had, perhaps, more excuse for revolt than those of
+any other country. Misery, hardship and injustice, drove them into a
+storm of politics with terrible violence. With a single leap they sprang
+out of absolute subjugation into a wild chaos of ideas. In riot, rapine,
+and bloodthirstiness, they shamed the coarsest men by their unbridled
+excesses. While violating all law, and trampling human rights under
+foot, they sang pæans to liberty, and inaugurated their terrible orgies
+with declarations of equal rights and eternal brotherhood. Such were the
+women who, claiming political equality with men, and superiority over
+monarchs, flung all the sweet attributes of the sex behind them in the
+turmoil of politics, and in a subsequent carnival of blood forgot that
+they had ever been wives and mothers.
+
+How could it be otherwise? The woman who once flings aside all the
+beautiful entanglements of home, and assumes duties which never were
+intended for her; who gives free rein to the coarser passions, plunges
+into such fierce struggles as brutalize men and degrade her beneath
+their lowest level. If a woman like this expects to return at any period
+to the gentle immunities of home life, she knows little of the destiny
+she is carving out for herself.
+
+Imagine these women going home from a fierce debate at the clubs to
+caress their little ones, and teach them their prayers at night; could
+they touch the smiling mouths of innocent children with lips hot with
+smouldering hate, or curl their silken tresses over fingers wet with
+human blood? Could they, without an outrage on humanity, permit their
+little ones to kneel in holy prayer at the feet which had just been
+treading down saw-dust around the guillotine? After partaking of such
+scenes, could any woman expect to go back to her sweet motherhood in the
+shelter of a pure love? No; the quiet life, the care of childhood, the
+love of strong men, are not for such women. Let them once forsake the
+shelter of home, the blessedness of a calm hearthstone, and half that is
+valuable in existence lies behind them. When they enter the turmoil of
+moral or physical war, return is impossible; a great gulf has been dug
+between them and the happiness of womanhood, which can never be
+re-passed.
+
+In her despair, Madame Gosner thought nothing of the great moral effect
+her action might produce. She had for years been urged forward by one
+grand, womanly motive—the freedom of her husband. If this object had
+sometimes led her into strange positions, great love had always
+sanctified them. She had endured poverty, humiliation, sickness, with
+the strength of a martyr, and in all things had protected the delicacy
+of her child. Even in the depths of her sorrow she had found time to
+educate this girl, and fill her mind with all the refinements which make
+womanhood beautiful. But now, in the madness of her despair, she forgot
+everything but her wrongs, and the agony of a slain hope. What was that
+miserable shadow of a home to her? What was there on the broad earth but
+sorrow and desolation for a woman so bereaved, and so cruelly dealt by?
+In her anguish she felt a yearning sympathy for thousands and thousands
+of women, who haunted the market places and streets of Paris, with an
+eternal craving for bread written on their half-famished faces; for the
+earth, as well as the rulers of the earth, had, for two successive
+years, been cruel to the poor. The sufferings of these people became a
+part of her own wrongs. In the mighty thirst of her revenge, she was
+ready to embrace the whole universe of suffering. Was she insane? Had
+one idea preyed so heavily on her mind that it swept all other thoughts
+before it?
+
+Be this as it may, from the hour that terrible deception was made known
+to Madame Gosner, the woman was lost in the patriot. In gaining freedom
+for her husband, she took upon herself the gigantic task of giving
+liberty to France. This spirit animated her whole being; it inflamed her
+speeches, it aroused her in the dead of night, and filled her dreams
+with burning pictures of liberty. She had but two possessions left—her
+own talents and her daughter. In the depths of her soul she devoted both
+to her country. All hopes of individual happiness became a thing of the
+past to her.
+
+With Monsieur Jacques the ideas of liberty, as they were given forth to
+the people, like an inspiration from the tongue and pen of Mirabeau, had
+consolidated themselves into a passion; but, like Mirabeau, he still
+clung to the monarchy, and hoped to liberalize France, by making its
+king the enemy of his own power. Brought up and educated as he had been,
+day by day, with his foster-brother, sharing the same lessons, caressed
+by the same motherly hand, he could not, all at once, yield up the
+traditions of a superior race to which, by implication and experience he
+almost belonged. It was in vain that he took upon himself the habits of
+the people, that he lived in a garret, and gave up the income of a
+little property which he had inherited from his own parents, to swell
+the extravagance of his foster-brother. A neglected toilet, unwashed
+hands, and coarse clothing, were insufficient to brutalize this man into
+one of the monsters that baptized themselves patriots.
+
+Notwithstanding his moderation, and his wish to save the monarchy, and
+give freedom to the people at the same time, Monsieur Jacques went
+hand-in-hand with Madame Gosner, and threw himself into this fearful
+work with equal energy and unswerving determination. He, too, believed
+that a wicked deception had been practiced upon a long-suffering woman,
+and could find no way of accounting for it which did not implicate the
+King and Queen of France. Sometimes, when he thought of the honest, kind
+face of Louis the Sixteenth, of the simplicity of his words, the shy
+gentleness of his manner, this belief became almost an impossibility to
+him. Nor could he think of the queen, so earnest, so generous and
+beautiful, without recoiling in his heart and reason from the thought
+that she could have known and sanctioned an act so full of dishonor, so
+bitterly cruel.
+
+But the fact still remained, no matter where the blame lay. A terrible
+wrong had been done, a human life worse than sacrificed. More than this,
+out of that awful place one soul had made its cries of agony heard; but
+how many others lay in those vaults, unknown. Those awful walls, with
+their seven feet in thickness, were built thus massively, that the cries
+of human anguish might never penetrate them. What became of the hundreds
+on hundreds who had crossed that draw-bridge, never to be heard of
+again? Had they been carried out in the silence of midnight to unknown
+graves, or were they still chained to those reeking walls, and crouching
+in cells so far beneath the earth that they possessed all the horrors of
+a grave, without its peacefulness?
+
+The fire spread. Mirabeau heard the story from his foster-brother, and
+thundered it through the clubs. It burned like a romance on his lips,
+and glowed out in words of fire on the pages of his journal. In less
+than three days all Paris was in a storm of indignation, and poured
+itself tumultuously into the streets. If human ingenuity could have
+imagined anything more terrible than the horrors of that man’s fate, the
+passions of an ignorant people would have invented something more awful
+than the truth; but here the bitterest passion failed, and the simple
+fact was far more powerful than exaggeration ever could have been.
+
+Monsieur Jacques told the story, and in his own stirring language
+described the scenes he had himself witnessed in the Bastille. Madame
+Gosner pleaded with a woman’s pathos and a man’s power for the husband
+who had been torn from her in his youth, and was now perishing in the
+cells of that hideous prison. All the terrible traditions of the old
+kingly fortress were nothing to the story of this man, as it came from
+the lips of his wife.
+
+Through the work-shops, the markets, the quays, and the clubs, the fact
+of a man’s incarceration, after a pardon had been granted, and his death
+proclaimed, sped like fire along a train of powder.
+
+The reckless demagogues, who had been so long striving to fire the
+people into a fiendish spirit of revolt, saw in all this an element of
+revolution stronger than their eloquence, and seized upon it with sharp
+energy. The clubs arose at once, uniting in one grand effort; but it was
+in answer to a clamorous demand from the people, who, ready for
+revolution, called aloud for guides and leaders.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LVIII.
+ THE FIRST ROLL OF THUNDER.
+
+
+The time had come.
+
+One night the streets of Paris were darkened by crowds of silent, stern
+men whose eager faces looked sinister in the lamplight, as they turned
+invariably toward the Place do Grève. The men moved swiftly on in
+comparative silence; but wherever they paused a warehouse was broken
+open, and everything of iron or steel it contained taken therefrom,
+though all other articles were scrupulously left untouched.
+
+Women, too, came out of their domicils, and swelled the stream that
+poured into the Place de Grève. Each carried some burden—a loaf of
+bread, a bar of rusty iron, or a ponderous fire-shovel, from her own
+hearthstone. Before midnight the Place de Grève, and the adjoining
+streets broke into a blaze. Anvils and forges in full blast seemed to
+start out of the very earth, lighting up all the grand outlines of the
+Hotel de Ville and the great crowds of men and women that swarmed around
+it, with gleams of light thrown against deep, deep shadows, that made
+the whole scene terrible. To this was added the sharp ring of iron
+against steel, the roll of wheels bringing in heavy loads of plunder,
+the crash of hammers thundering to each other, and the awful hum and
+swell of angry voices in suppression.
+
+Men toiled that night like demons. Many who had thought themselves too
+feeble and famished for exertion, now wrangled with each other for a
+chance of work at the forges. Pale, hungry faces grew stern as death in
+the lurid light of the fire; while demagogues from the clubs, and
+Bohemians of the press, passed in and out of the crowd with inflammatory
+words, which kept the wild enthusiasm at a white heat.
+
+Women crowded in, some with their arms bare to the shoulders, unloading
+wagons like men; others enforcing the fiery ardor of the demagogues with
+passionate appeals, and hurling bitter taunts on those who stood aloof.
+The market women, having broken up their stock for the next day,
+distributed stores of provisions to the workmen, and fed the hungry with
+their own hands. Some even seized upon the tools, and began to forge
+instruments of slaughter with the skill and energy of men; some mounted
+on piles of arms already forged, and harangued the men as they worked.
+Among these appeared Madame Gosner, the martyr of the day, whose
+presence was everywhere heralded with tumults of sympathy and applause.
+
+“Not for my sake,” she cried, mounting a wagon in which crude metal had
+been brought to the forges, where she stood like some Roman matron in a
+victorious car, “not for my sake, nor for the redemption of one man do I
+urge you forward——”
+
+Here the impassioned orator was interrupted by shouts from the women,
+and wilder demonstrations from the men, who paused in their work to
+listen, and snatch a mouthful of bread from the hands of such women as
+were giving food to the hungry, that no man’s strength need fail till
+his work was done.
+
+“Let no man stop his work that my voice may be heard,” continued Madame
+Gosner. “God will give strength to my lungs, and you shall hear me,
+though ten thousand anvils rang out such glorious music as this at a
+single crash. In this sound I hear the downfall of that odious prison,
+where kings deal with their victims like incarnate demons, chaining them
+to walls like beasts of the fields—burying them alive in eternal
+darkness—rendering them up to worms and reptiles while yet alive.
+
+“Citizens, this is not the work of one generation, but of many. Kings
+and Queens of France have, for generations, held those accursed ramparts
+of stones as a monument of their greatness, dear to royalty as the
+throne itself. It is an awful contrast which makes the luxury of their
+palaces more perfect. Without misery for the people, courts and kings
+would never feel how much they are above us. In order to know how high
+they are, it is their eternal effort to debase us. We are the beasts of
+burden that drag forward their triumphal chariots; creatures to starve
+while they riot. By our labor they are fed; by our toil they are
+exalted, till pride becomes arrogance, and their very laws are made to
+protect them and degrade us.
+
+“The wealth of a nation lies in its labor. Where has that gone which our
+forefathers created by the strength of their hands? Look for it in the
+enormous estates which cover France from border to shore. Has one of
+them descended to the laborers, whose toil wrested them from the
+wilderness? Who among you owns a rood of land? Not one. If to you
+belongs the sledges you wield, and the spades with which you dig, it is
+all that they will give you out of a thousand years of hard toil,
+rendered with reckless generosity to these pampered lordlings. What are
+these creatures, after all, but things of our own creation? Their
+palaces, their estates, their jewels belong to us, and are made the
+instruments of our debasement. It has taken a thousand years to
+consolidate the power that crushes us. Men and women of France, let us
+unite, and a single year shall tear it down.
+
+“I have a husband in one of those hideous dungeons; for years and years
+they have buried him from my sight. When we parted, he took me in his
+arms, and promised with many a farewell kiss, to return within the
+month. My hair was bright with the gloss of youth then—look at it now; I
+have not seen his face since then. But I do not plead for him alone;
+other women have husbands to lose—other women, for ages on ages have
+been made widows, knowing their husbands living, but buried far from the
+light of day, as mine is. It is for them I plead and implore you to
+shatter these enormous walls, and let God’s free sunshine into those
+hideous vaults.
+
+“Every stone of those blackened towers is cemented with blood and
+saturated with groans. I ask you to sweep an awful plague spot from the
+bosom of France. Let us tear it away, stone by stone—uproot it, rock by
+rock; break through those rugged walls, and choke up the festering moat
+with their ruins. Citizens, the strong arms of your fathers built this
+prison, which your kings have turned into a place of torment that fiends
+would shrink from. Are your arms weaker than theirs? What they built
+have not you the strength to pull down, or shall the women of France
+show you the way?”
+
+A yell went up from that portion of the crowd which surrounded Gosner’s
+wife, for there the women of Paris had assembled in the greatest
+numbers.
+
+“Give us arms—give us arms, and we will take the prison ourselves,”
+shrieked the infuriated women. “There are plenty of arms at the Hôtel
+des Invalides—will the men of France get them for us? or shall we storm
+the place ourselves?”
+
+These women were answered with one simultaneous shout.
+
+“To the Invalides! to the Invalides!”
+
+A huge mass of the people left the Place de Grève, shouting this cry. In
+half an hour they were thundering at the gates of the Invalides.
+
+The governor would have temporized, but some one cried out,
+
+“He only wants time to defeat us!”
+
+That cry was enough to set the whole crowd in motion. They leaped the
+ditches, disarmed the sentinels, and plunged headlong into the vaults
+below where the arms were stored. The confusion was fearful. These men
+crowded on each other in masses, the torches were extinguished, the weak
+were trampled down by the strong, but through it all twenty thousand
+muskets and some pieces of cannon were taken into the streets of Paris.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LIX.
+ THE FIRST DRAW-BRIDGE.
+
+
+As an ocean broken and heaving with the underswell of a continued
+tempest, rushes upon some rock-bound coast, the people of Paris poured
+themselves upon the Bastille, wave upon wave, thousands upon thousands,
+armed and unarmed. Some cool and resolute, others noisy and clamorous as
+bloodhounds, men, women and children, swarmed through the streets and
+threw themselves in tumultuous masses on the grim old prison.
+
+The French guards had fraternised with the mob and gave to a small
+portion of it something like organization. So they came on, armed with
+spears, axes, bludgeons and muskets, dragging cannons and carrying
+hammers, a fierce, wild, terrible crowd, thundering at the outer gates
+like a besieging army.
+
+The draw-bridge which led to the Cour de Gouvernment, was closed against
+them; its massive timbers barred their progress, as rocks drive back the
+waves of an ocean. But this only swelled their numbers and inspired
+their courage. Every hour made their power more formidable. The governor
+had been summoned, and refusing to give up one foot of his fortress,
+retreated into the deeper security of the prison itself. Thuriot,
+commissioned by the city authorities, was allowed to pass in alone.
+Directly he was seen by the insurgents on the battlements of La
+Bazinière, a lofty tower that overlooked the arsenal and the whole vast
+length of the Faubourg St. Antoine, which was black from end to end with
+human beings, wild, fierce, terrible! whose menaces rolled and gathered
+like thunder, around the tower on which that doomed man stood. The
+cannons, pointed and ready for action, ranged upon the towers and
+guarding the entrance, drove the people mad. When Thuriot came down and
+addressed the crowd from a window of the governor’s house, the general
+rage turned on him, and he barely escaped with his life. The Bastille
+was wholly surrounded; every foot of ground was covered. The outward
+pressure drove those before it forward, with irresistible force; there
+was no retreat and no wish for retreat, but to advance seemed
+impossible.
+
+Before them was a lifted draw-bridge, a double row of sentinels, and two
+guard houses crowded with soldiers.
+
+Some small houses were to be seen close to the walls of the outer court;
+their windows choked up with wrathful faces—their roofs black with human
+beings, who swarmed over them till their rotten timbers threatened to
+give way.
+
+All at once, a wild shout rang up from the crowd. Two men had dropped
+down from one of these roofs to the wall, which joined the guard house,
+and creeping cautiously over it, leaped into the court. One of these men
+was Monsieur Jacques, whom the people recognized.
+
+Two old soldiers followed these bold men, and directly a yell of delight
+answered the reverberation of four ponderous axes, crashing against the
+chains of the draw-bridge.
+
+The great mass of iron-bound timbers fell with a thundering sound, and
+the crowd rushed over it, trampling each other down, like wild beasts,
+in their furious haste.
+
+A volley of musketry was poured in among them. Some men fell dead—others
+were wounded, which completed the rage of the insurgents, who filled the
+Cour de Gouvernment with cries for vengeance.
+
+The French guards were now in motion. A detachment of grenadiers and
+fusiliers hurried toward the Bastille. With them came thousands of
+workmen, and bourgeoise, headed by Pierre August Hullin, who fought, and
+looked like a gladiator. With them came two pieces of cannon, dragged
+from the Place de Grève.
+
+When the soldiers, followed close by this fresh relay of insurgents,
+poured into the Cour de Gouvernment, the governor’s residence, the
+barracks and guard houses, were in flames. A great mass of burning wood
+and straw raged in front of the second draw-bridge, and the people were
+shouting for oil and phosphorus that they might burn the very stones.
+
+Now flames and volumes of turbid smoke rolled around that grim old
+fortress, among which the insurgents worked like dragons. But its
+massive strength defied them. Those black towers,—the moat, deep,
+stagnant, torpid as a gorged anaconda, coiling around their base,
+sending up a fetid odor as that serpent does when suddenly aroused—the
+immovable draw-bridge, all defied the multitudinous strength that
+assailed them. They stood in the midst of this awful tumult, grim, gaunt
+and silent; save when the cannons belched forth fire, or a rattling
+storm of bullets came hissing across the moat. Near the draw-bridge two
+cannons were pointed, threatening destruction to any one who attempted
+to break its chains.
+
+The thwarted people grew desperate. Was all that mass of brute strength
+nothing against those giant towers, whose cannons still defied them?
+
+From the house tops, from the windows, from every point of command, men,
+women and children fired wildly.
+
+Five hours went by, and the maddened people seemed fighting in a
+whirlwind; citizens, soldiers, priests, women and children, struggled in
+one dense mass around the old prison whose walls they had scarcely
+grazed. At this time, a deputation from the city authorities raised a
+white flag in front of the draw-bridge, over which came a volley of
+musketry, killing three men.
+
+Now the rage of the besiegers arose to madness.
+
+“We will choke up the ditch with our dead bodies,” they cried, “and pass
+over them.”
+
+“Let us begin here,” shouted a man who came from the burning residence
+of the governor, dragging a young girl with him. “She is Delaunay’s
+daughter! drag her to the foot of the fortress and let us burn her
+alive, if he does not surrender.” They dragged the poor child along the
+pavement, they heaped straw about her, and were applying the torch when
+a young man leaped from the crowd and struck the dastard down, with the
+burning torch in his hand.
+
+“It is St. Just, it is St. Just!” shouted the crowd. “Let the girl live.
+He has a right to her.”
+
+Within the Bastille the governor entrenched himself like a lion at bay.
+During five hours he had seen that great human ocean swell larger and
+larger, till its black waves stretched beyond his vision. With merciless
+bravery he had hurled death from tower and platform, till his heart
+sickened within him. But up to this time he had no thought of yielding.
+Now a portion of his soldiers came into his council-room, and besought
+him to surrender. They had scarcely spoken, when an officer from the
+Swiss guards rushed in.
+
+There was no sign of being relieved from without. The cannon of the
+insurgents was pointed against the second draw-bridge. The Swiss were
+waiting for orders. Must they sweep the avenue?
+
+“Surrender! surrender!”
+
+Half the garrison joined in this cry. The Swiss guards with equal force
+urged a more desperate defence.
+
+Delaunay answered nothing; his face was white as death, his eyes shone
+with some terrible resolve. He seized a burning match and hurried with
+it towards the powder magazine. The Swiss officer seized him by the arm,
+thus preventing the awful death he meditated for them and himself.
+
+Delaunay flung down the match and trod upon it.
+
+“I had forgotten that there were more lives than my own,” he said.
+“Wait.”
+
+He sat down by his council-table and wrote,
+
+“We have twenty thousand pounds of powder; we will blow up the garrison
+and all the quarters if you do not accept the capitulation.”
+
+The officer took this note and held it through an opening of the
+timbers. A plank was laid across the moat, and one of the insurgents
+attempted to span it, but was shot down; another took his place, and
+brought back the note which was read aloud.
+
+When the French guards pledged themselves that no harm should come to
+the garrison, the draw-bridge was slowly lowered, and, following their
+leader, a furious crowd rushed over it.
+
+The governor, pale, firm, and strengthened by the heroism of despair,
+came forward and received their leaders bareheaded and resting on his
+sword. A ruffian from the crowd menaced him with an uplifted dagger,
+which was wrested from his hand.
+
+Hullin and some of his followers volunteered to escort the Governor to
+the Hôtel de Ville, and pledged themselves to protect him from the mob.
+He surrendered himself to these men and left the Bastille forever.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LX.
+ THE PRISONERS FREE.
+
+
+A strange thing happened as the insurgents poured across that
+draw-bridge and entered the vast gloom of the prison they had conquered.
+Silence, like that of death, fell on them all; the pallor of ghosts
+settled on that sea of faces. They felt the awe of four centuries
+gathering around them. It was like rushing suddenly into a vast charnel
+house.
+
+With mingled loathing and dread they lifted their faces upward, where
+the ponderous rope ladders coiled down the towers and swayed heavily
+into the darkness forever sleeping below. They stirred sluggishly
+against the walls, and took an appearance of awful life, like great
+serpents writhing there, and the crowd watched them in ominous silence.
+
+Then an awful scene arose. A man flung himself over the battlements and
+snatching at one of these weird ladders, attempted to escape some danger
+from above.
+
+Before he was half way down, the body and most evil face of another man,
+leaned over the stone-work, and, with an awkwardly held hatchet, began
+to hew the ropes.
+
+One after another the strands gave way, till only a single rope was
+left. A blow of the hatchet upon this, and the rope began to uncoil,
+swifter and swifter, whirling the poor wretch with it, until the last
+strand tore apart, and he fell, with a dull, heavy crash, to the court
+below.
+
+That poor body was so broken upon the stones, that no one could have
+told the bruised face as that of Christopher, the head keeper.
+
+For one awful minute, the crowd had been held dumb with suspense; but,
+like wild beasts, those awe-stricken men grew ferocious with the sight
+of blood. A shout of triumph from the men overhead, drove them on to
+action.
+
+Once more the tumult raged all the fiercer, from this hush of passions.
+A hoarse cry rang through the prison,
+
+“To the cells—to the cells! What are we doing here, while a prisoner
+remains to be set free? Down to the depths! Down to the depths!”
+
+This cry threw the crowd into fresh tumults of rage. A wild rush was
+made for the cells.
+
+Borne forward by the torrent of people, two women kept together,
+clinging to each other, and making frantic efforts to come up with a
+man, who carried a heavy ax in his hand.
+
+Pale, eager, and panting for breath, the youngest of these females, a
+fair delicate girl, was guiding her mother toward a low door, in one of
+the towers.
+
+“That is the door; I know it again! Keep close, mamma; Monsieur Jacques
+is just before us. He will break it in with his ax. Come, come! Oh God!
+help me, they have tore us apart!”
+
+It was true. The woman, in her wild desire to push through the crowd,
+was unconscious that Marguerite was not still by her side.
+
+A man passed her bearing a lighted torch. She snatched it from him,
+saying sharply, “I have the greatest need.”
+
+The tumult raged louder and more fiercely. Men and women remembered
+their hatred of the place, and they roamed through it like tigers. The
+doors of the prison began to crash under their axes, while the maddened
+crowd rushed downward into the bowels of the earth, burning with
+passion, but awe-stricken and silent as an army of ghosts.
+
+The first man who entered the lower corridors was Monsieur Jacques; he
+was followed by a woman with a face of marble, who carried a burning
+torch in her hand. Three times his ax circled around the head of
+Monsieur Jacques, and each time the iron-studded door resisted the blow.
+Another and the mass of oak fell in, scattering splinters over a man,
+all trembling and white, with eyes gleaming through the long, silver
+hair that fell over them, who stood up in the center of the cell,
+holding out both hands imploringly.
+
+When the flame of the torch fell upon his face, he uttered a sharp cry,
+and shielded his sight with both hands.
+
+Then a voice, hoarse and broken, thrilled the air of the dungeon.
+
+“My husband! Oh, Henry! will you not look upon me?”
+
+A slow shiver ran through the prisoner, the hands fell downward. His
+eyes turned wistfully on the eager face bending toward him.
+
+“Henry!”
+
+Again the poor man was seized with a shivering fit. He put the long hair
+back from his eyes, looked in that troubled face, and motioned with his
+hand that the woman should speak again.
+
+“My poor husband—my own, own Henry!”
+
+He looked around, smiling, and nodded his head.
+
+“That was my name!”
+
+The words fell from his lips at intervals, as if he were counting them;
+but the sound pleased him, and he repeated over and over again,
+
+“That was my name!”
+
+“Ah, Henry! try to remember mine. Therese, your wife!”
+
+“My wife! My wife! That was _her_ name!”
+
+He looked at the woman again shyly, and touched her with his finger. She
+was crying now, and seeing this, he took up a long tress of his hair and
+attempted to wipe the tears from her face; but his hand wandered wide of
+its intent, and fell upon her shoulder. She took the pale hand up
+tenderly and kissed it, while her tears fell thick and fast.
+
+Something in the touch of her hand, or the mournful look in her eyes,
+awoke that dormant soul. He clung close to her hand, his eyes looked
+steadily into hers, a soft tremor stole over the gentle whiteness of his
+face.
+
+“He knows me,” she said, claiming sympathy from Jacques, who had taken
+the torch from her hand. “I think he knows me.”
+
+Jacques nodded his head, great tears were rolling down his cheek, and he
+held the torch unsteadily.
+
+“Therese was my wife’s name,” said the prisoner, with the plaintive wail
+of a child.
+
+She bent toward him, a smile beamed on her face, one arm stole around
+his neck, she pressed her lips upon his.
+
+That instant all strength left him, and he fell into her arms, murmuring
+incoherent words.
+
+Had some sweet link of affection drawn that poor soul back to its old
+life? The woman thought so, and laying his head upon her bosom, wept
+over him.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXI.
+ THEY THREE MEET AGAIN.
+
+
+Well might Marguerite Gosner cry to her God for help; for with the force
+of a whirlwind she was swept back toward the draw-bridge and in danger
+of being trampled to death. Her plaintive cry for the mother she had
+lost, was answered by a rude hand which grasped her by the shoulder.
+
+“Ha! I have reached you at last,” hissed the fierce voice of a woman in
+her ear. “Citizens, here is the daughter of old Doudel, who has been
+twenty years torturing prisoners in this accursed pile. Which of you
+want a dainty morsel for his hatchet? Take her while I pick off the old
+fox. I see him on the ramparts now.”
+
+With a powerful swing of her arms, Louison Brisot hurled the helpless
+creature back upon a group of young men who followed her like a pack of
+fiends, shrieking and howling as they went.
+
+As she fell at their feet, the woman who had flung her there, snatched a
+musket from the nearest insurgent, and leveled it at Doudel, who was
+steadily pacing the ramparts up and down, as if no work of death were
+going on beneath him.
+
+“Oh, my God, spare him, spare him,” cried Marguerite, struggling against
+the rude hands that had lifted her from the earth.
+
+A young man heard her cry, and knew the voice. With the bound of a
+panther, he sprang upon Louison Brisot and dashed down the musket, with
+which she was coolly taking aim. Then he turned, and tore Marguerite
+from the ruffians that held her.
+
+“Are you men, or brutes?” he thundered, dashing the foremost back with
+his disengaged hand. “When women turn fiends, can Frenchmen be found to
+do their evil work.”
+
+The sharp crack of a rifle mingled with these indignant words. Down from
+the nearest tower a human form plunged headlong, and fell in an awful
+heap at Louison’s feet. The woman coolly returned the musket that had
+done this fearful work, and strode up to the young man who had so
+bravely attempted to prevent it.
+
+“The women of France can do their own work, Monsieur St. Just, and by
+the looks of that white face, I should say that my shot had killed two
+birds.”
+
+St. Just looked down upon the deathly face on his bosom and, in his
+terror at its whiteness, forgot the fiendish laugh of the woman whom he
+believed to have killed an innocent girl. Gathering the lifeless form in
+his arms, he carried it across the thronged draw-bridge, and finding an
+empty bench in the Cour de Gouvernment, laid her upon it.
+
+There seemed no hope of getting restoratives in that fearful place,
+which was still crowded with the mob, and dark with rolling smoke. But
+as St. Just laid his burden down, a man came reeling up from the cellars
+of the governor’s dwelling, which the fire had not reached, carrying a
+bottle of wine in his hand, which he flung about ferociously. St. Just
+caught this man by the arm.
+
+“Citoyen, give me some of the wine, here is a poor girl dying for want
+of it.”
+
+“Is she one of us?” answered the man.
+
+“Yes, yes.”
+
+The ruffian glanced at Marguerite’s humble garments, and was satisfied.
+
+“Oh, yes, I see; too young for the work. There, citoyen. What is your
+name?”
+
+“St. Just.”
+
+“Long live Citoyen St. Just! Down with the Bastille!” shouted the man,
+striking the neck of his bottle against the stone bench, and giving it,
+all dripping with red wine, to St. Just.
+
+“It is some of the governor’s Burgundy; don’t fear to use it. He will
+never want it, our people over yonder have taken care of that.”
+
+“Dead, great Heavens! they have not murdered him,” exclaimed St. Just,
+filled with new horror. “We promised him safe conduct.”
+
+“It seems our friends thought better of it. I saw him half an hour ago
+on his way to the Hôtel de Ville. He was bareheaded then, and looked
+brave enough, with all our people hooting at him. Hullin was at his
+side, and did his best to quiet our patriots; but somehow, his foot
+stumbled, and when he got up again, Delaunay’s head was on a pike,
+dancing over the crowd.”
+
+“It was a dastardly act, treacherous to him and to us,” said St. Just
+sternly.
+
+“For my part, I think the fellow fought bravely enough for his life to
+have kept it,” said the man. “But Down with the Bastille! Down with the
+enemies of France! I will get another bottle of his wine; keep that,
+citoyen; the girl needs it more than I do, especially as I can get more.
+Take some yourself. It will bring the color back to your face, which
+looks like a ghost through the smoke. Bah! it stifles one.”
+
+St. Just did indeed look pale, and his hand trembled, as he held the
+wine to Marguerite’s lips. They did not move, and he was compelled to
+force the wine between them. Still, she did not stir. These two persons
+were quite alone in the crowd now. No one observed them, no one cared
+whether the girl lived or died. St. Just bent over her, greatly
+troubled. His breath bathed her cheek, his hand pressed hers, his voice
+of agony pursued her sleeping spirit.
+
+“Marguerite—Marguerite, for Heaven’s sake, for my sake, open your eyes.
+Do you wish me to die, Marguerite? One word—one look—one breath, only
+let me know that you are alive.”
+
+His voice reached the girl’s soul, wherever it was. Her eyelids began to
+tremble, her lips parted and grew red with a soft, gradual color.
+
+“Marguerite, my Marguerite!”
+
+“I hear, I am coming,” murmured the girl; “oh my beloved, I hear you.”
+
+But for the crowd St. Just would have fallen down upon his knees and
+wept over her such tears as men like him alone can shed. For the first
+time, in that half unconscious state, she had confessed her love for
+him.
+
+Marguerite came to herself at last, and opening her great, dreamy eyes,
+answered back the smile that glowed on St. Just’s face.
+
+“I knew, I felt sure of it,” she said, quite unconscious that any words
+had escaped her lips before. “When I come out of my dreams that face is
+always near, but it fades away.”
+
+All at once the girl was aroused out of her dreamy weakness—a new gang
+of insurgents swept by the bench where she lay, shouting, howling, and
+brandishing their pikes in the air.
+
+Marguerite started up wildly.
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“A fresh outburst of the crowd, Marguerite, but have no fear, you are
+safe.”
+
+“Safe! oh yes,” she answered, and a soft smile stole over her face; but,
+all at once she started up.
+
+“My mother, my mother! oh, how could I forget her! Who will say that she
+is safe?”
+
+“I will, Marguerite. Look yonder.”
+
+Marguerite sat up on the bench, and saw her mother with Monsieur
+Jacques; between them, half walking, was an old man, who strove to hide
+his face from the light.
+
+“It is my father,” she said, almost in a whisper. “He has not seen the
+light since I was a little child.”
+
+St. Just went forward, and supported the prisoner toward the bench where
+Marguerite rested. Madame Gosner came forward sadly, and took the girl
+in her arms.
+
+“It is your father, Marguerite; but he does not know me. They have
+killed his mind.”
+
+Marguerite took her mother’s hand, and kissed it tenderly.
+
+“He will remember, mamma. God never can kill so sweet a thing as love in
+the human soul. Oh yes, he will remember.”
+
+Marguerite saw that her father was drawing near, and the tremor of a
+great expectation shook her frame; her eyes grew misty, and the
+faintness again crept over her, as she turned them upon him.
+
+The bench on which Marguerite sat was in the deep shadow of a wall. She
+saw the wind blow that white hair back from the old man’s face, which
+had been covered till then. It was the most benign and gentle face that
+human eyes ever looked upon. She left the bench and moved timidly toward
+that angel-faced man, who held back his hair with both hands, that he
+might look upon her. She sunk to her knees at his feet, for great
+suffering had made him sacred to her. A single holy word trembled on her
+lips.
+
+“Father!”
+
+A look of touching bewilderment came over that gentle face; the prisoner
+looked from the beautiful girl at his feet to the face of the mother.
+
+“This is Therese,” he said.
+
+“This is your child,” said madame, keeping back her tears. “She was a
+little thing when you went away.”
+
+“A—yes—I remember! So small—so small! But this one—— This is Therese!”
+
+“Father, will you not speak one word to me?”
+
+“One word? There was something I used to do;” he seemed troubled with
+thought a moment, then bent down and laid his hand on her head, “God—God
+bless them!”
+
+He turned his pleased face upon his wife.
+
+“These words I kept close—here, here!”
+
+While his hand was on Marguerite’s head a great tumult came surging
+through the court. Some women, driven frantic by continued resistance at
+a second draw-bridge, had gone in a body to the Place de Grève, from
+whence they dragged another cannon and were now wheeling it furiously
+onward, determined on firing it themselves in rebuke of the men who,
+more patient and less ferocious than they, had waited to negotiate.
+
+When they saw the draw-bridge down and their fellow insurgents swarming
+over the prison, a yell of triumph rent the smoky air and, rushing
+forward, they met Louison Brisot surrounded by a mob of blackened
+ruffians, who bore the keeper Doudel’s head upon a pike.
+
+Through all the fiendish noise that followed this horrible encounter,
+one shrill cry pierced like an arrow, and a little old woman, who had
+anxiously followed the fiendish gang rather than join it, fell lifeless
+on the pavement.
+
+It was Dame Doudel, the murdered man’s widow.
+
+“Take her up and carry her home,” cried Louison Brisot. “One man is not
+much to give to France, besides, her’s was a traitor.”
+
+For one dread moment there was silence in the crowd. Those women were
+not all fiends, and Dame Doudel was popular among them. Deep and bitter
+murmurs rose up against Louison. The crowd was ready to turn and rend
+her where she stood.
+
+The woman, who was audacious, but hardly brave, saw her danger and
+trembled; but a flash of courage saved her.
+
+“Behold, there stands the prisoner Gosner. Women of France, it was I
+that set him free. Let us bear him home in triumph.”
+
+Murmurs of rage were now turned to a wild shout of approval. Those mad
+women swarmed around the prisoner and his family. They recognized Madame
+Gosner, and smothered her with hot kisses from lips that tasted of
+gunpowder. They lifted that poor old man to the cannon brought for
+another purpose, and prepared to drag him through the streets of Paris
+as a proof of their victory.
+
+Madame Gosner clung to her husband till fragments of his tattered
+garments were torn off and left in her hand.
+
+“Mount, mount!” cried the women, poising her upon the cannon, where she
+threw both arms around her husband and kept him from falling.
+
+Louison Brisot snatched a red cap from the head of an insurgent, and
+throwing it over the white locks of the prisoner, flung herself across
+one end of the gun, astride, as if she had been mounting a war charger.
+
+“On, on!” she shouted, tearing the flame-colored scarf from her
+shoulders, and streaming it through the circling smoke. “Let the people
+of Paris see how the king deals with them!”
+
+A hundred hands, grim with dust, blackened with powder, quivering and
+eager as the claws of hungry vultures, seized upon the rope and hurled
+the cannon forward. The crowd was torn apart, or trampled down. Thunders
+of applause followed this army of women, which was engulfed in the black
+masses of the streets, as a stormy ocean swallows up the ships tossing
+on its waves.
+
+Marguerite Gosner saw both father and mother thus forcibly swept away
+without the power to speak, and found herself quite alone with Monsieur
+Jacques and St. Just.
+
+“Oh, take me home,” she pleaded, reaching forth her arms to the younger
+man, “it is terrible, I shall die!”
+
+St. Just gathered her close to his side, forgetful of the other
+presence, and bent his face to hers.
+
+“Have no fear, my beloved. Am I not with you!”
+
+Jacques heard these words, and saw the glance of tender gratitude which
+shone from those uplifted eyes. Saw it, and the great heart in his bosom
+gave one leap and was still, like an eagle shot through the breast.
+
+“Oh, take me, take me with you,” pleaded an old voice, quivering with
+pathetic pain. “Let me go with you, Marguerite, for I have no one else
+in the world now.”
+
+It was Dame Doudel, who had come out of her fainting fit, and crept
+toward the only faces she knew.
+
+“Take care of her, she needs help more than I do,” said the girl,
+withdrawing herself from the arm that supported her.
+
+“I will do that.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques’ voice was harsh with agony as he said this, but he saw
+Marguerite draw back to that beloved shelter, and gave no other sign of
+the war within him.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXII.
+ THE PRISONER AT HOME.
+
+
+They were together at last, that weary old man, his wife and child. That
+crowd of women had brought him to the door of his home, and set him down
+on its threshold. When he saw the steep flight of stairs, stretching
+darkly upwards, a look of bewilderment and dismay came to his face. He
+had forgotten their uses. So those triumphant furies carried him up in
+their arms and would have laid him on the bed, but he struggled away
+from them, and creeping into a corner, laid his face against the wall,
+as if he felt some comfort in its coldness. Then the women went away in
+search of better work than the caring for an old, worn out man.
+
+Madame Gosner aroused him; she carried a plate of soup in her hand, and
+when he sat up on the floor, held a spoonful to his mouth; but lifting
+his terrified eyes to her face, as if she were something to dread, he
+refused it, with a look of gentle repugnance.
+
+“He is dazed with the noise, they have killed him with their violence,”
+said Marguerite in a passion of grief. “Oh father, will you eat
+nothing?” She brought him fruit and wine. He seemed pleased with their
+rich colors, but refused to touch them.
+
+All at once the girl bethought herself and got an earthen pitcher full
+of water and some black bread. His eyes brightened. He looked at this
+food wistfully, and when she turned her back, began to eat.
+
+Marguerite sat down on the floor beside her father. She broke his bread
+and held the water to his lips. Then he began to smile and lying down by
+the wall again, dropped into a broken sleep.
+
+Once or twice during that night Madame Gosner bent over the sleeping
+man, but even in his dreams her presence made him shrink. She had
+clasped him in her arms, and held him to view in that awful crowd. The
+wretched man had lost many things in that dungeon, but his sensitive
+delicacy nothing could destroy. It was a part of his soul. A dawning
+consciousness that she was his wife had struggled in his brain for a
+little time at their first meeting, but that rude scene on the cannon
+obliterated it entirely. From that hour he recognised Marguerite as
+Therese, who had no other embodiment for him.
+
+The next day a crowd of women came forcibly in, and demanded that feeble
+old man for exhibition at the Place de Grève, where his presence was
+intended to enflame the populace, and prepare it for deeper revolt and
+still more awful scenes.
+
+Marguerite protested against this coarse outrage, and would have
+defeated it had that been in her power. But the wife, given up heart and
+soul to the spirit of anarchy, joined with her fierce compatriots, and
+placed the wronged man by her side on the platform from which she
+harangued the people.
+
+Was it strange that a being so true and gentle, refused to recognize in
+this amazon the sweet and loving wife from whom he had been torn in his
+youth?
+
+One night, when everything was still in the house, the prisoner got up
+from the floor, and wandered about in the darkness, which he had learned
+to love in those long years, when it became second nature to him.
+Marguerite heard him, and left her bed.
+
+“Father!”
+
+“My Therese! I know the voice.”
+
+Marguerite, guided by the glad tone in which her father spoke, crept
+toward him, and put her hand in his.
+
+“What is it that troubles you, my father?”
+
+“I want to go back, Therese; this is not home. Everything is so warm and
+dry here; I cannot hear the water whispering to me. I cannot find my
+friend. Ah me! I want to go back, life is so full of noises.”
+
+“Your friend! had you a friend in the Bastille, father?”
+
+“Hush, Therese! they did not know it. I used to hide him when they came.
+They would have killed him else. Ah me! he may be dead now. My little
+friend who never left me, cannot know that they forced me away from
+him!”
+
+“Father, of whom are you speaking?”
+
+“Hush, hush; I will not tell, only I must go back: say nothing, Therese;
+but let me go back. I cannot rest here. The stars keep me awake; you
+know where to look for me, I remember how you came there with Doudel.”
+
+Marguerite shuddered at the sound of that name.
+
+“Dear father, try to rest,” she pleaded.
+
+“Rest, Therese? there will be no rest for me, or any of my race, until
+that ring of old Egypt is found. Oh! where is it—where is it?”
+
+“What ring, father?”
+
+“What ring? that which gave to the possessor of our blood the power and
+wisdom of a god. The ring which was wrested from my hand, on the day I
+was torn from the light.”
+
+“Tell me about it, father; I have heard my mother speak of it as an
+ancient relic, such as comes out of the tombs of monarchs, and once I
+saw one like the thing she described.”
+
+“Where? when—who had it? tell me its form and color. There was but one
+such in the world; treasures of wisdom are locked up in that ring!
+Therese, Therese, the ring is gone! It is gone! The Talisman, which
+gives happiness to me and mine, but misery to all others! Alas! until
+that is found, I am nothing. Worse than that, worse than that. I know
+full surely that it will bring sorrow and death to any hand that wears
+it! Describe to me, Therese, the ring you saw.”
+
+“It was a serpent of twisted gold, father, holding a beetle, cut from
+some green stone, in its coils. The beetle was covered with strange
+characters.”
+
+The prisoner started forward in the darkness and grasped Marguerite by
+the arm.
+
+“It is my ring—It is my ring! tell me where you saw it!”
+
+“Father, I saw it on the hand of Queen Marie Antoinette.”
+
+The prisoner gasped for breath. Even in that dim light Marguerite could
+see the glitter of his eyes.
+
+“She wears it and it is cursing her. All France is in mad rebellion. Ah,
+now I understand how the poison has been working! Therese, where is the
+queen?”
+
+“At Versailles.”
+
+“I know where that is—she is there—and the ring? Go away, Therese, I
+want to think. I want to be still.”
+
+Marguerite went back to her bed and had hardly closed her eyes, when
+that shadowy old man crept softly down the stair-case and was gone.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXIII.
+ SEARCHING FOR THE SERPENT RING.
+
+
+The Queen of France nearly lost her courage when news reached her of the
+storming of the Bastille, but she kept bravely up in presence of the
+court, and only indulged in sad forebodings when a moment of solitude
+was given her.
+
+One evening as the sun went down, she escaped from her ladies and went
+alone into the park. Finding a secluded seat she fell into a painful
+reverie, and gave way to it until the new moon dropped down among the
+purplish whiteness of the clouds, from which all the scarlet and gold
+had died softly out, and hung there like a golden sickle, waiting for a
+harvest of stars. Then Marie Antoinette remembered the hour, and how far
+she was from the palace, with a little thrill of fear. She gathered the
+shawl over her head, and, holding its shadowy lace to her bosom with one
+hand, went out into the Park, and walked swiftly away.
+
+Everything was still as death; the birds had ceased their soft
+fluttering among the leaves; and all the pretty animals had crept away
+to their coverts among the ferns and undergrowth.
+
+All at once the queen paused, and stepped back with a faint shriek. The
+shadow of a man fell across her path—the man himself stood in her way.
+The moon had just traveled through an amethystine cloud, and came out
+clear as crystal, illuminating that strange face, the bright blue eyes,
+the ivory forehead, and that long, white beard, which waved down the
+man’s bosom.
+
+“Lady,” he said, “you look kind and good; tell me how I can gain access
+to the daughter of Maria Theresa.”
+
+The voice was low and broken, but sweet with humility. There was nothing
+to fear from a man who spoke like that.
+
+“You speak of the queen?” said Marie Antoinette, with gentle dignity.
+
+“Yes, I speak of the queen; that fair, brave woman, whose mother, a
+saint in heaven, was once my friend.”
+
+“You have seen my mother?” cried Marie Antoinette, surprised out of all
+prudence.
+
+“Your mother? Oh! that I do not know. It was Maria Theresa, the good
+Empress of Austria, of whom I was speaking; and it is her child, the
+young queen of France, I wish to see.”
+
+“The young Queen of France! Alas! she is no longer young,” said Marie
+Antoinette, with a pathetic recollection of the silver threads that were
+creeping into her hair.
+
+The man shook his head, and lifted one hand to it with an air of
+bewilderment.
+
+“You mistake, lady; I saw her twice, and she was young and fair, like
+the lilies—so fair, so beautifully fair!”
+
+“Was that in Austria, old man?”
+
+“Yes, it was in Austria. She stood by the side of her mother, a grand,
+princely woman, dauntless as a lion—but I saw her tremble. It is awful
+to see such terror in the eyes of a brave woman; but it was there, and I
+had done it. Ah, me! there is a power beyond that of monarch’s—a fearful
+power. They wrested it from me—they wrested it from me; and I am only a
+poor, weak old man.”
+
+“Who are you? I cannot make out by the tones of your voice to what
+nation you belong; they carry the accent of no country with them that I
+can discern.”
+
+“That is because I have been born again; buried, you know, and risen
+from the grave.”
+
+Marie Antoinette looked anxiously about her. This was the talk of a
+madman. How had he come there? By what device could she escape him?
+
+“You cannot understand me,” persisted the man, plaintively. “You are
+afraid of a poor, helpless old man, who has but one wish in the world.”
+
+“And what is that?” inquired the queen, reassured by his meek
+earnestness.
+
+“To see Marie Antoinette, to take the serpent from her hand, and the
+curse from her destiny.”
+
+Again the queen recoiled; these words seemed to her the wild talk of a
+madman.
+
+“Can you tell me how to reach her, lady?”
+
+“That is impossible. The queen admits no strangers to her presence.”
+
+“Ah, me! and I am a stranger to every one now. They all seem afraid of
+the creature they have dragged up from his grave.”
+
+“Who are you?”
+
+“No matter; you would not care to know; a great many do not love the
+queen; but I think you are something to the daughter of Maria Theresa,
+or you would not be in this place. It is strange, but at first I thought
+it was the queen walking by herself—as if she ever did! It would be
+dangerous, I can tell her that—very dangerous; for there exist people
+over yonder who hate this fair young queen. But I pity her; oh, yes! I
+pity her from the depths of my heart!”
+
+“Why—why do you pity her?”
+
+“Because I know. Because they have taken the good from me and turned it
+into evil for her. Ah! if I could see her; if she would only believe
+me!”
+
+“Believe you in what?”
+
+“In the thing I would ask of her.”
+
+“What would that be?”
+
+“No matter. I can tell no one but herself.”
+
+“Tell me, and if the thing you want is reasonable, I will ask it of
+her.”
+
+“Do you see her? Are you one of her ladies! You should be, else how came
+you here?”
+
+“How came you here?” demanded the queen.
+
+“Oh! I accomplished it at last. Days and days I have waited and watched;
+but this morning I saw a man go warily through a gate. He left it
+unlocked. I dared not follow, but lingered near, for the temptation was
+strong upon me. I waited patiently. Oh, lady! I have learned to be
+patient; to wait, and wait, and wait——”
+
+The man broke off dreamily. His hand waved to and fro in the air, as if
+grasping at the moonbeams.
+
+“But you have not told me?”
+
+“Told you about what?”
+
+“About the man.”
+
+“About the man—I have seen a great many people since then; and they all
+talk before me, thinking that I, most of any one, must hate the man they
+call Louis Capet, and his wife. Poor thing! Poor thing! Why should I
+hate her or him! He was not to blame for the cruel acts of his
+grandfather. But about the man, he went out of the gate without locking
+it, then I crept in. What if I had been an enemy? but I am not. No one
+shall ever make me that.”
+
+“Well, no harm is done,” said the queen.
+
+“Not yet; but, lady, if you see the queen, warn her about the gate. I
+would, but that my business with her is so much more important.”
+
+“I will warn her,” said the queen.
+
+“That is kind. Oh! if I could only see her, and undo the evil thing
+which is sure to carry a curse with it, when a minute could turn it into
+a blessing. You could not ask her?”
+
+His great, wistful eyes were turned on her face imploringly; he grasped
+the lace of her shawl with his eager hand. She stepped back nervously,
+and wrenched the lace from his grasp. In doing this her hand flashed out
+from its covering; the moonlight struck the great starlike diamonds on
+her fingers, and dimly revealed a serpent of twisted gold, with a green
+beetle in its coils, twined around one finger.
+
+The old man uttered a cry so sharp and wild that it rang through the
+park.
+
+“Give it me! Give it me! It is mine! It is mine!” he cried, snatching at
+the hand on which he had seen the serpent ring. “Oh, my God! it shall
+not escape me again! All the fiends themselves shall not keep it from
+me!”
+
+The old man caught the hand, which again buried itself in the black
+shawl; but he trembled so violently that the lace tore in his grasp, and
+the queen broke from him in extreme terror. This insane violence
+convinced her that the man was mad. She darted away, and ran for her
+very life, not daring to cry out, but rushing on, and on, till the
+breath left her.
+
+The old man followed the flying woman, calling after her with pathetic
+cries, and beseeching her to stop. She looked back, a hand grasped at
+her shoulder, but she swerved aside quickly, and the old man fell
+headlong.
+
+The queen uttered a quick cry of thankfulness, and sped on, and on, till
+she came in sight of the palace.
+
+The old man, who had fallen headlong on the turf, lay insensible for a
+few minutes; but after a little he lifted himself up, and looked around
+for the lady who had almost reached the private door.
+
+“Gone! gone! gone!” he cried out, with pathetic mournfulness. “How near
+I was! My hand touched it! I felt the thrill and the power flash through
+me like an arrow, and then it was gone! Who was the lady? How did that
+ring come on her finger? Does she know that to her it will bring nothing
+but curses, to me power, strength, the blessedness of memory—spring of
+youth. Ah! why does she escape me!”
+
+He stood awhile with his clasped hands uplifted, his eyes full of tears.
+The agony of his disappointment quivered in every mild feature. Then he
+tottered on, muttering to himself.
+
+“Oh! how they baffle me! How long am I to wait! Are the fiends forever
+to have mastery? Oh, me! I could bear it if no evil came to others,
+while good is withheld from me. How long am I to wait?”
+
+There was no madness in the old man’s voice, but unutterable
+disappointment, the very mournfulness of despair. His step was slow and
+feeble; tears dropped from his eyes, and fell upon his beard, where they
+trembled like jewels. His lips quivered, and gave out soft murmurs of
+distress, as he followed after the queen, who fled from him.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXIV.
+ DOWN IN THE LEAFY SHADOWS.
+
+
+The old man who had so terrified Marie Antoinette, followed her with
+piteous entreaties, until she reached the private door, which had been
+carefully left open for her. He even tried to enter by the same passage,
+but she had drawn the bolt inside; and he turned from it in meek
+despair, muttering to himself and smoothing his silvery beard in the
+moonlight. Another man would have gone home, perhaps, spending the whole
+of that beautiful night on his way to Paris; this weary pilgrim had lost
+all ideas of home that were not connected with his cell in the Bastille,
+which now lay a heap of ruins in the heart of the city. During the days
+in which he had been at liberty, this broken being had refused to take
+up his old habits of civilization; his limbs had never pressed a bed;
+and his food was always the same, a crust of black bread and a cup of
+water. The free air of a bright day oppressed him; but when the clouds
+lowered, and the rain fell, a sense of enjoyment awoke in his bosom, and
+he was sure to wander into the streets, and search with mournful
+fascination for the ruins of his old prison.
+
+A bright sunshine, and even moonlight, clear and broad as that which lay
+around him, oppressed and bewildered this poor wanderer, who had spent
+nearly half his life in utter darkness. Below the palace was a
+thickly-wooded path, filled with shadows, through which he could, from
+time to time, see the sparkle of waters leaping up to meet the
+moonlight. As I have said, imprisonment had made darkness a second
+nature to this man; so he stole away from the soft radiance that fell
+around him, and went into the deep shadows. Here the moist atmosphere,
+to which all his frame had become habituated, cooled the fever in his
+veins, and the soft tinkle of falling waters lulled him back into the
+dull monotony of his prison days. He sat down at the foot of a tree,
+where the earth was cushioned all over with emerald-green moss, and
+leaning his head against it, grew tranquil under the languid sense of
+solitude that crept over him. To be alone was now the great luxury of
+his life, as it had formerly been its punishment.
+
+As the old man rested against his pillow of rugged bark, a shadow broke
+the moonlight that quivered on the edge of the path, and the footsteps
+of a man coming down the broad avenue leading that way startled him.
+With a thrill of fear he drew closer to the tree that sheltered him, and
+waited for the man to pass; but the path that led close to him was
+darkened, and after a minute or two a gentleman stood within three paces
+of his retreat. The old man could see enough of the face to read it
+clearly, for a break in the tangled boughs overhead let in a stream of
+radiance, which the surrounding darkness increased, and this lay full
+upon the intruder.
+
+The stranger took off his three-cornered hat, and sighed gently as the
+moist air swept across his forehead. Then he moved a step forward, and
+seemed about to rest himself on a seat opposite the elm, against which
+Gosner was leaning.
+
+The old prisoner, seeing this, arose to his feet and stood before this
+man like a ghost; his soft, white beard sweeping to the wind, and his
+frightened face etherealized by the light that struggled down to it.
+
+“Forgive me; I was but resting,” he said, in the low quivering voice
+with which he had been accustomed to address his keeper. “The air down
+here was so cool; and I love the sound of dripping water—it is such
+company!”
+
+“Who are you, old man, and how came you here? Have you not been told
+that no person is permitted to enter these grounds but the household of
+the king?”
+
+“No one told me; but I felt that it was wrong to be so near the palace,
+so I came down into this dark path, quite out of the way. Is there any
+harm in that?”
+
+“I cannot think that harm of any kind need be apprehended from a person
+who speaks with such gentle humility,” answered the stranger. “But tell
+me, what brought you here?”
+
+“I was sent! I was sent! But for that I had not come.”
+
+“But how did you gain an entrance?”
+
+“God opened the gate for me!”
+
+“What? I do not understand.”
+
+“I was waiting on the highway, thinking that our Lady, to whom I had
+never ceased to pray, might, by a miracle, open some gate, through which
+I might pass to the palace. Well, at last the blessed Virgin answered
+me. A man came through a little gate which led to the gardens, and left
+it ajar. I crept after him holding my breath, and went in among the
+flowers, which covered me with perfume, which I do not like—that which
+comes from sleeping water, green at the top, is best—the breath of
+flowers is so subtle it makes me dizzy!”
+
+“But you have not given his name?”
+
+“Why should I? That is—I know—”
+
+“Well, speak out. I wish to know who it is that I find at night in the
+private grounds of Versailles.”
+
+“Are you a friend to the king?”
+
+A sad smile came over the stranger’s face, and he answered with feeling,
+
+“If the king has a friend, I am one!”
+
+“Then caution him—there is some harm intended him by the people of
+Paris.”
+
+The stranger drew a deep breath.
+
+“Ah! I understand; you speak wisely and kindly; the king shall hear of
+it.”
+
+“No, no! Why should he, after all? They are right, I ought not to warn
+this king, whose grandfather slew my youth, and turned my manhood into
+this!”
+
+Here the old man grasped the end of his white beard, and held it up in
+the moonlight.
+
+The stranger stepped back, and stood for a moment gazing with
+astonishment on the old man’s face.
+
+“Who is it that has wronged you so? What is your name? once more I ask
+it.”
+
+“The man who wronged me was Louis the Fifteenth. Once people knew me as
+Dr. Gosner.”
+
+“Gosner—Gosner! You were a prisoner in the Bastille?”
+
+“Oh, yes! A prisoner of the Bastille!”
+
+“Whom the present king pardoned?”
+
+“And then cast into a deeper dungeon, while his minions gave forth that
+I was dead!”
+
+“Was the king guilty of treachery like this?”
+
+“There was treachery somewhere; but what matters it now that you and I
+should ask where it rested? The peoples’ hate has fallen with awful
+heaviness on one man—that one who so oppressed the sufferers placed
+under his despotism. When they led me forth from my dungeon into that
+carnival of blood, the head of Delaunay went before me on the point of a
+pike. If vengeance had not died out of my soul years before, it would
+have sickened and perished then.”
+
+“How, you a prisoner of the Bastille, and do not hate the king?”
+
+“Hate him? No! Come closer, and I will tell you. An evil thing fell upon
+him and the fair girl he married on the day I was cast into prison.”
+
+“What was that evil thing?”
+
+“A blessing and a curse; the blessing was taken from me and turned into
+a curse for the daughter of Maria Theresa. Ah! If I could see her—if I
+only could!”
+
+“You speak of the queen?”
+
+“Yes, of the woman who was wronged and wounded worse than myself, when
+they buried my youth in the Bastille.”
+
+“But how?”
+
+“Ah! that is my secret. I will tell it to no human soul—not even to
+her.”
+
+The stranger looked earnestly at the singular old man whom he began to
+recognize as mildly insane;—a poor wanderer, who had strayed into the
+Park through some carelessly closed gate;—possibly a victim of the
+Bastille, whose mind had gone astray in his dungeon; but, in any case,
+worthy of infinite compassion.
+
+“Would you like me to show you the way out from the Park?” he said,
+gently, as if he had been addressing a child. “In a few minutes the
+gates will be closed, and the guards doubled.”
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+“No. I will rest here till daylight comes; then, perhaps, I can see her
+again.”
+
+“Whom would you see? Tell me, perhaps I can aid you.”
+
+“The woman who was out yonder to-night.”
+
+“The woman—did you know who she was?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Did you see her face?”
+
+“No. She gathered her veil over it and fled. Oh! if she had but waited!
+I would have wrenched it from her hand, if she had not given it up; but
+only to save her—only to save her. Fate has done its work with me.”
+
+There was something mournfully pathetic in the old man’s words; his
+thin, white hand trembled visibly as he clenched it in his beard; his
+eyes shone in the moonlight, which now and then came down fitfully
+through the branches, and seemed to cover him with alternate smiles and
+frowns.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXV.
+ THE PRISONER AND THE KING.
+
+
+The stranger laid his hand in gentle compassion on the old man’s arm.
+There was something so sweet and kind in his lunacy, that he could not
+resist the pitying impulse which possessed him. What if this gentle old
+man had, indeed, been a prisoner of the Bastille—a terrible place, which
+the nobility had used with such fearful recklessness, without pausing to
+understand what awful sins they were committing against human rights.
+
+“Sit down,” he said, “you tremble, and seem very old; while I rest here,
+tell me something of that prison—of your life there. Was it, indeed, so
+horrible as the people say?”
+
+The old man sat down as bidden, for he had learned to obey until
+submission had become an impulse. The stranger leaned against the trunk
+of a willow that drooped over him a perfect cataract of leaves, and
+prepared to listen.
+
+“What would you have me say?” asked the old man, lifting his meek eyes
+to the thoughtful face of his questioner. “There is much suffering in
+twenty years—where shall I begin?”
+
+“Tell me everything. It is well that I should know how far men can
+suffer and live.”
+
+The old man shook his head.
+
+“Ah! it is all a dream now, a dull, heavy dream of darkness, and hunger,
+and awful rest. At first I yearned and struggled for the freedom which
+despotism, not crime, had torn from me. I raved in my cell; I beat my
+hands against the great oaken door, which answered me with the mockery
+of hollow noises; I beat my head upon the stone flags of my cell, hoping
+thus to end the torment of my longing. I cried aloud for my wife and
+child. Oh, my God! my God! how I suffered then—I, who had done nothing
+that was evil, but always sought out the right; I, who had kept myself
+humble, and loved the poor with affectionate brotherhood, who had
+nothing on earth but my sweet young wife and her little child!
+
+“At first I said this outrage against an innocent man cannot last. In a
+few weeks they will let me out, and I shall flee on the wings of love to
+find my wife and child; they will have suffered, but my coming will
+bring back all the old joy into their lives. Monsieur, do you know what
+it is to have such dreams die out of the soul?”
+
+The old man clasped his hands, bowed his face down to his bosom, over
+which the white beard flowed, and began to sob. The tenderness of a most
+affectionate nature had come back to him so far that a swell of
+self-pity heaved his breast when he remembered the pangs of anguish with
+which he had given up all the hopes of his youth.
+
+“Go on,” said the stranger, in a broken voice; “it is well that I should
+hear this.”
+
+“In the darkness of that dungeon,” answered the old man, “I felt my soul
+going from me, I struggled hard to keep it—but it went, it went; the
+cruel wants of the body conquered it. Hunger, cold, the eternal drip of
+stagnant waters drove me mad, I think, for days lengthened into black
+years, and years grew into eternity. To me there was neither heaven or
+earth, nothing but that dungeon and its four dripping walls. As the
+memory of my sweet home among the vineyards died out, I began to love
+those walls; my eyes transformed themselves for the darkness, and
+learned to watch the creeping things that came and went into my dungeon;
+the bright-eyed toads, that sat hour by hour looking into my face, as if
+they wondered what manner of animal I was, sitting there so inert and
+helpless; or, hopping from place to place. They never felt the closeness
+of those four walls. After a time these creatures, so loathsome at
+first, became dear as children to me. I watched their coming with eager
+longing, and out of my scant food saved a little for them, that they
+might not be tempted to leave me. I would sit hours together holding one
+of these creatures in my hand, counting the spots on its back with my
+fingers, and smoothing its soft throat with gentle touches, while his
+bright eyes shone on me through the darkness.
+
+“Sometimes these pretty reptiles would creep into my bosom as I slept at
+night. Then I dreamed that the little hand of my child was caressing me.
+You understand, monsieur, as my sight had shaped itself to the darkness,
+so my heart, closed in by despair, found something to love even in that
+loathsome cell.”
+
+“Go on! go on!” said the stranger, sharply, “I am listening!”
+
+“Sometimes a keeper was harsh and cruel when he came to my cell, but
+oftener he was grim and silent, refusing to speak or answer one word
+of the questions which at first almost choked me as they crowded up
+from my heart. By degrees I did not care—what was the outer world to
+me, sitting there in the darkness of my tomb. Sometimes this man
+brought a lamp, and let me cut off the long hair which flowed over my
+shoulders like a woman’s. At first it was soft and golden, then it
+grew whiter—whiter—whiter; and by this I marked the time. When I came
+out the other day, it was drifted snow like this.
+
+“One day the people rose like a great tidal wave, and swept over my
+prison. A woman plunged down into the bowels of the earth, and fell upon
+my neck, crying out that the people had won back my liberty. I did not
+understand her—I did not know her; her eagerness wearied me. She talked
+of things I had never heard of. She said that she was my wife. My wife,
+with those bright, eager eyes; those curling lips; that free speech,
+often sharp with denunciation. If she was my wife, too much light had
+changed her more completely than darkness had worked on me. While her
+arms were around me, I thought of the fair, meek creature I had left in
+that cottage among the vineyards, and mourned for her as we mourn for
+the dead. Then they brought a young creature to me, so like my first
+wife that I stretched out my arms with a cry of joy; but they told me it
+was my daughter. Wife and daughter had both gone. The old king had dug a
+chasm of years between them and me. I could not cross it—I could not
+cross it!”
+
+The stranger took a handkerchief from his bosom, and wiped away some
+great drops that had gathered on his forehead.
+
+“No more to-night,” he said; “I cannot bear it.”
+
+“Then I will go, since you will not let me rest here; but the road to
+Paris is long, and suffering has made me an old man.”
+
+The stranger reflected a moment.
+
+“Not here,” he said, “the air is moist and the earth damp.”
+
+“Ah! but I learned to love this dampness in my dungeon,” said the old
+man, plaintively.
+
+“Still it is no safe resting-place. I must not turn you upon the highway
+in the night; besides, the guard might treat you ill. Come with me;
+there is a place where you can be safe, and more comfortable.”
+
+The old man picked up his staff and followed the strange person, who had
+taken this singular interest in him, with docile obedience.
+
+The two mounted upward from the secluded path, and walked toward another
+portion of the park, where a tiny summer-house was embowered.
+
+The stranger opened the door and let a flood of moonlight into the
+pretty place.
+
+“Here are easy-chairs and cushions, you can make out a resting-place
+from them,” he said, kindly, addressing the old man.
+
+“No; I will sleep on the marble floor—a bed suffocates me.”
+
+“Have no fear, then; no one will molest you.”
+
+“Fear! What has a prisoner of the Bastille to fear—death? How many of us
+prayed for that every hour of our miserable lives,” answered the old man
+with a gentle smile. “You are kind, and I thank you. Gratitude, I
+sometimes think, is the only feeling imprisonment has left me. I am
+grateful to you, sir.”
+
+“Grateful to me! Do you know that I am THE KING?”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXVI.
+ ON TO VERSAILLES.
+
+
+Madame Gosner had done the true work of her lifetime when she saw her
+husband set free from the Bastille. Then if all the sweet womanhood of
+her nature had not been embittered by the radical fury of the times, her
+own reward would have been assured. But, instead of a wife suffering and
+toiling for a beloved husband’s freedom, this woman had become an
+avenger—a patriot—that most loathsome thing, a female demagogue. It was
+painful but not strange that the husband for whom she had toiled,
+suffered, and almost died, should have failed to recognize in this woman
+the sweet young wife he had left in that vineyard home.
+
+Marguerite was to him now what the wife had been then. His tortured
+memory could neither associate this amazon with his wife, or the lovely
+girl with the child he had left with her. He knew that each represented
+the other, but could not feel it. To him Marguerite was the Therese of
+his memory; the little child haunted him like a dream, nothing more. As
+for the woman, he was afraid of her. In her enthusiasm she had become
+his persecutor. It was she who forced him into crowds, and turned the
+fierce eyes of a clamorous mob upon him. It was she who called down a
+storm of curses on the sovereigns of France whenever his white hair was
+seen. It was she who filled their humble apartments day and night with
+red-capped men and hideous women, who swarmed around the sensitive old
+man like birds of prey. So oppressive and terrible did this become at
+last, that the old man crept from his home with cautious stealth, and
+sometimes remained away for hours, no human creature knowing where he
+went. More than once he remained out for days, and search the streets as
+they might, no one could find him.
+
+Madame Gosner was baffled and defeated in her wild ambition. Neither her
+husband or daughter entered into her projects or her hatred of the royal
+family. The life this perverted woman led bore with equal force upon her
+daughter Marguerite, who gladly escaped from the confusion in her own
+home, to the sad quiet of Dame Doudel’s apartments. This kind old
+benefactress gave her in all tenderness the love and protection which
+springs so naturally out of mutual sorrow.
+
+But the time came at last when both Marguerite and her helpless father
+were forced to appear among the insurgents.
+
+Months had swept by swiftly, as time goes when nations plunge onward to
+rebellion. Paris was once more in open revolt. Her people, with one of
+those popular impulses that shake the foundations of a government, had
+resolved to besiege the Assembly in its halls and the king in his
+palace.
+
+The Court and the Assembly were at Versailles, wrangling together. The
+people all this time had been busy hunting down the king. Now they were
+marching upon him in one huge mob which left the lanes and streets of
+Paris empty, and its vast market places silent as tombs. The rain was
+pouring down in torrents, the mud was ankle deep; yet that vast
+concourse of people kept steadily on, wheeling cannon through the
+mud—throwing out banners to be soaked by the rain, shouting, grumbling,
+hurling curses on the king, the queen, and the court.
+
+In the midst of the rioters Madame Gosner was conspicuous, riding a
+heavy cart horse and carrying a spear in her hand. Close by her on a
+smaller and more gentle animal rode the prisoner of the Bastille, with a
+red cap upon his head, which hung limp and dripping over his white
+locks.
+
+Whenever this man appeared, shouts long and loud, followed him, at which
+his brow would contract gloomily and his eye gleam underneath them. In
+the crowd, mounted on horseback like her mother, but with no emblems of
+rebellion, came Marguerite, pale, dejected, and forced sorely against
+her will into the heart of the mob, as her father had been.
+
+About midway between Paris and Versailles, the crowd halted at a village
+where it was thought bread for the hungry crowd might be obtained. In
+the confusion which followed this movement, the old prisoner tore off
+his red cap, flung it into the mud, and in its place drew the hood of a
+friar’s cloak, which some priest had cast over him when the rain came
+down most violently—then he turned his horse and pushed his way out of
+the crowd unnoticed. In half an hour he left that vast crowd behind him
+and made the best of his way to Paris, which was still and deserted like
+a city of the dead.
+
+In the suburbs, the old man dismounted and turned his horse loose. He
+was weary and very feeble; the mud clung to his feet, and the rain
+poured upon him with cruel steadiness; but he moved on, and at last
+turned into the ruined court of the Bastille, crossed the draw-bridge,
+and went out of sight among the unshapely heap of stones beyond it.
+
+When the army of women went back to Paris, Madame Gosner was among those
+who conducted the royal captives to the very entrance of the Tuileries.
+Now her triumph seemed almost complete, her enemies were trampled almost
+into the dust. Her name was received with shouts wherever she turned.
+She forgot the husband who had disappeared in the crowd, and the child
+whom she had with despotic force urged into an act of open rebellion.
+The madness of ambition was upon her. She had begun now to rival
+Theroigne and the coarsest of her sex in a struggle for popularity. So
+she went into the thickest of the mob, while Marguerite sought her home
+with a heavy heart, hoping with terrible misgivings that she might find
+her father there.
+
+The rooms were empty. No human soul was there to meet or comfort her. No
+sign of the hunted man met her in the building.
+
+Where could she go? In what place had that helpless man hid himself? Two
+nights he had already been absent; had he perished in the street, or
+wandered off into some village of the open country?
+
+All at once a thought struck the girl. The Bastille had some weird
+fascination which carried that lonely man back to his dungeon, as birds
+return to the cages from which they have been set free, feeling the
+broad, blue dome of the sky too vast for the trial of their worn and
+crippled wings. This thought was scarcely more rapid than the action
+that followed it.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXVII.
+ LOUISON BRISOT IN THE RUINS.
+
+
+Louison Brisot had been foremost among the women who brought the king
+and the queen almost prisoners from Versailles to the Tuileries. Flushed
+with her triumph, weary with excitement, a few nights after this outrage
+she found herself in the street, doubtful whether to make her way to the
+Cordelier Club, or find some church in which she might listen to
+vespers, and, perhaps, seek other religious help; for this woman, who
+was devoid of the first principles of morality, gave herself up at
+intervals to superstitions, which she absolutely believed to be
+religious. She did not turn toward the club, but walked on at random,
+threading one street after another until she reached the Bastille, which
+lay under the pale moonlight, heaped in ruins. The moat, half choked up
+with fragments of the broken walls, still coiled around the old
+foundations, lapping the huge stones, and seeming to writhe under them
+like a wounded serpent, with a slimy, green back, on which the calm moon
+was shining in fitful glimpses.
+
+It was a scene of wild devastation. Here and there patches of white
+plaster gleamed against the blackness of the broken stones like ghosts
+crouching in the shadows, and a part of the draw-bridge loomed up, as
+yet unbroken, from which huge chains were dangling like fetters from a
+gibbet.
+
+Weird and terrible as the scene really was, Louison regarded it with
+feelings of wild satisfaction. She had helped to tear down those mighty
+walls with her own hands. Her voice had led a phalanx of women on to
+that awful attack, when despotism received its first fatal blow. She
+felt keen delight in roaming about this ghostly ruin, which was so
+fearfully typical of the fate which impended over the nation. In those
+disjointed stones she saw the real power which lay in the people, and
+the weakness of kings when that power chose to exert itself. If the
+people of France were strong enough to wrest this stronghold from the
+crown, what could prevent them from tearing away the very foundations of
+the throne itself?
+
+Louison asked these questions of herself as she wandered among the black
+masses of rock that had once been a prison, so grim and awful, that the
+very children had run away terrified by a sight of its walls. A wild
+craving for liberty had hitherto filled her being; a blind ambition to
+be the leading spirit of any tumult that might spring out of the
+starvation and discontent which filled all France with tears and
+menaces. But now another and more bitter feeling possessed her; personal
+hate mingled itself with the fanaticism which had lifted liberty into
+the semblance of a god, at whose feet both religion and common sense
+must be hurled. She longed to crush the beautiful queen as she had
+helped to cast those stones down from their ponderous hold in the prison
+towers. She had no object in coming there but that of feasting her eyes
+on the ruin, which was a proof and a pledge of the greater overthrow yet
+to come. The time was near when crowns should be trodden under foot, and
+thrones hurled from their base as those rocks had been.
+
+In this place the demons of envy and hate entered that woman’s soul, and
+she called them patriotism. Among the gaunt shadows that filled the
+ruins of the Bastille, there was one spot more dreary than the rest,
+hollowed out like an exhausted volcano, and partly choked up with rocks,
+black and rugged as consolidated lava. The moonbeams penetrated into
+this abyss, and played whitely around its jagged edges. Louison could
+hear the trickle of water, as it filtered from the moat, and crept
+downward among the stones. This sight more weird and dismal than
+anything she had seen, fascinated the woman, and she paused to look upon
+it. Above the slow trickle of waters she heard a human voice, utterly at
+variance with the place, for its tones were low and sweet as the murmur
+of a south wind when the flowers are budding, but plaintive as that same
+wind when it sighs among autumn leaves.
+
+What could this sound mean? Had some prisoner been left among the
+subterranean dungeons, unable to make himself heard when that multitude
+of spoilers swept over the prison?
+
+Louison was fearless; and this thought stirred all the humanity in her
+bosom. She sprung from the fragment of rock on which she stood, and
+leaped from point to point down into the chasm. She came at last to a
+platform, which had once been a corridor far beneath the level of the
+moat. This was partly filled with the rubbish of broken doors and rusted
+iron, rent from the walls when the mob were raging like wild beasts
+through the foundations of the prison, making impossible efforts to
+annihilate the space which could only be filled up by the ruin going on
+above. More than one black hole in the wall revealed to her where a cell
+had been; and her progress was again and again impeded by the links of
+some broken chain, coiling like a serpent in her path.
+
+At last she came to an open cell, into which the moonlight penetrated
+dimly; for the rubbish directly before it had been cleared away, and
+some yards along the corridor were open to the sky. From this cell she
+heard murmurs; a soft voice, tremulous with the tender weakness of old
+age, was talking there, expostulating, caressing, murmuring fondly, as
+aged women caress their children’s children.
+
+Louison held her breath and listened, stricken with wonder and vague
+compassion.
+
+“My pet, my little friend! and did you wait for me? Did you know my
+voice when I called out? Were you glad when I caught so many flies for
+your breakfast? Yes, yes! I found you waiting for me in the corner,
+wondering at the light, I dare say; but neither that, or the awful
+thunder of falling rocks could drive you from the old place. Did you
+hear me at work, day after day? Could you understand that I was in
+search of you, and that every stone I lifted took a load from my heart?
+They would not listen to me, our wild, fierce friends, and shouted with
+laughter when I told them I had a friend that must not be left, if I
+went. How could they understand that it was tearing my heart to leave
+you? But their kindness frightened me, and by force I was carried up, up
+into the sunlight, that struck me blind; into a home that was strange as
+a grave; and into a bed that tortured me with its softness. It was not
+home—that was with you, my darling. You shall have the sunlight as I do,
+and look out with me on the calm, white moon. It will seem strange at
+first, as it did to me; but you will not feel more afraid of it than I
+was.”
+
+Louison listened to the plaintive fondness of these rambling words, till
+they died away in soft cooing murmurs. Then she stooped a little, and
+passed into the cell, where, by a few faint gleams of the moon that
+trembled downward even to that depth, she saw a man sitting on the
+dungeon floor, his black garments trailing around him, and a beard,
+white as silver and soft as snow, sweeping down to his waist; his head
+was bent, and he was looking at some dark object in his hand.
+
+When this man saw Louison, he laid his right hand over this object,
+lifted it to his bosom, sheltering it under his flowing beard, and
+turned his bright eyes angrily on the woman.
+
+“Have you come again?” he said, querulously. “I know you. It was you,
+and the like of you, that dragged me into the hot sunlight. Have you
+come again?”
+
+“Who are you, and how came you here?” demanded the woman, struck with
+wonder and something like dread.
+
+“I was a man they called Dr. Gosner once, years and years ago; but they
+give me no name since then. Here it was No.—oh, I forget!—out yonder,
+where the sun shines, they call me ‘_The Prisoner of the Bastille_.’”
+
+“Ah! Are you that man? But I thought you were cared for, that you had a
+comfortable home with your own family. How came you here?”
+
+“This is my home; it is shady and quiet. I have a friend here.”
+
+“What friend? Your wife? Surely she does not come here.”
+
+“I had a wife once, bright as a flower, and they told me I was going to
+her; but when I cried out for her, a woman of the people came,—proud,
+grand, noisy. It troubled me, it troubled me!”
+
+Here the man pressed both hands to his bosom, and his beard shook
+passionately.
+
+“But your wife is still living? I know the whole sad story,” said
+Louison.
+
+“My wife! She called herself that. I saw her carrying a flag in her
+hand, and wearing a cockade on her bosom. There was fire in her eyes,
+and specks of foam on her lips. She looked straight at the sun, and
+cried out, with a host of fierce, angry women, ‘Bread or blood! Bread or
+blood!’ Then I knew this woman was _not_ my wife.”
+
+“Ah! I know well who it is—you speak of Madame Gosner. There is no voice
+at the clubs more powerful than hers. She leads the women and half the
+men of Paris with her enthusiasm and her force of will; Theroigne, of
+Liege, is not more powerful.”
+
+“My wife was young, sweet, gentle. She desired no power; but only asked
+for the pleasure of leading our child.”
+
+“But your wrongs have made her a patriot—a leader among downtrodden
+women and great men.”
+
+The old man shook his head sadly.
+
+“The greatest wrong that can be done to any man is to deprive him of a
+wife he loves.”
+
+“But you are not deprived of this great woman. She is still your wife.”
+
+“Then let her go back to the vineyards which grew around our home, out
+of this turmoil, where human happiness has no root.”
+
+“But that would be to cast away her power, and darken her own glory.”
+
+“Power over the vile passions of madmen; the glory which bathes itself
+crimson in blood! What has any man’s wife in common with such things as
+these?”
+
+“Then you scoff at a revolution in which women go breast to breast with
+brave men?”
+
+“Scoff? No; it is long since I have forgotten how to scoff. We learn
+more humility in prison.”
+
+“But who sent you there? The king! Who was it that promised freedom, as
+a return for her own vile life, and then gave forth that you were dead?
+Marie Antoinette, the Austrian!”
+
+“The king who buried me is dead. God has long since judged him for the
+crime!”
+
+“But the woman who ruled that weak, wicked man is still living.”
+
+“Let her live.”
+
+“But your wrongs belong to the people. They speak louder than the clamor
+of a thousand tongues against the man and woman who call themselves
+merciful, yet kept you a prisoner in this horrid place years and years
+after the original oppressor was dead.”
+
+“Hush! Speak lower, you disturb my little friend. It is always so quiet
+here.”
+
+Louison shook her head.
+
+“Poor man, his mind is disturbed.”
+
+“No; it is my heart which shrinks from the strife going on up yonder.
+They dragged me into it; _she_ did, the woman who calls herself my wife.
+She dragged me to her side on the cannon that day, where hordes of
+frantic women might whet their rage over my broken life. Had that woman
+been on the guillotine, they would have found me by her side; but not
+there—not there. France has better uses for her women.”
+
+“Then you denounce the women who are ready to die for liberty; you side
+with royal tyrants?” said Louison, fiercely.
+
+“Woman, if you are one of them, go away and leave me in peace.”
+
+“No, old man, I will not leave you. In these times the life and peace of
+every man and woman in France belongs to the nation. It is given some to
+fight, some to speak, and others to plan—you shall not sit here musing
+in silence. There is eloquence in your wrongs, power in your white
+hair—glory to crown it when this government is overthrown. You are
+needed to inspire the people who have given you freedom. Old man, I
+charge you to join those who will have ‘Liberty or death! Liberty or
+death!’ These were the words of a great American patriot, who did more
+by that one outburst to win the freedom he pined for, than the swords of
+fifty common warriors. Your words may be equally powerful.”
+
+The old man shook his head, but made no answer. Louison grew fierce, for
+his meek opposition excited her to rage. She moved a little on one side,
+and the motion let in a gleam of moonlight, which fell on the old man’s
+face. She spoke again with bitterness.
+
+“Old man, you are dreaming.”
+
+“Dreaming? Yes! One learns to dream when light and speech are forgotten;
+but this dream brings tears to my eyes—and they come with such pain now!
+Would it offend you, madame, if I ask to be alone with my friend?”
+
+“With your friend? What friend? I see no one here.”
+
+“No matter; but I am used to being alone. Would it please you to leave
+me? In this place, company seems strange.”
+
+“Yes, old man, I will go, but on one condition. When the patriots want
+you, in order to deal out vengeance where it has been so foully earned,
+there must be no faltering—your wrongs belong to the nation. You were
+dragged forth from this dungeon that the people might learn something of
+the tyranny that oppresses them. All the remnant of your life belongs to
+them, and they will not be defrauded of it.”
+
+Again the old man shook his head with pathetic mournfulness; but Louison
+grew implacable and stamped her foot on the broken stones of the floor.
+
+“Are you thus ungrateful to the patriots who saved you?” she exclaimed,
+so fiercely that the prisoner shrunk within himself, and looked up
+frightened. His hands trembled so violently that the object they held
+fell down upon the folds of his black cloak with a tiny shriek, as if
+its gentle life were also disturbed by the presence of that angry woman.
+
+“What is that thing you are caressing?” demanded the woman, as Gosner
+laid his hand tenderly over a bright-eyed mouse that was trying to hide
+itself in the folds of his cloak.
+
+“Oh! do not hurt it! Do not hurt it!” cried the old man, reading danger
+in her fierce glance.
+
+The woman interrupted him with unutterable scorn in her face and voice.
+
+“And it is for a reptile like this you creep away, and refuse to show
+your wrongs to the people, when every white hair on your head would
+pierce the tyrants of France like a sword? Old man, I despise you!”
+
+As she spoke, Louison gave a vicious snatch at the old prisoner’s
+mantle, shook the frightened little creature that sought covert there to
+the floor, and dashed it against the wall with her foot.
+
+With a cry of mingled rage and pain the old man leaped to his feet,
+seized the woman by the throat, and held her till she grew crimson in
+the face. Then he cast her suddenly away, fell upon the floor, and
+taking up the wounded animal in his hands, bent over it in pitiful
+misery, while tears ran down his cheeks in great, heavy drops. Not a
+murmur left his lips; but you might have seen by the faint shiver of his
+beard that his mouth was trembling violently.
+
+A thrill of human pity seized upon Louison when she saw this anguish.
+Forgetting her own injuries, she bent down and reached forth her hand to
+make sure if the old man’s pet were living or dead; but that sharp cry
+again drove her back, and she retreated from the ruined dungeon grieved
+for the misery she had wrought.
+
+When the old prisoner knew that he was alone, he gathered up the folds
+of his mantle, and laid his little favorite down with such tender
+handling as a mother gives to her only child when she puts its little
+shroud on. He touched its silken sides with his fingers; breathed upon
+its eyes and sobbed aloud when all his plaintive efforts failed to lift
+those tiny lids, or stir one of those slender limbs.
+
+That which all his wrongs, and an imprisonment of years had failed to
+accomplish, the heartless woman who had just left him found the power to
+do. The old man stood up in his cell, and lifting his clasped hands to
+heaven, called for vengeance on his enemy, and besought God to check the
+evil spirit which was filling France with demons in the form of women.
+After this outburst, he sat down in a corner of the dungeon, and
+shrouding his face, moaned over the little animal which had been his
+sole companion, year after year, in that dismal place.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXVIII.
+ MARGUERITE COMFORTS HER FATHER.
+
+
+While his eyes were shrouded, and his head bowed low in utter dejection,
+a young girl darkened the moonlight which streamed into the dungeon, and
+settled down by the old man with such delicate stillness, that he was
+not conscious of her approach until her hand was laid on his shoulder.
+
+“What is it that troubles you, father?”
+
+Her voice was sympathetic and full of sadness. He heard it and all the
+gentle sweetness of his nature flowed back upon his wounded soul. The
+very touch of a kind, good woman stilled the wrath which a bad one had
+enkindled there.
+
+The old man took both hands from his face, and pointed downward at his
+poor, little friend, upon which the moonlight was lying.
+
+“Look there, Therese!”
+
+“Oh! how cruel, how hard I,” cried the girl, taking the little animal in
+her hands. “Dead, poor little marmousette—is it dead?”
+
+“Yes, it is dead; a woman killed it,” said the old man, with a thrill of
+the old anger in his voice.
+
+“A woman? No, no! What woman?”
+
+“One of those who call themselves women of France. They have hunted me
+down like wolves, hoping to make my sorrows the instruments of their
+vengeance.”
+
+“Oh! I understand,” said the girl, mournfully. “It was one of those
+women who pointed poor Doudel out, as he stood guard upon the tower,
+when the Bastille was assaulted. The mob had seized upon me, but I would
+not cry out, from fear that he would come down to rescue me, and thus
+expose himself; but she saw the agony in his face, and pointed the
+carbine upon him. I saw it, and flung up my arms to warn him; but at
+that very moment he fell, with a crash, to the pavement. Oh it was
+fearful!”
+
+These words left Marguerite’s lips with a cry of despair that found a
+weird echo in the ruins. Then she fell into shuddering sobs that died
+out at last, and only murmured,
+
+“Never will the face of that woman leave my memory. It was that of a
+beautiful fiend.”
+
+“Alas!” said the old man. “How much innocent blood was shed that I and a
+few others might be set free.”
+
+“Poor Doudel was not to blame. He put no man in prison; but only did a
+guard’s duty. Why did the mob murder him?”
+
+“It was for me that your friend lost his life.”
+
+“Then let us thank our blessed Lady that he did not die in vain,”
+answered the gentle girl.
+
+The old man did not answer, his head was bowed down, his hands moved
+restlessly. No subject could take him long from a remembrance of the
+desolation of his loss.
+
+All at once the young girl uttered a little cry.
+
+“Oh, my father! have some hope.”
+
+The old man started.
+
+“Hope! hope! What for?”
+
+“It is warm! Yes, yes! It moves!”
+
+“What, what? Ah! it would be so cruel to deceive me!”
+
+“Look, look! its pretty eyes are open.”
+
+“Oh, my God! is this true?”
+
+“It is trying to stand up in my palm. Poor little thing, how it
+quivers.”
+
+“Let me look—let me touch it!” cried the old man, trembling with
+eagerness. “My pet! my life! my little darling!”
+
+The old man’s voice broke into tears. He held out his hands, but they
+shook so that the mouse fell back when it attempted to climb them.
+Marguerite caressed it against her cheek; then laid it softly into the
+outstretched palm of the old prisoner, answering back his smile when he
+hid the creature under his beard.
+
+“There, you see our Lady has not altogether forsaken us,” said the girl,
+drawing a basket from under her shawl. “I was sure that you would be
+here, and I brought something for both you and marmousette to eat. Poor,
+little thing—does it tremble yet?”
+
+“Yes; but I think it is not so badly hurt.”
+
+“Dreadfully frightened, I dare say,” answered Marguerite, “and all its
+little breath knocked out against the stones. I saw that odious woman
+pass, and hid myself in the ruins. I saw her face—that face. It was the
+woman who pointed the carbine at Doudel. But we will think of her no
+more. You will go home with me now, papa.”
+
+“Not yet—not to her—that woman who calls herself Therese; as if I did
+not know. She will drag me again into the clubs and along the streets
+that men may gaze on my white hair, and curse their king. I will not go;
+they shall not force me to harm him. Therese! Therese! do you understand
+that I think the king a good man?”
+
+Marguerite flung her arms around the old prisoner.
+
+“I did not expect to hear you say that, my father, because you have been
+so cruelly treated; but I love the king, and the queen, too. Yes, if
+they tear me to pieces, I will love her to the end.”
+
+“That is a brave, good girl. I love them; I pity them—but what can we
+do? You, a young girl, and I an old man, broken down in body, and
+confused in brain. What can we do but give them love and pity?”
+
+“This we can do; it may not be much, because the lives of a young girl
+and an old man are of little value where the great of the earth are
+swept down and trampled under foot; but we can pray for them, watch for
+them, and give up our poor lives, if that will do any good. I will tell
+you a secret, my father. There was a time when this mob of coarse women
+and cruel men almost made me one of them, because of the awful wrong
+that has been done to you; but I had seen the king, and knew better than
+they did, how little right we had to condemn him. The queen had taken me
+in her arms; wept and pleaded for me. How could I turn against them?
+There might have been deception, but not there!—my heart always told me
+that.”
+
+“That is well, that is very well, my Therese. Listen now, I also have a
+secret; I have spoken with the king.”
+
+“You, my father? It could not have been on that awful day when they
+dragged us to Versailles with the mob?”
+
+The old man laughed a gentle, childish laugh.
+
+“No, no; I escaped them. You could not, but I did. Their cries deafened
+me. They were not women but demons, so I fled from them; most of all
+from _her_.”
+
+“I saw it, father, and strove to follow, but the crowd hemmed me in and
+dragged me onward. Women frantic to hurl themselves and their troubles
+against the queen, forced me to obey them. Oh, it was fearful! How the
+rain fell—how the mud flew—how the women howled!
+
+“In the midst of the storm we reached Versailles. Some of the leaders,
+fierce, handsome women, followed my mother into the assembly. The great
+mob poured in after them, clamoring for bread, for they were half
+famished. They demanded a sight of the baker and his wife.”
+
+“The baker and his wife,” repeated the prisoner, wondering.
+
+“By these names they insulted the king and queen,” said Marguerite, “as
+if they could help the barrenness of the earth.
+
+“The Jacobins would have forced an entrance for them; but more moderate
+men strove to quiet the mob. Twelve women were selected from the crowd,
+deputed to lay their grievances before the king.
+
+“Count Mirabeau insisted that I should go with these women and speak for
+them, because of my youth and innocence, he said; because of my father’s
+wrongs, the women cried out. My mother commanded me and I went.
+
+“These women, so audacious among the enemies of the king, trembled to
+approach him. With his mild, earnest eyes upon them—they were struck
+dumb. That was perhaps why a young girl, who had no evil purpose to
+conceal, was selected when these people were called upon to test their
+courage.
+
+“We went. Out of the bosom of that seething mob, we entered the grand
+stillness of the palace. King Louis was ready to receive us. The
+deputation of women crowded into the saloon, sullen and dumb; the
+presence of that good man appalled them. They pushed me forward,
+whispering that I had a sweet voice and persuasive ways. I approached
+the king with reverence; my friend had died for him, I, too, could have
+died for him then and there. I longed to tell him so; longed to fall
+down at his feet and embrace his knees, imploring of him only one
+thing—bread for the hungry people in exchange for my father’s
+sufferings.
+
+“The king recognized me, and a look of trouble came into his benign
+face. He held out his hand, saying in a low voice which was heard only
+by myself,
+
+“‘Poor child, it was not the king who withheld your father from you.’
+
+“I forgot all that the women had said to me; one cry arose to my
+lips—bread! bread! With that cry I fainted and fell at the king’s feet.
+He lifted me up with many kind words, which I heard as if they came back
+to me in a dream. Then I whispered, ‘Sire, my father never blamed you,
+neither do I. I came to ask bread for these poor, starving people, in
+his name!’
+
+“The king listened and understood all I wished to say. When I looked up,
+his eyes were full of tears. He kissed me here upon the cheek. No man on
+this earth shall ever take that kiss from my face—it was the
+consecration of a vow that I made then and there.”
+
+The old prisoner became greatly excited as he listened; his eyes
+kindled, his lips began to quiver, and he spoke with energy.
+
+“It was this man! It was the daughter of my old mistress, the Empress of
+Austria, they would have assaulted through me. Listen, little one.
+
+“I have seen the daughter of my old mistress, Maria Theresa.”
+
+“The Queen of France, do you mean that?” said Marguerite astonished.
+
+“Yes, the Queen of France. Some one told me that she wore my Egyptian
+ring on her finger. That ring holds my soul, my brain—your destiny. To
+her it is a curse, to me everything. I went in search of it. You all
+thought I was lost. No, no, I was waiting and watching for her to come
+forth from her palace.
+
+“A lady did come forth at last. I thought she might bear a message from
+me to the queen, and followed her. This lady was proud, thoughtful, and
+imperious, and I approached her timidly; still there was a look that
+brought back the fair young princess whom I saw once standing side by
+side with my imperial mistress,—young, slender, beautiful, with eyes
+soft and bright as a pretty child’s. Ah, how well I remember them both!
+They tell me the empress is dead; but her daughter, the lovely girl that
+came to France, her destiny is yet to be accomplished. Ah me!”
+
+The old man broke off here, and fell to shuddering. A wild, mournful
+look came to his face, and it was some minutes before he spoke again.
+
+“I spoke to the lady and she listened kindly. All at; once she lifted
+her hand; the scarabee ring was upon it. Then I knew it was the queen,
+and uttered a cry that frightened her, and she fled from me. I followed,
+pleading for my ring, entreating her to listen. But she only fled from
+me all the faster, carrying the curse on and on.
+
+“Then I saw the king. He came to me in the calm of the moonlight, and we
+talked together in the stillness of the hushed leaves. He knows all that
+I have suffered, and pities the poor man no will of his ever harmed. He
+gave me a place to sleep in. He came to me in the morning and deigned to
+explain that the governor of this prison deceived him as you were
+deceived. He thought truly that I was dead.”
+
+“I knew it, I was sure of it,” cried Marguerite, with enthusiasm; “both
+the king and queen were blameless.”
+
+“It was for that I fled hither from the mob,” said the old man. “These
+women meant to set me up before the Assembly and call for vengeance in
+my name, but I defeated them.”
+
+“It was then that you came back here. Oh father, you little know how we
+have mourned and sought for you, day and night.”
+
+“Yes, I found the ruins and slept here the next night.—Slept soundly for
+the first time since the mob carried me away. Then I began searching for
+my poor little friend. It was in vain that I called for him; in vain
+that I stretched forth my hands in the darkness, and listened for some
+faint sound of his approach. Oh! that was desolation!
+
+“Still, I dared not quit the ruin. I was afraid that the mob would force
+me into their evil work again. I understood then that my presence in the
+clubs, my harmless walks in the streets, every word I spoke, was a spear
+leveled at the heart of the king—a man who was guiltless as a babe where
+I was concerned—a man who loves his people and deserves their love. Here
+I hide myself and keep safe from doing harm. It is my own home; here I
+can sleep tranquilly; boards are too soft, I want the hard rock.
+
+“More than one morning came, and I had not tasted food. I should not
+have cared for that had my pretty friend been with me; but I had called
+him so often, searched for him so long, that hope gave out. It was worse
+than a prison now, he had left me and the light came into my cell. This
+was indeed solitude. Then I thought of you, Therese, and wondered if you
+would not come to me.”
+
+“And I am here. It was I that thought of the ruins, I, who have found
+you sitting here alone and half-famished,” exclaimed Marguerite. “But I
+have brought you plenty of food. There will be enough for the
+marmousette as well; poor little fellow! He came back at last to comfort
+you.”
+
+“Yes. I awoke in the night and found him nestled in my bosom. Let him
+have a crumb first, I can wait.”
+
+The girl opened her basket, and drew forth some bread and a flask of
+pure water. The old man crumbled some of the bread into his hand and
+tempted the pet-mouse with it; but the poor little thing had been too
+severely hurt, and, instead of eating, closed its eyes, and lay down in
+the palm out of which the prisoner had made a nest for him.
+
+“To-morrow,” said the girl, answering the startled look of the old man,
+“to-morrow I will bring white bread, then it will eat. But you are
+hungry, take some of the bread.”
+
+“I cannot, I cannot,” cried the old man. “When he eats I will.”
+
+The mouse seemed to understand these words; its tiny limbs moved, its
+little head was uplifted, and when Marguerite held the crumbs toward
+him, he crept forward and began to nibble them.
+
+Then, with tears of thankfulness rolling down his cheeks, the old man
+fell to eating also.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXIX.
+ QUEENLY STRUGGLES.
+
+
+Months passed, and each day widened the gulf that yawned between the
+people of France and their king. Marie Antoinette began to lose courage.
+More than once Monsieur Jacques had been summoned to the royal
+work-shop, but he always passed from that to the queen’s cabinet.
+
+One day, after the Court had removed from its forced residence at the
+Tuileries to St. Cloud, a horseman came riding along the highway which
+led from Paris. A lady stationed at one of the palace windows leaned out
+and looked keenly after the man, as if trying to recognize him with
+certainty. He rode slowly, his head was turned toward the chateau, and
+she saw his face.
+
+There was no mistaking those features after seeing them once. The great
+leonine head, with its shock of heavy hair; the seamed cheeks, and
+massive chin, could only belong to one man, Count Mirabeau.
+
+The lady drew away from the window, and directly entered the presence of
+Marie Antoinette, whose friend and confidential attendant she had been
+for some dangerous years.
+
+The queen was walking up and down the room in a state of unusual
+agitation. You could see by the light in her fine eyes, and the
+compression of her mouth, that she was about to undertake some task
+utterly distasteful to her. She turned sharply as her confidant came in.
+
+“Well!”
+
+“He is here, your highness. He has just passed.”
+
+“Alone?”
+
+“On horseback, and quite alone!”
+
+“Look again, and tell me which way he goes.”
+
+The duchess left the room, and Marie Antoinette resumed her impatient
+walk up and down the floor. There had been a terrible struggle before
+that proud woman and brave queen could prevail upon herself to give that
+reprobate count the special and private meeting that he had come to St.
+Cloud that day to claim. Now, in the sore strait to which royalty, in
+France, was driven, she had come to this sad humiliation, and was about
+to meet Count Mirabeau, the renegade from his class, the coarse noble,
+the eloquent leader of a riotous people, in private, and utterly alone.
+
+But time wore on, and her confidant did not return. Had she been
+mistaken? Had the man passed them, in the coarse mockery so natural to
+his character, thus flinging back years of contempt upon her, and
+scoffing at the concessions she had been compelled to make.
+
+The proud blood of Maria Theresa burned in her veins as the thought
+flashed across her brain. She clenched her hand in an agony of shame,
+and stood in the centre of the room, listening with the breathless
+eagerness of a girl waiting for her lover. Yet she hated this man with a
+thorough revolt of her whole nature. He was utterly disgustful to her
+taste as a woman, and she thoroughly despised the means by which he had
+obtained the power she dreaded, and was ready to conciliate.
+
+The lady came at last. She had gone to one of the topmost windows of the
+palace, and from thence had seen the count ride along the highway toward
+a distant grove, where he had evidently left his horse; for directly he
+came forth again, and passed into the Park, where he was now loitering,
+apparently, but making quiet progress toward the place of rendezvous.
+
+Marie Antoinette drew a deep breath; at least she had escaped a possible
+insult from the man she loathed. He had been faithful to his
+appointment. She must meet him.
+
+The beautiful woman and the proud queen went hand-in-hand with Marie
+Antoinette. It was not enough that she could command homage by her
+state; in order to make it perfect, she must win it by those womanly
+charms, which few men had ever resisted. In order to bind this man to
+her chariot-wheels, she must win him to her side, body and soul. There
+must be no appearance of dislike in her manner to him. All the force of
+her beauty and genius must be brought against him. He was not to be
+convinced by argument, but won in spite of himself.
+
+No woman that ever lived—save, perhaps, Mary of Scotland, who was not
+more lovely in her person than this unhappy Queen of France—could better
+have performed the task before her. She was still beautiful. What she
+had lost of youth came back to her in the dignity and assured grace of
+ripe womanhood. The necessities of her life had brought tact and keen
+perception with them. But she knew that all these qualities would be
+strained to their utmost. The man she had to deal with was brilliant,
+keen, unprincipled; but she knew that with such men there is sometimes a
+feeling of chivalric devotion where women are concerned, which, once
+enlisted, amounts to honor.
+
+These were the thoughts that made Marie Antoinette so earnest and so
+restless. She hated the task allotted her, but for that reason was the
+more resolved to accomplish it. Her dignity as a queen, and her
+supremacy with the sex, demanded it.
+
+“Yes, I must go now,” she said, drawing a shawl of black lace, which her
+lady brought, over her head and shoulders. “It will not be prudent to
+keep this man waiting. Ah! it is hard when the Queen of France is
+brought to this. Wait for me, and watch that no one follows.”
+
+“How beautiful you are!” said the confidant, as she arranged the shawl.
+“I never saw a finer flush of roses on your cheeks!”
+
+“It is the shame breaking out from my heart,—shame that my mother’s
+child should be so humbled.”
+
+Perhaps it was; but the woman was triumphing in her talent and her
+beauty all the time, else why had she put on that exquisite robe, with
+its silken shimmer of greenish gold, or arranged the black lace so
+exquisitely over the red roses on her bosom? She had made many conquests
+in her life; but never that of a human animal, so brilliant in his
+coarseness as this Count Mirabeau. Away in the park was a little temple,
+or a summer-house, in which members of the royal family, sometimes,
+rested themselves after a fatiguing walk. It had been arranged that the
+count should await the royal lady in this pretty building. Marie
+Antoinette walked away from the palace so quietly that no one of the
+household heeded her departure, for it had always been her habit to walk
+alone, or with attendants, in the Park of Versailles and St. Cloud, as
+the caprice might come upon her. So she sauntered on quietly enough
+while the palace was in sight; but the moment it was shut out by the
+trees, her step became rapid, her breath came quickly, and she moved
+forward in vivid excitement, as if preparing herself for an encounter
+with some splendid wild animal.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXX.
+ ENEMIES RECONCILED.
+
+
+The Queen of France reached the summer-house just as the sun was pouring
+a flood of crimson and gold into the violet shadows that lay among the
+trees which sheltered the little temple. The windows, where they were
+visible through the clustering ivy and flowers, blazed with the arrowy
+light that broke against them, and the soft grass that lay around grew
+ruddy in the rich glow.
+
+This seemed a good omen to the queen, who stepped lightly over the turf
+and entered the temple where Mirabeau was standing, so swiftly that he
+had hardly time to turn from the window, where he had been watching for
+her, before she stood face to face with him.
+
+Marie Antoinette had never been within speaking distance of this
+magnificent demagogue before. She was astonished by the wonderful power
+that lay in supreme ugliness. His face had the fascination which some
+wild animals possess, and his large eyes dwelt upon her with the
+half-sleepy, half-pleading look which these animals have when but half
+aroused.
+
+She came forward, radiant from her walk, fresh from the soft breeze that
+had swept over her, but with some shyness, real or apparent, such as a
+woman of sensitive modesty feels in meeting a stranger. When Mirabeau
+saw her face, and the light that shone in those splendid eyes, he sunk
+upon one knee, and bent his head, but not so low as to conceal the smile
+that transfigured all his face.
+
+“Ah, madame! how long I have pined and prayed for this hour,” he said,
+lifting his eyes to her face with an expression that made her breath
+come fast, for it changed the whole aspect of that face like a miracle,
+and drew her toward him with irresistible fascination. This troubled
+her; for hatred of the man had been to her a sure safeguard, and she
+began to tremble lest it should pass away. She expected audacity, but
+looked down upon a strong, powerful man, who had thrown himself at her
+feet with the docility of a Newfoundland dog.
+
+“Arise, Monsieur Count,” she said, smiling upon him; and she was
+astonished to find how naturally the smile came to her lips. “If we have
+not been friends before, it is rather our misfortune than yours.”
+
+“Ah! if your highness could have thought so! But my enemies prevailed
+against me until it is now almost too late.”
+
+“Nothing is too late for a man like Mirabeau,” said the queen again,
+motioning that he should arise. “You, who have taught the people of
+France to hate their king, can, with the same powers of eloquence,
+convince them that he is their best friend.”
+
+Mirabeau arose to his feet, and again that smile flashed upon the woman,
+who could not turn her eyes from the marvelous brightness that
+transfigured his face.
+
+“Ah! if I had the power your highness awards me, and you would deign to
+use it, no slave of the thousands who have knelt at your feet would be
+so grateful as Mirabeau.”
+
+The queen seated herself on a divan that curved in with the walls of the
+temple. Mirabeau followed, and stood near her; but she swept the folds
+of her dress together, and motioned that he should take the place by her
+side.
+
+“This is honor, better still, happiness,” he said, accepting the seat.
+“How often, fair queen, have I wondered why you kept me from you. Never
+in the world had sovereign a more devoted subject.”
+
+Marie Antoinette sighed heavily; she began to comprehend how much power
+had been flung away in keeping this man from the court. She could
+appreciate now the wonderful influence he possessed with the people.
+
+She answered him graciously, “cannot the past, with its mistakes, be
+forgotten? Of all people in the world, a sovereign is most likely to be
+deceived with regard to those who surround him. We were led——”
+
+Mirabeau forgot that it was the queen who spoke, and with the same
+impetuous roughness which made his popularity with the people, broke in
+upon her half-finished sentence.
+
+“You were led to believe me wild, unprincipled, selfish; a man who
+belonged to the people only because he was rejected by his own class.
+Part of this is true, but more false. Had you deigned to call me to your
+aid, madame, a more devoted slave would not have lived.”
+
+Marie Antoinette sat in supreme astonishment. How was she to reach this
+man—through his greatness or through his sins?
+
+For the first time in her queenly life this woman doubted herself. In
+Mirabeau she saw the two contending elements which already distracted
+France—the refinements of the court and the fierce strength of its
+antagonists, inordinate self-love and ready self-abasement. She knew at
+once that her intellect, clear and acute as it was, could not cope with
+his; but in those soft flatteries of look and speech, that undermine and
+persuade, she was more than a match for any man or woman of France. Men
+who do not like to be convinced are the most easily persuaded.
+
+“They have, indeed misled us,” she answered, leaning gently toward the
+man, who turned upon her for the instant with the gleam of a wild beast
+in his eyes; but the look softened beneath her glance, and the upright
+form bent imperceptibly toward her. “I will not say how many cruel
+things have poisoned the ear of my august husband, or wounded my own
+self-love.”
+
+Here Mirabeau started to his feet.
+
+“Have they dared to hint that I ever whispered one word against your
+highness as a queen, and the loveliest woman in Europe?”
+
+“Perhaps I have heard worse than that.”
+
+“Worse than that? Nay, then, I should have been the brute they call me.
+Tell me, your highness, who my traducers are?”
+
+“Forgive me if I withhold all such knowledge. If Count Mirabeau is to be
+our friend, he must not exhaust himself in private quarrels.”
+
+“If I am to be your friend, madame? Who ever knew Mirabeau war against a
+woman?”
+
+“But when that woman is a queen, the wife of a king, and the daughter of
+an empress, the weight of her royalty may overpower every thing else.”
+
+Marie Antoinette said this in a tone of apology, as if she longed to
+make some excuse for the thrice regal power that might weigh against her
+loveliness.
+
+Mirabeau was struck by this sweet humility; a soft protesting smile
+stole over his face. The queen lifted her eyes to his, and held his gaze
+in fascination.
+
+“Madame, turn those eyes away. Ah! I was told truly; a man must be brave
+to audacity who could refuse anything to that glance. Mirabeau is your
+slave already, only tell me how I can best begin my service.”
+
+The heart of Marie Antoinette leaped to her lips, but, no look of the
+triumph she felt came to her eyes, they were moist with sweet
+thankfulness, nothing more.
+
+“It is not for me to say how you can best serve us. The genius that has
+struck us so deeply will know how to reassert itself. In the Assembly,
+no voice has been so eloquent against royalty as that of Count
+Mirabeau.”
+
+“I know it! I know it! But how am I to unsay that which the people have
+accepted as gospel?”
+
+“Tell them that they are mistaken in their belief about the king. Oh,
+monsieur! you have no true knowledge of that brave and good man. You
+heap the sins of all the previous kings of France upon his head. You
+have made him odious with the people, when they have no better friend on
+earth. Tell the people this; as you alone can express a noble truth.
+Wing it with your eloquence. Enforce it by the profound respect which
+you must feel when the heart of Louis the Sixteenth is really known to
+you. I say to you, Count Mirabeau, there is not a man in all France who
+has the good of his people so close at heart. Has he not forgiven
+much—granted more? Do the people who malign him never think of the great
+outrages that have been perpetrated against him? Are not the ruins of
+the Bastille before their eyes? A kingly fortress so completely
+identified with the royalty of France, that it was like tearing out the
+jewels of her crown when the people razed it to the ground. Yet no man
+has been punished for the traitorous deed. The king forgave what was an
+insult to his power and a wrong against himself. Nay, since then, has he
+not heaped concession on concession to the people—opened the very
+barriers of royalty, that they might rush in; changed his ministers, and
+disgraced his best friends at their insolent bidding——”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXI.
+ MIND SWAYING MIND.
+
+
+Marie Antoinette stopped suddenly. The passion in her voice, and the
+quick flash of her eyes were fast undoing the sweet impression she had
+made upon this singular man. She saw this by the changed expression of
+his face, and made haste to retrieve herself.
+
+“It is of my husband, I speak,” she said; “and that makes me forget
+myself. A kinder sovereign never lived, or one more willing to make all
+reasonable concessions. If I am earnest in saying this, it is because
+those who wish to serve Louis must understand all his goodness, all that
+he is willing to grant and to suffer. Believe me, I do not speak thus,
+Monsieur Count, because he is my husband—that would be a weak reason,
+when dealing with a statesman of France; but in this I only think of him
+as a sovereign and a Frenchman, loving his country and his people with
+more than the affection of a father.”
+
+Mirabeau looked upon the animation of that beautiful face with kindling
+admiration. He could appreciate the bright intellect which broke through
+all her sweetness and most feminine wiles. She was, in fact, a woman
+above all others to seize upon his imagination, and touch his wayward
+heart.
+
+“I would rather tell the people of France of their queen,” he said.
+
+Tears rushed to Marie Antoinette’s eyes. She clasped her hands in her
+lap.
+
+“Ah! they will never, never believe anything good of me; and I loved
+them so well—so well!” she said.
+
+“They shall be made to think everything that is good of you, or Mirabeau
+will have lost his power to carry the people with him,” cried the count,
+with enthusiasm. “Henceforth the man who does not worship Marie
+Antoinette is to me an enemy.”
+
+“Oh! I do not ask worship, only a little justice. Why will they distort
+every thing I say or do?”
+
+She was weeping in a soft, womanly way, that touched the heart of that
+man like the innocent cry of a child.
+
+“Why will the people of France not look upon their queen as a French
+woman. I came among them so young, so earnest to make them love me; but
+it is always the Austrian! the Austrian! As if it were a sin to be the
+daughter of Maria Theresa!”
+
+“Sweet lady! the people do not know you; their leaders do not know you.
+Up to this hour I have myself looked upon Marie Antoinette as the enemy
+of liberty—a stranger to France and her people.”
+
+“How can I help this? How can I undeceive a people who are determined to
+think ill of me?” cried the queen.
+
+“By letting them see their queen as I do; by granting all that can
+reasonably be conceded to them.”
+
+“But concession belongs to the king.”
+
+Mirabeau smiled more broadly than was becoming in the presence of his
+sovereign; but, during this whole interview, there had been so little of
+courtly ceremony, that the queen scarcely heeded it. The very act of her
+meeting any man in the solitude of that place, put court etiquette
+completely aside.
+
+“The king must be unlike inferior men, if he were not guided in most
+things by so fair and sweet a counsellor.”
+
+“That is hard,” answered the queen. “I can no more control the monarch
+of France than I can make the people love me.”
+
+“The people shall love you, or hate me!” exclaimed Mirabeau, with
+enthusiasm. “Do not speak so sadly; do not despair of a just
+appreciation. When Mirabeau says to the people, ‘I have seen this lady
+whom you call the Austrian; she is fair, she is wise, her heart yearns
+toward the people of France,’ they will believe me.”
+
+“Heaven grant it!” said the queen, clasping her hands more firmly, while
+her tears dropped upon them. “Give us back the love of our people, and
+there is no honor, no influence that shall not be yours. Ah! I remember
+well when I first came to France, so young, so trusting—a child given up
+to them wholly by an imperial mother. How they loved me then. When I
+entered the theatre, they arose in one body and filled the air with
+joyous salutations. If I drove through the streets, they cast flowers in
+my path. Oh, what have I done? What have I done that they should change
+so terribly, now that I have lived so long among them, and am a mother
+to the children of France—the wife of the best king they ever knew? What
+_have_ I done?”
+
+Mirabeau reached forth his hand to take hers; in her tears and her
+helpless sorrow she was only a woman to him; but he bethought himself
+and drew back with a heavy sigh. Had he, indeed, the power he had
+boasted of? Could he, with all the force of his wonderful eloquence,
+bring back the popularity which had once followed this woman, as if she
+had been a goddess? Would not the people question his motives, and ask a
+reason for his change of opinion? Dare he arise in his place, and say to
+the world that he had just come from an interview with the Queen of
+France, and was henceforth her friend and advocate? Would he have the
+courage to confess that even his glowing ideas of liberty had yielded to
+the tears and reasonings of a beautiful woman? Yes, he dared do even
+that—the people would still have faith in their leader; that which he
+had taught with such ardor could be softened, moulded into new forms. He
+would bring the royalty of France into favor with its subjects by
+apparent concessions, which should all seem to spring from the queen.
+
+Marie Antoinette read his thoughts, and her face grew anxious. “Had she
+humbled herself for nothing? Was this man’s power already exhausted
+against her? Would the people listen when he came out in favor of a
+court which his eloquence had done so much to destroy?”
+
+He read her face also, and answered it as if she had spoken.
+
+“That which I have pledged myself to accomplish shall be done, if it
+cost Mirabeau his fame, and his own life. Have no fear, madame; these
+people are like children, they want strong men to think and act for
+them. Who among all their leaders has my strength, or has ever so
+thoroughly controlled them? With my pen, with my voice, with every power
+of my soul, I will work to bring these people in harmony with the court.
+Can you trust in me, lady?”
+
+“I do trust in you, and I thank you for myself and for the king. Nay, in
+time the people of France will look upon you as their saviour also. But
+what can we offer in return?”
+
+A flush of hot red came into Mirabeau’s face. He remembered thoughts
+that had clung to him as he rode along—terms he had intended to make,
+and advantages that would relieve the necessities that were ever
+following the lavish extravagance of his habits. All these he had
+absolutely forgotten; and when the queen, in her gratitude, brought them
+back to his memory, all the pride of his manhood recoiled. Why was he
+forced to be so grand, and so mean at the same moment? He cast his eyes
+on the ground, while the swarthy color surged in and out of his face. At
+last he looked up so suddenly that the thick locks were tossed back from
+his forehead, like the play of a lion’s mane.
+
+“Nothing,” he said, with the proud air of a Roman Senator. “When we have
+saved France and her king, the consciousness that Mirabeau has done it
+for Marie Antoinette, will sometimes win a smile from her, and that
+shall be his reward.”
+
+The queen was greatly moved. She had seen the struggle in his mind, and
+partially understood it. The same thoughts had occupied her before
+leaving the palace. She had heard of Mirabeau’s extravagance, and of his
+proportionate greed. It had seemed to her an easy thing to purchase his
+help with gold, which, in the terrible difficulties that had fallen upon
+her, she had learned how to use as a sure political agent. But there was
+more in the man than she had been led to believe; and the hot flush of
+shame that rose to his face, when she spoke of reward, made her shrink
+from what might seem an offered insult.
+
+“Those who help the king are the king’s friends always,” she said, with
+deep feeling, for this strange man had won his way to her gratitude.
+“But those who help us must have the means of helping.”
+
+Again Mirabeau’s face flushed; but it was with pleasure that the queen
+had found an excuse for accepting some future bounty which had escaped
+him.
+
+“One thing,” he said, with touching earnestness, “one thing there is
+which Mirabeau may accept from the Queen of France, and be exalted by
+the favor.”
+
+“Name it,” answered Marie Antoinette, gently.
+
+“Favored courtiers are permitted to kiss the queen’s hand when they give
+their lives to her service.”
+
+The queen smiled, blushed, and reached forth her hand. Mirabeau took it,
+bent his knee to the ground, and pressed his lips upon it.
+
+“Madame,” he said, standing erect, with the hand in his clasp, “madame,
+the monarchy is saved.”
+
+“God grant it!” said the queen, with solemn emphasis.
+
+“The monarchy is saved, or Mirabeau’s life will pay the forfeit,” he
+repeated, with solemnity.
+
+The queen believed him, for there was no doubting his sincerity in the
+matter. Never in her life had this beautiful woman made so great a
+conquest, not only over the man himself, but over her own prejudices.
+She had come to the summer-house detesting the count; she left it
+impressed with his genius, flattered by his homage.
+
+Mirabeau still held her hand. To approach this lovely woman, and win her
+into admiration of his genius, had been the ambition of this erratic man
+for many a year. It was accomplished now. He knew by the light in those
+magnificent eyes how great his conquest was. She was still Queen of
+France—even his fierce eloquence had so far failed to bring her down
+from that sublime height. He saw in her the only woman he had ever met
+whose intellect reached his own, and whose position, at the same time,
+taught him to look up. Henceforth it would be his supreme object to keep
+her firmly on the throne; to enhance her influence, and guide it for the
+benefit of the people. It was a delicate task; but nothing seemed
+impossible to the proud, audacious man while that splendid woman stood
+with her hand in his.
+
+“Now, farewell,” she said. “I need not tell you to keep this interview a
+secret; it would be misunderstood, and might do much harm.”
+
+“It would be my glory that the whole world should know of this
+condescension, and of the grateful respect it has inspired; but those
+who lead a people must know how to be secret, and when to speak. That
+you have done me this honor, madame, shall be the one secret that will
+go with me to the grave.”
+
+With these words, the count bent low with a lofty grace that might have
+befitted the state-chamber at Versailles, and walked backward to the
+door, where he bowed again and disappeared, moving swiftly through the
+glowing purple of the twilight.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXII.
+ SPYING AND WATCHING.
+
+
+A woman followed Count Mirabeau when he went to St. Cloud—a young woman,
+some three or four-and-twenty years of age, but looking older from the
+stormy passions that had swept across her youth, and the corroding
+jealousy that consumed her now. Louison Brisot had ridden behind him all
+the way from Paris, but took good care not to come near enough to that
+imposing figure to give him a glimpse of her person, or allow him to
+hear the tread of her horse. When he halted in the grove, and tied his
+horse to a sapling, she drew behind a clump of beech-trees, and watched
+him as he passed through the gate; then she dismounted, fastened her own
+horse, and taking a circuit among the undergrowth, came out by the gate,
+which she tried cautiously and found unlocked.
+
+By this time Mirabeau had disappeared, and the young woman was at a loss
+to guess which way he had taken. At her left, she saw the roof of St.
+Cloud rising in irregular glimpses among the embosoming trees. If his
+business was with the king or queen, she argued, he would take that
+direction. If he came to seek some meaner object, there was not a tree
+in the vast Park which might not shelter him and the rival she came to
+discover.
+
+Which way should she go? Not toward the palace; Mirabeau, the orator and
+friend of the people, would never venture there unless he was, indeed, a
+traitor to his party, and led on by some passion which in her arrogance
+she considered as treachery to her. More likely he had sought a
+building, or covert place in the grounds, where some person connected
+with the royal household would meet him. Nothing but political or social
+treason could have brought him there.
+
+As the young woman wandered slowly on, meditating in this fashion, a
+sound of quick footsteps and the rustle of shrubbery startled her. She
+drew back of a huge tree that stood near and watched for the cause. It
+was a lady passing swiftly forward, through the purple twilight, her
+head enveloped in the shadowy blackness of a lace shawl, her dress half
+uplifted by her right hand, half trailing on the grass—a rich dress that
+glistened in the light which trembled over it.
+
+The lady turned her head and stood still a moment, listening—a slight
+disturbance in the shrubbery near by seemed to have aroused her
+apprehension. Louison, concealed behind the tree saw a lovely face and a
+splendid figure stooping a little, as if arrested in some unlawful or
+dangerous step. It was but a momentary glance, but she recognized the
+queen, and the sight threw every passion of her most passionate nature
+into revolt.
+
+“Traitor!” came hissing through her shut teeth; “double-dyed traitor!
+For that face he will sell us all!”
+
+The queen passed on swiftly, moving through the green foliage and the
+purple atmosphere of the Park like a beautiful spirit. After her,
+creeping forward like a panther, stole the other woman, her eyes
+gleaming, her lips in motion. She came in sight of a little temple built
+on high ground, sheltered under drooping elms; from its windows the last
+golden light of the day was falling back like a sheaf of broken arrows,
+and a soft luminous haze quivered among the branches that swept over it.
+
+There was too much light for the woman to venture forward, even when she
+saw the door open, and the person she had followed pass into the temple.
+Then through the still blazing windows she saw the shadows of two
+persons standing together. As she looked, they sunk away and disappeared
+from her eyes; but she was in a position to hear the murmur of
+voices.—One, deep, sonorous and impressive, the other, clear, low and
+sweet; but no words uttered by these voices reached her. She could only
+guess at their meaning, and a vivid imagination lent poison to her
+conjectures.
+
+Panting with rage, burning with curiosity, this woman stood in her
+covert, afraid to pass the stretch of open sward that lay between her
+and the temple. It seemed to her hours on hours before the two persons
+in that little building darkened the windows again; but at last two
+black shadows rose up in the gathering darkness; for, by this time, all
+the purple and gold of the sunset had merged into the light of a silvery
+moon, and through the opposite windows came its pale radiance, in which
+the man and woman stood between darkness and light. She saw him bend and
+sink downward as if kneeling. She saw the lady stoop her beautiful head.
+The sight maddened her. She leaped forward with the spring of a tigress
+to glare through the window, and see Mirabeau’s lips pressed upon the
+hand of Marie Antoinette.
+
+The two persons in the temple separated then, and the watcher saw that
+they were about to depart. She had seen enough. He must not find her
+there! If Mirabeau could prove secret and deceptive, so could she. If
+the fatal charms of the queen had ensnared him, they had set her whole
+being in opposition.
+
+As the door of the temple opened, Louison sprang away; and while
+Mirabeau lingered to cast one more look on the queen, who had fascinated
+him as no other woman on earth could have done, she went swiftly toward
+the park gate.
+
+Louison Brisot left the park in a state of fierce exasperation. She was
+absolutely afraid of herself. She panted to stop then and there on the
+highway, and in the fury of her jealous passion, rebuke that proud
+demagogue for his double treason.
+
+The women of France, who first entered upon the revolution, possessed
+two powerful qualities, violent passions and a wonderful power of
+self-restraint. It was seldom that any of these women plunged into the
+awful scenes that have revolted the whole world without being led there
+by the hand of some fierce demagogue, who called himself a patriot. Such
+men had no use for weak or vacillating women; but mated themselves,
+legally or illegally, with creatures of their own calibre, using them as
+political instruments, and casting them aside by mere force of will, or
+the mockery of a divorce, as the wild beast forsakes his mate in the
+jungles of a forest.
+
+Louison Brisot was one of these women; born in the middle classes,
+gifted by nature with strong animal beauty, thirsting for knowledge,
+full of that keen vitality which demands action, and must have
+excitement, she had followed Mirabeau into the very heart of the
+revolution. Haughty and imperious to others, she had always been
+subservient to him. In her idolatry of the man, and her vanity as a
+woman, she believed herself to be his sole confidant, and the supreme
+object of his love. She knew that the queen had, over and over again,
+refused even to see this man, who was to her a demi-god, and hated her
+for thus scorning him. In her heart she rejoiced, perhaps unconsciously,
+that royal pride kept the man she loved away from a court, where so many
+had been won over to the king, by the beauty and eloquence of his wife.
+
+The two great passions of Louison Brisot’s life were thrown into a wild
+tumult by the scene she had just witnessed; still she found power to
+control herself. Plunging into the thicket where her horse was tied, she
+attempted to unknot his bridle from the sapling; but her hands shook
+with passion, and were so long in doing it, that she fairly stamped down
+the earth with impatience before she could mount to the saddle, and ride
+away toward Paris.
+
+The young woman was but just in time. She heard the tread of Mirabeau’s
+horse following close upon her as she dashed by the palace, and on
+toward Paris with increasing speed. She must reach home before him. It
+was possible that the count would call upon her that night, for he was a
+man who paid no respect to time, and cared nothing for the received
+usages of society. At her house much of his leisure time had been
+formerly spent, and she believed herself the depository of all his
+secrets. But he had been deceiving her. This thought wounded the woman
+through her hard heart, and leveled her evil pride to the dust. She had
+hated the queen before, now that hatred settled into bitter detestation.
+
+These two persons traveled home so near together, that the beat of hoofs
+sent back by her horse more than once struck the ear of Mirabeau, as he
+approached the rising ground which she was passing. Of this he took no
+heed. Though a demagogue and a profligate, this man had pledged his
+support in good faith to the queen, and his quick brain was even then
+forming plans, by which he hoped to unite her cause with that of France,
+and harmonize all contending elements into a constitutional monarchy.
+There was enough in all this to tax even his great brain to the utmost,
+and he had no time to observe the fall of those hoofs in the distance,
+which, perhaps, carried his destiny with them.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXIII.
+ FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
+
+
+The old prisoner still haunted his cell in the ruined Bastille, which he
+had barricaded with loose stones, and made so difficult of access, that
+no one but himself and Marguerite was likely to find it out. His
+irregular habits and frequent wanderings had ceased to excite much
+interest in his home. It was always understood that Marguerite could
+find him when she desired, and Madame Gosner was by far too busy working
+out the downfall of her enemies to give much heed to the childish old
+man, who could not be made to remember what she had been to him.
+
+Marguerite guarded her father’s secret well. When he was missing from
+home, she alone knew where to find him, and a sweet companionship grew
+up between the father and child in the ruins of his former prison. The
+gentle pity of a truly feminine nature drew her to those gaunt ruins
+almost every nightfall, for she knew that among them would be found that
+patient and gentle sufferer, who felt more real companionship with the
+tiny animal, which had been the sole comfort of his unjust imprisonment,
+than the tumultuous life of the streets had afforded him. The desolate
+loneliness of those heaped up stones was a safe place for the young
+girl, as it proved a secret shelter for the man, and both felt a
+mournful pleasure in meeting where they could be entirely alone.
+
+Perhaps some stray gleam of insanity had crept out of those dark years
+of solitude into the brain of the old prisoner—but it was of a kind so
+dreamy and gentle that a poet would have called it inspiration. He loved
+the little animal that had loved him with childlike idolatry, and the
+sweet face of that young girl was like that of an angel to him, for she
+alone had the power to link his present dreamy state with a heavenly
+remembrance of his young life in Germany.
+
+True, he could not even yet recognize her as his own child, because that
+pretty creature had banished out of his life, but he loved to hear her
+call him father, and gave her the name of Therese, which, from first to
+last, was obstinately withheld from his wife.
+
+One night, while the moon was at its full, Marguerite crossed the
+shattered draw-bridge of the old Bastille, and found her way down among
+the disjointed stones in which the old prisoner’s cell had been. He was
+there sitting in a patch of moonlight, that lay like a silver flag
+across the entrance, talking softly to his little favorite, who was
+creeping up his garments and clinging to his beard, or sheltering itself
+under his hand, flitting hither and thither like a wingless bird.
+
+The old man started up wildly, and uttered a faint cry as Marguerite
+broke up the silver of the moonlight.
+
+“Don’t be afraid, father, it is only Marguerite,” said the girl, in
+gentle haste to reassure the trembling man.
+
+“Oh, yes! I—I thought it was the other,” he said, “some one from the
+great city. Would you think it? They follow me—they suspect.”
+
+“Suspect what, my father?”
+
+“That I find shelter somewhere—for I do not sleep in their beds; I
+cannot live among such noises. So they follow me, and spy upon me, and
+think I go among the enemies of the people. I, who have no life out of
+this place; no friend but this little creature and you—and you, my
+Therese.”
+
+Marguerite sat down by the old prisoner, and took his hand in hers.
+
+“I, dear father, am better than a friend, your own dear child. Did I not
+come to you in the prison when every door was locked? Did I not persuade
+poor old Doudel and I bribe the governor with my flowers? Do you
+remember how I crept in under the good keeper’s arm when your eyes shone
+on me through the darkness, and sat down by your side on the cold floor?
+He wanted me to stay outside; but your dear, old face looked down on me
+so pitiful, and I would not go. Have you forgotten it, my father?”
+
+“Forgotten it, sweet one! How could I forget? When God sends his angels
+to spirits in torment, do they forget? My eyes were used to darkness,
+and your face dazzled them, dazzled my soul! Did you know it, I thought
+at first that my wife had come. She was so like you, the same golden
+hair, the same eyes. I could not speak from the joy that seized upon
+me.”
+
+“I remember—I remember! You lifted your hand—how long and white it was.
+You laid it on my head, and looked down into my eyes so sadly with such
+pitiful love that I began to cry. Then I remembered you stooped down,
+your beard swept into my lap, and your face touched mine—you were
+gathering up my tears with your lips.”
+
+The old prisoner nodded his head and smiled.
+
+“Yes, yes, I remember—I remember.”
+
+“Doudel got impatient, sat down his lantern, and attempted to lift me
+from the floor; but I would not go. You remember that?”
+
+“Yes, yes! You clung to me, and wanted to stay there in the dark. Then I
+thought of the angels that visited Peter in prison, and wondered if they
+were lovely, like you.”
+
+“Was it like that? But you were hungry, and I had only a crust of bread
+and some figs to give you.”
+
+“Yes, yes! Your tears and that look, they were food for the soul.”
+
+“Do you remember how you ate the bread, while I sat on the floor and
+peeled the figs for you? while kind old Doudel held the lantern and
+looked on?”
+
+The old prisoner nodded his head, and laughed just above his breath.
+
+“It was against the rules, you know, and I had to beg and implore poor
+Doudel to let me in, with my basket of flowers. How the tears ran down
+your cheeks when I took them out. Wasn’t that a feast?”
+
+The girl looked up as she spoke, and saw that great tears were coursing
+each other down the old man’s face, and falling drop by drop upon his
+hand, where they trembled and melted away like mist upon marble.
+
+“Now I am making you sad,” she murmured.
+
+The old man turned his face toward her, and a smile broke over it. This
+was the second time within an hour that the gentle sadness of his
+features had given way. It was like the breaking up of ice under swift
+gleams of sunshine.
+
+“Sad!” he repeated, “sad! In all the years lost to me, the sight of your
+sweet face was the one joy. God sent it! God sent it, that I should be
+kept human!”
+
+“_He_ pitied you. When we went away his eyes were full of tears. I saw
+it by the light he carried.”
+
+“I think he did pity me, for he always spoke kindly, and never attempted
+to hurt my little friend.”
+
+“He was kind as a child, my father,” said Marguerite, weeping; “how I
+loved him. They could not have known how I loved him, or his poor life
+might have been spared.”
+
+“Poor child! Poor child!” said the prisoner, smoothing her hair with his
+white and withered hand. “If I could only comfort you; but I am old, and
+so helpless: we are but children together, you and I; our little
+marmousette is almost as strong. See how it sits upon my sleeve, with
+its bright eyes watching us. It knows, it knows! Hush! Hush! there is a
+footstep.”
+
+Marguerite held her breath and listened, for in that weird place, so
+laden with murderous traditions, the least sound brought apprehension
+with it. There was, indeed, a noise of footsteps wandering among the
+disjointed stones overhead.
+
+“Hush!” whispered the prisoner; and Marguerite could see that his limbs
+shook in the moonlight. “It may be that fierce woman. She who says that
+I and my sorrows belong to France.”
+
+“No, it is not the step of a woman,” answered Marguerite, under her
+breath. “I—I think I know it.”
+
+That moment a jagged fragment of stone came rushing down from the pile
+of rocks which encompassed the place where they were sitting, and
+crashed down upon the pavement, so close to the old man that a portion
+of his coarse garments were torn and buried under it.
+
+The girl thought that he was killed, and her wild shriek rang upward
+like the cry of a wounded night-bird. Then she fell upon her knees, and
+throwing one arm around the old man, drew her hand over his face,
+shuddering with fear that it would be bathed in his blood. He was alive
+and struggling to get up, for the strain on his garments had drawn him
+prone upon the floor, and for a moment he was stunned. “Is he hurt? Has
+it crushed him?” he demanded, turning his eyes upon Marguerite’s face
+with a look of painful entreaty. “He was so little, poor thing! they
+need not have hurled a mountain of rocks down to kill him.”
+
+“I think not, I hope not,” answered the girl, eager to comfort him. “It
+was creeping up to your shoulder just before the rock fell.”
+
+The old man made a desperate effort to free himself, and tore at his
+dress with vigor, wrenching it in tatters from under the stone; then he
+rose to his hands and knees, and shook that portion of the loose robe or
+cloak that fell over his bosom.
+
+“It is not here! It is not here!” he cried out, in anguish.
+
+“Not there; but look, look!”
+
+Marguerite pointed to the rock on which the moonlight fell, and there
+the little creature sat, alive and safe, with its bright eyes sparkling
+like diamonds.
+
+The old man reached out both his trembling hands, and the mouse crept
+into them, shaking like a leaf.
+
+“My poor friend! my dear little one! Will they never let us alone? Hush!
+hush!”
+
+The steps which had dislodged the stone were coming downward with quick,
+sharp leaps. Marguerite’s cry had evidently made itself heard, and
+startled the wanderer, whoever he was.
+
+The old man gathered himself up, and retreated into the darkest corner
+of his cell. Marguerite saw his terror. Placing one foot on the fragment
+of rock, she leaped over it, and began to climb upward with such swift
+excitement, that she absolutely seemed floating to the man, who paused
+half-way down, and watched her with astonishment.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXIV.
+ LOVE.
+
+
+“Did the rock strike? Is any one hurt?” called out a man’s voice, which
+shook with terror.
+
+“No one is hurt, monsieur; but I was frightened, and called out like a
+coward,” answered Marguerite, coming swiftly up to his level.
+
+“But you were in danger?”
+
+“Yes; the wind which the rock brought with it, took away my breath; that
+was all.”
+
+They stood together now on the same platform, and the moonbeams fell
+upon them with all its spiritualizing brightness. A face more sweetly
+grand was never bowed over one more beautiful. “Marguerite! in this
+dreary place. In Heaven’s name, what brings you here?”
+
+“My heart, Monsieur St. Just. Nothing else could. Some one that I love
+was lost, and I came in search of him.”
+
+“But are you not afraid?”
+
+“No. It is over yonder that I am afraid. Stones do not hurt one; men and
+women do. Besides, it is here that I should be grateful—not afraid!”
+
+“Grateful! why?”
+
+“Up yonder, I can see the spot where a crowd of men, with red caps on
+their heads, and weapons in their hands, seized upon a poor girl,
+and—and——”
+
+“I remember. Great Heavens! it was a terrible danger!”
+
+“It was a terrible murder, when that poor man was shot down only for
+being faithful to his king.”
+
+“What, the man on guard at the tower?”
+
+“He fell at my feet. Oh, monsieur! I know that you would have saved him.
+It was your hand that struck up one carbine; but even then another more
+fatal did the cruel work. God forgive them! God forgive them! he is all
+merciful; but, oh! I never can!”
+
+“My sweet Marguerite,” said the young man, reaching forth his hand as if
+she had been an infant whom he was ready to lead out of peril, “do not
+be unforgiving. True, it was a horrible moment!”
+
+“It made a widow of my best friend,” answered Marguerite, with pathetic
+simplicity.
+
+“That is hard,” said the man, “but the time must soon come when France
+will be the mother of widows made in her behalf.”
+
+Marguerite shook her head. The voice in which this man spoke was deep
+and sweet with sympathy. That she could recognize; but his words partook
+of a cause from which she recoiled. They seemed to excuse the murderers
+of her friend. She drew her hand from his clasp, shuddering. He saw the
+change that came over her features, and smiled.
+
+“Marguerite, you do not trust me.”
+
+“Trust you, oh yes. Were you not my saviour? You tried to spare him too,
+but could not.”
+
+“But the thing I did was nothing. Any gentleman would have done as
+much.”
+
+“Where crowds meet only to pull down and murder, one does not expect to
+find a gentleman,” answered Marguerite, unconscious of the sarcasm that
+lay in her innocent words.
+
+The young man seemed tempted to argue the matter but checked himself,
+saying,
+
+“You must not give me too much credit. But tell me what are your friends
+doing that they permit these lonely night walks?”
+
+“They are full of other thoughts. All except two—an old woman whose
+husband you saw murdered, alas! tears kept her from watching me; and my
+father, who is more helpless than I am. Oh, Monsieur, I sometimes think
+it would have been kinder had you left those hideous men to kill me, and
+never opened his dungeon. He was used to the prison.”
+
+“Poor old man, is he too suffering? Where can I see him?”
+
+“He does not wish to be seen. They have forced liberty upon him when it
+was too late. He loves nothing but solitude.”
+
+“Perhaps not; but a man so wronged must hate the tyrant who persecuted
+him.”
+
+“That king is dead. Besides, the good old man hates no one.”
+
+“Not the king?”
+
+“Least of all, the good king.”
+
+“And you, little one—how is it with you?”
+
+“My best friend died serving the king, so would I.”
+
+The beautiful face of the girl kindled, her eyes flashed like stars as
+she said this. Then bethinking herself how dangerous such expressions of
+loyalty might prove, she said, half timidly,
+
+“They tell me it is dangerous not to abuse the king; but you ask me for
+the truth, and I forget to be prudent. Besides, I think you also love
+the king.”
+
+“How can you think that?”
+
+“Because you would not let those ruffians kill me, and tried to knock
+down that murderer’s gun, when you must have known that honest guard
+belonged to the king.”
+
+“But what if I loved France more?”
+
+“I heard some one say, when I was a little girl, that the king _was_
+France.”
+
+The young man broke into a low laugh, which began bitterly and ended in
+good-humor. What man, he thought, could burden a creature so innocent
+and sweet with political prejudices. It seemed like dragging
+nightingales out from the sheltering roses, and hurling them into a
+maelstrom.
+
+“Well, Marguerite, I will not quarrel with you for loving the king; and
+you must permit me to worship France just a little,” he said, smiling.
+“But you have not told me why it is that you come to this dangerous
+place alone, and at night? It cannot be, certainly, the old home-feeling
+that brings _you_ here?”
+
+Marguerite’s head drooped, and if the light had been sufficient, the
+young man might have seen a blush steal over her face.
+
+“It is partly that I have memories, and some one else comes here that I
+care for.”
+
+“Some one that you care for, and come to meet?”
+
+The young man spoke sternly, and he drew back from the drooping young
+creature a little, as if something had stung him. She lifted her eyes to
+his in shrinking astonishment.
+
+“Who is this person?” he asked.
+
+“I—I must not tell. He does not like people to know.”
+
+“_He?_ Did you say he?”
+
+“Yes, I said he; but that was not speaking his name.”
+
+“And you come here nights to meet this man?”
+
+“Yes, but he does not wish any one to be told.”
+
+Marguerite saw that something had offended her companion, and answered
+his questions with timid hesitation; but her eyes pleaded with him all
+the time.
+
+“You steal away from home, Marguerite, when the streets of Paris are
+full of dangers, and come to this lonely spot only to meet a man whose
+name you dare not speak? Is this the truth?”
+
+“Yes, but—but I have another reason.”
+
+“Another reason, Marguerite?”
+
+Marguerite’s voice sank almost to a whisper, as she answered,
+
+“The memory I spoke of, Monsieur.”
+
+The young man started, and his eyes flashed.
+
+“You mean this, Marguerite—you have not forgotten that one hour when
+your heart beat against mine?”
+
+“How could I forget?”
+
+“Yet you come here to meet another man.”
+
+A little joyous laugh broke from the girl. St. Just could see her eyes
+sparkle in the moonlight.
+
+“Why not?” she said, “since the man is my own father.”
+
+“Your father—the prisoner?”
+
+“I can trust you with his secret; perhaps you will even help me to
+protect him for there is danger.”
+
+“Especially when heedless wanderers send rocks crashing down upon him,”
+said St. Just.
+
+Marguerite shuddered. “I couldn’t help screaming, it frightened me
+dreadfully,” she said.
+
+“Not more than it frightened me,” answered the young man, whose
+good-nature had entirely returned. “It was a loose stone that gave way
+under my boot, and almost carried me down with it—a blessed stone I
+shall always think; for it brought you out of the darkness, the only
+lovely thing, I do believe, those walls ever gave forth.”
+
+“But for that I should have kept out of sight, and gone home
+heavy-hearted.”
+
+“Why heavy-hearted, Marguerite?”
+
+“Because it was impossible to see you where I sat. I never should have
+found courage to come into the light, and should have missed a great
+happiness, without knowing what it was.”
+
+The young man bent his eyes upon her with a look of tender admiration,
+that brought the blushes to her cheek, and weighed down her soft eyes
+till she stood before him like a child rebuked.
+
+“Then it was not altogether that other person, whom I was almost jealous
+of,” said the young man, after gazing upon that sweet face in silence.
+
+“You saved my life, and tried to save him!” faltered the young creature;
+and gratitude is a sweet feeling that haunts one so.
+
+“True, Marguerite—but there is a sweeter feeling yet that haunts me all
+the time. I only hope that you know what it is.”
+
+Marguerite gathered the frail drapery with which she had ventured into
+the night air, softly around her, but even through that St. Just could
+see how her heart rose and fell.
+
+“I—I must be going now,” she said.
+
+“But not alone—I cannot permit that; the streets of Paris are not safe
+for you. Come, let me help you over these stones.”
+
+Marguerite had passed over them once that night swiftly and safely as a
+young chamois on some mountain peak; but with those eyes upon her she
+grew timid, and held out her little hand, touching the stones daintily
+with her feet. He took her hand with a firm grasp, and led her over the
+rugged masses of stone, which was so broken up in heaps and chasms that
+every footstep brought its danger. At a jagged hollow, which the girl
+had sprung lightly over an hour before, she paused, and began to
+tremble. The youth reassured her with a smile; then threw his arm around
+her waist, lifted her over, and sat her down on the other side, bathed
+in blushes, which seemed shadows in the moonlight.
+
+At last these two young people reached the broken draw-bridge, crossed
+over its shaking timbers, and entered the dark court beyond.
+
+Here St. Just paused close by the stone bench where Marguerite had
+rested that day.
+
+“Here on this spot your dear lips told me the sweetest secret man ever
+learned,” he said, throwing his arms around the startled girl, and
+straining her to his heart. “Repeat it here—repeat it, my beloved. I
+love you, oh Heavens, how I do love you! Say—out of your dreams—be sure
+that it is out of your dreams—say that you love me.”
+
+Marguerite tried to speak, but the sweet words died on her lips as she
+gave them up to his kisses for a single instant. Then her voice came
+back, and she said with the innocent frankness of a child,
+
+“How could I help loving you?”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXV.
+ CRAFT MEETING TREACHERY.
+
+
+It was three nights after Mirabeau’s visit to St. Cloud, and Louison
+Brisot had not yet seen him. She waited with burning impatience, hour
+after hour, until a keen desire to reproach him got the better of her
+prudence; and she went at once to his residence.
+
+That day Count Mirabeau had absented himself from his seat in the
+Assembly. Filled with such dreams of love and ambition as had made his
+youth one wild season of political and social riot, he kept himself in
+the solitude of his own library, thinking out the programme of action
+which was to make him at once the saviour of the monarchy, and the
+favorite of the people.
+
+It was a wild, and almost chaotic realm, over which this man hoped to
+rule; but he had infinite faith in his own genius, and built great hopes
+upon his immense popularity with a people who, in their passions and
+their prejudices, were changeable as the wind. To a man like Mirabeau,
+bold to audacity, gifted with marvelous eloquence, and made great by a
+will strong as iron, to guide this changing element and mould it as his
+own ambition might direct, seemed the easiest thing on earth.
+
+All that day the man spent lounging upon the silken cushions of a low
+couch, dreaming of the greatness before him, and of the royal lady whose
+white hand had touched his lips for one instant in the little
+summer-house at St. Cloud. At last he had conquered his way to that
+proud, beautiful woman, who still sat upon the tottering throne of
+France. In her need she had been compelled to stoop to the fascinations
+of his voice, and blush under the ardent devotion of his eyes. In this
+he had triumphed over all his compeers—true, it was a triumph, secret as
+it was sweet. He who had been tried almost as a felon in the courts;
+imprisoned for rude violations of the law; hunted out of society like a
+mad dog, was now president of one of the most powerful clubs in France,
+a leader in the Assembly, and the secret friend of the beautiful queen,
+who had for years kept him from her presence, as a man too vile for the
+countenance of a pure wife and highly born lady.
+
+No wonder this man lay supinely on his couch, with his arms folded over
+his head, and his eyes wandering dreamily over the Cupids that peeped at
+him with laughing eyes from the flowers that clustered and glowed on the
+frescoed ceiling overhead.
+
+Mirabeau had reached that age when ambition becomes a power, and love an
+intense passion; from that day he turned with loathing from the thing
+which he had called love in past time. The exalted rank of Marie
+Antoinette, her superb beauty and brilliant intellect had fired his
+imagination so completely, that his whole being, for the time, flung off
+its coarseness and became chivalric.
+
+The door opened softly as Mirabeau lay with his large eyes wandering
+over the flowers, and a pleasant smile on his lips. He cared little what
+might happen in the Assembly that day; but would go forth to his Jacobin
+club in the evening, and there exert all the powers of his mind to
+moderate the ferocious instincts of his compatriots, and lead them to
+the moderation of his own views so lately inspired by the queen.
+
+A woman had been waiting with her hand upon the door for a whole minute,
+and Mirabeau, in his pleasant preoccupation, knew nothing of it. Louison
+Brisot stepped across the room, and came close to the couch on which he
+lay, and spoke to him.
+
+Mirabeau started, flung down his arms with an impatient movement, and
+rose to a half upright position, dropping one foot to the floor, and
+sinking his elbow deep into the cushions on which his head had rested.
+
+“Ah! is it you, Louison?” he said, wearily. “How did you get in? I told
+my people to admit no one.”
+
+Louison laughed with some bitterness.
+
+“They do not regard me as ‘any one,’ my good friend; or dream, perhaps,
+there will ever come a time when I shall be excluded from Count
+Mirabeau’s presence.”
+
+“But there may arise times when I am busy.”
+
+“These times have arisen again and again; but you were always glad to
+have me by your side, especially when there was work to accomplish.
+Shall I sit down now? Or has my presence, all at once, become
+troublesome?”
+
+The girl seated herself, as she spoke, upon the foot of Mirabeau’s
+couch, and sat gazing on him with an expression in her great black eyes
+that disturbed him. This woman had frightened away all his pleasant
+dreams.
+
+“You are never troublesome,” he said; “but in the lives of all hard
+working and hard thinking men there is need of rest. This craving was
+upon me when you came in.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“I have been giving the day to thought, and sunk down here to rest
+awhile before going to the club. Had you delayed coming a little longer,
+I should have been gone.”
+
+“Ah! you go to the club, then!” exclaimed Louison, brightening. “There
+you will meet Robespierre and Marat, your brother journalists; those two
+men who love France, and hate the queen.”
+
+“Ah, ha!” said Mirabeau, sharply; and his massive features contracted
+with quick suspicion. “How did you learn so much of Robespierre, and
+that animal who calls himself Marat?”
+
+“I know that they are patriots and true Frenchmen,” answered Louison.
+“Be careful, Mirabeau, that they do not prove the serpent, that may bite
+your heel.”
+
+“What, those reptiles!” exclaimed Mirabeau, with careless contempt. “How
+can they hurt a man so much above them? They crawl, I soar!”
+
+The magnificent demagogue made a circle around his head with one large,
+white hand, as if he were crowning himself, and repeated, “I soar! I
+soar!”
+
+Louison understood that look of triumph, and smiled with bitter irony
+when she saw the gesture. “This man,” she said to herself, “seems to
+feel the glory of a crown upon his head, since he has kissed the
+Austrian hand with those perfidious lips;” still she answered him
+calmly, looking downward with half-closed eyes, like a slumbrous
+panther.
+
+“But, you and these men have a common object—love of France and hatred
+of her oppressors.”
+
+Mirabeau turned his eyes quickly upon that handsome face to read the
+hidden thought that lay under these words. He saw a gleam break through
+the drooping lashes, and suspected that something was wrong, but could
+not understand what. He had no wish to disagree with Louison, for her
+talent had been of great use to him, and it was through her that a large
+portion of his popularity among the rabble of women, who were the worst
+disturbing element of the nation, was maintained.
+
+“We must talk of this matter when there is more time,” he said. “I often
+think we are allowing the coarse minds of a few brutal men to carry the
+revolution beyond its proper limits. What, for instance, can be more
+vicious than these constant attacks on the queen?”
+
+“Ha!”
+
+His words ran through Louison’s heart like an arrow; her eyes opened
+wide, and flashed a look upon him that checked the breath on his lips.
+
+“You speak of that Austrian woman,” she said, controlling herself,
+“Louis Capet’s wife?”
+
+“I speak of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Louison; a woman who has
+been cruelly maligned and basely persecuted.”
+
+“By whom?”
+
+Louison spoke calmly, but her lips closed with a firm grip as this
+simple question left them, and she held her breath, waiting for his
+answer.
+
+“Perhaps we have all done too much of it.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXVI.
+ CRIMINATION AND INDIFFERENCE.
+
+
+Louison Brisot, with all her secretiveness and self-control, felt her
+heart burn, and her cheeks grow hot, when Mirabeau insulted her
+solicitude with a rude answer. She arose and walked to a window; a
+pretty goldfinch, which had been taught to fly out of his cage at will,
+fluttered downward and settled upon her shoulder. She seized the tiny
+thing, wrung its neck, and flung it down to her feet.
+
+Mirabeau had settled back upon his couch, and his eyes were again
+wandering among the frescoed flowers. So the woman appeased her wrath by
+taking this little life before the poor thing could utter a breath of
+pain; and he only knew that his favorite was dead after she was gone.
+
+While the pretty thing was quivering on the floor, his murderer had sunk
+down by Mirabeau’s couch, and took his hand in hers, where it lay
+indolently, not once offering to return the grasp with which she clung
+to it.
+
+“Mirabeau!”
+
+“Well, Louison!”
+
+“You have ceased to love me?”
+
+“Ceased to love you! Well, what then? To be good patriots we need not be
+lovers.”
+
+The woman turned deadly white, and her hands wrenched themselves away
+from his.
+
+“You confess it.”
+
+There was a cry of pain in her words. All this time she had been
+actuated by a forlorn hope that he would contradict her.
+
+“No! I confess nothing! How should I, not being quite certain myself?”
+
+“Great heavens! you dare say this to me!”
+
+Mirabeau started up fiercely and shook back his hair like a roused lion.
+
+“Dare! Woman, is that word intended for Mirabeau?”
+
+The man was fully aroused now, his light gray eyes flamed, his sensuous
+mouth took a haughty curve; he had risen to his elbow, and his massive
+neck was laid bare almost to the bosom, where the delicately-crimped
+ruffles of his shirt fell open, revealing the blue veins that swelled
+over it, inflaming his face to the eyes, which suddenly became
+bloodshot.
+
+“The man who offends Louison Brisot dares everything,” answered the
+woman, in a low voice.
+
+Mirabeau laughed, for all the evil daring of his nature was getting
+uppermost.
+
+“So you threaten me?”
+
+“Cowards threaten!”
+
+“And brave souls act. Well, Louison, you certainly are no coward; and
+yet your speech had a threat in it. Tell me why?”
+
+“Ah, Mirabeau! It is only a little thing. During some years—that is,
+ever since I was an innocent girl, who never committed a greater sin
+than plucking a few clusters where the grapes first ripened into
+purple—I have loved you. It was not much, only a human soul flung at the
+feet of a man who has not yet trampled it under his heel. But this soul
+was all I had—and you took it. For your sake I worked hard, studied,
+learned all those arts by which women gain influence in the world;
+gloried in my beauty, and in that keen wit which is a weapon of power in
+these days, all because they might make me more dear and more useful to
+you. In the scale of your glory I flung my life. Is it strange that I
+ask something back; that out of the whole of an existence I lavished on
+you I ask a ray of light; only that which the moon takes from the sun,
+and feel defrauded when it is withheld?”
+
+The smile broadened and grew brighter on Mirabeau’s face as the young
+woman made this passionate address. He loved to be adored; and the
+intellect of this woman gave piquancy to her homage; without that she
+would have been nothing to him, with it she had a hold upon his
+interests and his vanity stronger, by far, than any woman had ever
+possessed over his affections. No man living had greater talent for
+turning the genius of other people to his own account than Mirabeau. Men
+and women were alike made available to his popularity. He had no desire
+to quarrel with the handsome young female, whose words, taking the form
+of passionate pleading, were sufficient to convince him of the power he
+still possessed.
+
+Louison saw the self-satisfied smile, and it stung her. She broke forth
+with passionate vehemence.
+
+“But love like mine must have full love in return; faith like mine must
+meet answering faith. If I have been strong as a woman, I have also been
+trusting as a child. Deceive me once, and you open my eyes forever;
+cease to be my entire friend, and you make me your bitterest enemy. Keep
+no secrets from me; if you attempt it, I will find them out, and then
+they are my property. I warn you now, in right or in wrong, make me your
+confidant.”
+
+It would have been well for Mirabeau had he then and there taken the
+woman at her word; but, like all social traitors, he had no faith in the
+sex, and so only turned on his side and gazed on her flushed face in
+wonder that any one would believe him weak enough to trust one woman
+with the secrets of another.
+
+“Upon my word, Louison, you are a remarkably beautiful person, and have
+a power of eloquence I never dreamed of before. They tell me Theroigne
+de Mericourt is to appear at the Cordeliers; we must have you at the
+Jacobins. She is beautiful—so are you; she is eloquent, but in that I
+have just discovered we can more than match her. I have a thing on my
+mind which must be brought before the club with great caution—a woman
+can do it; for we accept and excuse anything from beautiful lips—and
+yours are blooming as roses, Louison.”
+
+A faint sneer curled the lips he praised. Did he think to use her as a
+blind instrument in behalf of the lady whose hand she had seen raised to
+his lips with such reverence? There was bitter satisfaction in the
+thought that she had this man’s secret in her keeping, and by it could
+read the very changes of his mind. She had come there to upbraid him,
+but the secretiveness of her nature rose uppermost, even in her jealous
+wrath; it prompted her to watch him, and if he proved treacherous, to
+fight her battle with his own weapons.
+
+“The time has come,” said Mirabeau, “when the women of France must make
+their influence felt in the nation. Theroigne will be received like a
+goddess by the Cordeliers.”
+
+If the demagogue thought to inspire Louison’s ambition, he only
+succeeded in uniting with that passion one more dangerous still.
+
+“It is said that this Maid of Liege has something besides the wrongs of
+France to avenge,” she said, dreamily. “Among the minions who swarm
+around that Austrian woman, is the man she loved—a noble, who plucked
+the soul from her life, and flung it away in haughty disdain. Yes, yes!
+it _is_ time that the women of France should test their power. Let
+Theroigne lead with the Cordeliers; as for me, in life or death, I stand
+by Mirabeau!”
+
+“That is a brave girl; and now let me tell you a secret.”
+
+Louison’s heart leaped in her bosom. Would he tell her all that she had
+learned? If so, that interview with Marie Antoinette might have only a
+political meaning. She listened breathlessly for his next words. They
+came to surprise and disappoint her.
+
+“Before the year is out, my friend, Mirabeau will be president of the
+Jacobin club; then Louison Brisot shall test her powers against those of
+the amazon of Liege.”
+
+“Yes,” said Louison; “she will test her powers then.”
+
+“The women of the markets are ardent and ignorant; they need leaders of
+their own sex. These women in their hearts love the queen.”
+
+“Ha!”
+
+“Did you speak, Louison?”
+
+“No, I did not speak, but listened. You think I might control these
+women?”
+
+“You have the power; they would look up to you as they never have to the
+queen. She is so far above them that they cannot understand her. But
+you——”
+
+“Oh, yes! I can make them understand me. I, too, am of the people,” said
+Louison, interrupting him.
+
+“But still, education and great natural talent has lifted you nearer to
+her.”
+
+“You think so? Well, perhaps it is true.”
+
+“You are brave.”
+
+“Yes, I am no coward.”
+
+“With a warm, earnest heart.”
+
+Here Louison sunk down to the foot of the couch, and bowing her face to
+her knees, began to sob. Mirabeau took her hand.
+
+“Why do you weep, my friend?”
+
+“Because I once had a warm, earnest heart, that is all,” cried the girl,
+lifting her head, and sweeping the hair back from her face. “Women who
+aspire for love or power should have no hearts.”
+
+“You are wrong, my friend; a warm heart is necessary to true eloquence.
+Without that, the magnetism which thrills crowds would be wanting. It is
+because you can speak clearly and feel intensely, that I predict for you
+a glorious career among the women of France. That which Mirabeau is to
+the men, Louison shall be to the women of this nation.”
+
+“And this is all you have to tell me?”
+
+“All. If I have nothing more to confide, it is because my heart is
+always open to my friends, most of all to you.”
+
+“Traitor!”
+
+The word was not spoken, but it hissed like a serpent in the woman’s
+brain. She dashed the tears from her eyes and stood up.
+
+“I will go now.”
+
+Mirabeau fell indolently back among the cushions of his couch.
+
+“Must you go?” he questioned, dreamily. “Well, well, think of what I
+have said.”
+
+“I will.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXVII.
+ AMONG THE FLOWERS.
+
+
+When St. Just and Marguerite left the ruins of the Bastille, a man came
+out of a half destroyed building near which they had stood, and followed
+them at a distance. His step was heavy, his head drooped, once or twice
+he pressed a clenched hand over his heart as if the pain there was
+intolerable.
+
+This man was Monsieur Jacques. Every evening when Marguerite sought the
+ruins he had followed in sad solicitude, but faithful as a dog. She had
+never seen him nor dreamed of his loving vigilance. Indeed, he seldom
+sought her now, and seemed to have forgotten the suit he had urged or
+the promise she had made.
+
+Sometimes she thought of this with thankfulness, but never guessed the
+cause, or dreamed of the suffering which locked that noble heart in
+silence.
+
+This evening he saw the lovers pause in the Cour de Gouvernment, and by
+the glorified light in their faces knew what was passing between them.
+Then the last hope went out of that strong heart.
+
+But Monsieur Jacques knew how to suffer and be strong. He watched that
+couple from a distance as, in the sweet silence of contented love, they
+slowly approached the humble dwelling, which was the only home the poor
+girl could claim in the wide, wide world.
+
+He saw them hesitate a little at the door and pass in. Then he turned
+away into the darkness.
+
+The passage was dark which St. Just and Marguerite entered.
+
+“You will not leave me yet!” pleaded the girl, unconscious of wrong as a
+child; “no one is home; it will be lonely waiting for them.”
+
+The young man had no heart to leave her, and they went up the dark
+stair-case together. Marguerite opened a door under the roof, and led
+her guest into a little room with one window, neat as a flower, and
+tasteful as only a French girl could make it.
+
+“I was sure they would not be home,” said Marguerite, striking a light,
+which fell pleasantly on the muslin curtains at the window, looped up
+with knots of rose-colored ribbon, which shaded a plant or two in rich
+leafiness. “Dame Doudel will come up here the first thing—till then I
+hope you will wait.”
+
+The young man seated himself and looked around the room, which contained
+two flag-bottomed chairs, a small table, and in the furthest corner a
+little cot-bed, white as a cloud, and fragrant with the breath of many
+flowers. Directly at its foot stood a basket crowded full of bouquets
+ready for the market, from which a scent of heliotrope, violets, and
+jasmines, would have perfumed the atmosphere too heavily but for the
+open window, through which a soft current of air was floating.
+
+“You see that all my work was done before I went out,” said the girl,
+pointing to the basket.
+
+“Not a hard task, I should think,” said the young man smiling.
+
+“Hard! No one ever gives me anything hard to do. It is only play to make
+up these little bunches; and who would think of harming me when I go
+about to sell them? Dame Doudel is like a queen in the market, and she
+lets all the women think that I am one of them though I cannot be made
+to hate the king. I wish you could know how good the dame has been to
+me.”
+
+“But she leaves you here alone to wander about in dangerous places. Is
+that kind or wise, Marguerite?”
+
+“Oh! but she knows why, and is ready to help me; the dame has a heart as
+soft as dew.”
+
+“And have you found it safe?”
+
+“Oh yes; no one speaks to me in the street. I hold my mantle close over
+my face, and walk on without looking to the right or the left. Then I
+come to the Bastille, but find it all alone. May I ask, monsieur, what
+takes you there?”
+
+The man’s eyes sparkled as he answered,
+
+“I go because that mountain of ruins is the first battlefield of liberty
+in France. When those old towers fell, the very heart in my bosom was
+unchained.”
+
+Marguerite looked at him a little wildly, and her eyes filled with
+tears.
+
+“_Mon Dieu!_ Is it that you belong to them?” she said, dropping into the
+only chair her visitor did not occupy. “How can it be?”
+
+The young man instantly repented of the ardor in his speech. It seemed
+to him like frightening a singing bird with fire-arms, and he reassured
+her with a smile.
+
+“Believe me, I shall never be anything that you fear or dislike. Heaven
+forbid that I should bring the turmoil of the street into this quiet
+place!”
+
+Marguerite drew a deep breath, and wiped the tears from her eyes.
+
+“Forgive me, monsieur,” she said, in gentle penitence; “but since that
+day I weep so easily. Sometimes, as I sit here weaving the flowers
+together, the tears will drop in among their leaves like rain; but that
+is when I am thinking of him.”
+
+“But you must shed no more tears.”
+
+“Not if I can help it; but when I thought of your belonging to those
+fierce men, I could not keep the tears back. Forgive me, but I could
+not.”
+
+“But I do not belong to those fierce men; if anything they belong to
+me,” said St. Just. “Come, come, let us be friends. Some loose flowers
+are lying on the table there—while we wait for the dame, let me see you
+work.”
+
+“I did not know that one was left! She must have brought them after I
+went away,” said the girl, starting up and drawing her chair to the
+table. “How stupid; but it will only take a little time.”
+
+While Marguerite was busy assorting her flowers, the young man drew his
+chair to the table, and watched her slender fingers as they twined the
+stems together; then, as if unconsciously, he took up the blossoms one
+by one, and held them for her use. He saw that her little hand trembled
+as she took the flowers, and a smile stole over his face as he remarked
+the color come and go in hers. Something was evidently on her mind, as
+she arranged one bouquet with wonderful care—a tiny thing, in which a
+half-open blush-rose was laid softly in a nest of violets. Marguerite
+tied this with a delicate bit of ribbon taken from her neck, examined it
+critically, with her head on one side, as a bird sometimes coquets with
+its food, then laid it away with a sigh, lacking courage for the purpose
+that had dawned in her mind.
+
+A noise below—some one coming up stairs.
+
+“It is the dame,” said Marguerite, pausing to listen, “and coming up
+here. I knew she would.”
+
+The door was flung open, and a little woman, in a broad-bordered cap,
+tied around the head with a black ribbon, stood on the threshold with a
+half-uttered sentence on her lips.
+
+“I find you here, little one—so much the better.”
+
+Her words were cut short by the utter astonishment that possessed her on
+seeing a strange man in the room.
+
+“Oh, my friend, it is the gentleman who saved me; who tried——”
+
+“Ah, I know,” faltered the little woman, pressing a hand quickly to her
+bosom. “He would have saved me from being the poor widow I am.—Ah,
+monsieur! I have nothing but gratitude here.”
+
+Dame Doudel sat down on the white bed and began to weep.
+
+St. Just arose to go. The tears of this poor widow pained him. They
+brought back that awful scene in the Bastille too vividly. Marguerite
+saw the movement. She took the tiny cluster of flowers from the table,
+and stood hesitating, with one foot advanced.
+
+A faint smile crept over the young man’s lips, for he lost nothing of
+this; and when she came swiftly toward him, he held out his hand for the
+flowers.
+
+Marguerite gave him her little bouquet, and turning to Dame Doudel,
+said, in modest apology for what she had done,
+
+“It took only a few, and he saved my life.”
+
+Dame Doudel nodded her head, and waved her hand, thus signifying her
+approbation, and followed the young man down stairs, while Marguerite
+stood gazing after him in wistful silence.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXVIII.
+ THE MARKET WOMAN.
+
+
+“Ah, citoyen,” said the widow, pausing on the stair-case, “how shall I
+ever thank you for that kind attempt to save him?”
+
+“I deserve no thanks, dame, so give me none. I but hurled half a dozen
+ruffians back as they seized upon that poor girl, but was altogether too
+late, so far as your husband was concerned. He died at her feet, poor
+fellow!”
+
+“Poor fellow! You may well say that, monsieur. A better man never lived;
+had he been spared, Marguerite would want no better protector.”
+
+“Why, surely, a creature like that, innocent and lovely as a child, can
+have no enemies.”
+
+“I cannot tell that. More than one person saw her face that day; and
+heard her cry out that my poor husband was her friend.”
+
+“But in all that tumult who could recognize her?”
+
+“One person did, I know; Marguerite heard a voice call out ‘Strangle
+her! Shoot her! Strike her! And you bring that tall guard down from his
+post.’ It was a woman’s voice.”
+
+“A woman!” repeated the young man, and his fine lips curved with
+disdain. “Say a fiend. I wish we had no such aids in our great cause.”
+
+The vicious power which a few talented and infamous women had begun to
+wield in the revolution, had inspired others with a reckless idea of
+their own importance; and, spite of her sorrow, Dame Doudel grew angry
+that any one should doubt the power of her sex to wrestle with national
+wrongs, or step from a market-stall into the duties of statesmanship.
+
+“Monsieur, then, does not think the women of France worthy to work for
+him?” she said.
+
+“I think,” said the young man, who seemed rather amused than offended by
+the lofty air which the market woman assumed, “I think that when the men
+of a great nation cannot redress its wrongs, and protect its women, that
+nation is hardly worth saving.”
+
+“Indeed!” answered the dame, sniffing the air like a war-horse, and
+breaking at once into the language of the clubs. “Who was it that urged
+on the attack, and led the way, when that huge monster, the Bastille was
+taken?—the women. Who cheered the state’s general on to tear down the
+king from his high horse?—the women. Who surrounded Santerre, and forced
+him to lead them to Versailles, to confront the king and his Austrian
+wife, but the women of Paris? Who brought the royal family out from
+their palace, and forced them through the storm and mud into the city?
+The women—the women, I tell you. Ah, monsieur! I have suffered—I am a
+widow. They tell me a woman did it. Still women have done brave work for
+France.”
+
+“But it was also a woman, as you have just told me, who urged on a pack
+of brutal men to assail mademoiselle whom you seem to love.”
+
+“Ah, there! Yes, I am with you there. It was an awful cruelty. Oh! it
+was heart-rending! but even that, one must endure for the sake of
+liberty; besides, the woman was not one of us. She has had her training
+among the aristocrats, and yet dares to come down among us, the real
+patriots, and make speeches to us, mounted on our own stalls; for my
+part, I want nothing of the sort. Only she always pretends that
+Mirabeau, our great Mirabeau, speaks through her, as if he felt above
+coming to us himself—not at all, I tell you. _He_ does not scoff at the
+help which comes from us. The women of Paris adore Mirabeau. It is a
+pity, though, he sends a creature like that to tell us our duty and kill
+our husbands.”
+
+“But you have not told me who the woman is whom you seem to both fear
+and hate.”
+
+“Fear! Oh! there is not a woman, or, for that matter, a man living, who
+could make me fear for myself. Ask Marguerite—ask my sister; perhaps you
+know her, Dame Tillery, landlady of the Swan, at Versailles, if Margaret
+Doudel was ever terrified by mortal face. But, about this girl, I
+confess to you, monsieur, that I sometimes do feel a trembling about my
+heart. If any harm come to her, I think it would kill me; and it is true
+that the woman prowls about the neighborhood asking questions, like a
+mean, vicious cat, creeping up to a bird’s cage.”
+
+“Ha!”
+
+St. Just uttered this sharp exclamation with unconscious force. He was
+evidently disturbed.
+
+“Yes,” answered Dame Doudel, “I have noticed one thing,—we dames of the
+market have sharp eyes. This woman, to whom I used to sell flowers and
+fruit, when she carried her head high, as if she were Du Berry herself,
+contenting herself with a salad, when things turned against her—this
+woman is neither of the nobility nor the people, flesh nor fish, but may
+go with one, and then the other; I, for one, trust no such person. The
+women of the market are honest; but this woman is not one of them. She
+means to be our leader, but we want nothing of her. She does not love
+France half so much as she hates the queen. As if we could not win our
+rights without the help of such a creature as that. Oh, citoyen! the
+less you patriots harbor with such chaff the better.”
+
+“I will try and profit by what you say, dame, when I know who it is you
+warn me against; the more especially as you tell me that she bears some
+malice against Marguerite.”
+
+“Malice! I should think she did. And why? This is the reason. When we
+were in the midst of that glorious day at Versailles, our pretty
+Marguerite was chosen to go with the committee of women, who were sent
+to lay our wrongs before the king. This creature, whom I warn you of,
+wanted the honor, and appealed to Mirabeau, who had the power to send
+her if he would; but the count only laughed, and said that it was
+intended to petition the king, not insult him. The person chosen to make
+the address must be a child of the people, innocent, frank, honest,
+therefore it must be Marguerite Gosner. Then it was that the venom of
+this woman’s bad heart broke out. Marguerite was chosen against her,—our
+Marguerite, whose modesty and innocence touched the king with the most
+tender compassion. He kissed her on the cheek and promised well.
+Mirabeau had done this, and Louison Brisot loved Mirabeau. Was not this
+a good reason why she should hate our child?”
+
+“Louison Brisot! I shall remember the name, good dame,” said the young
+man as he stepped out into the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXIX.
+ THE WOMEN OF FRANCE.
+
+
+Louison Brisot went from the presence of Mirabeau with a tumult of
+contending passions at war in her bosom. Ardent, vindictive, and
+egotistical, she guarded herself with a power of secretiveness and sharp
+cunning so completely, that it was not wonderful a man so reckless as
+Mirabeau should have misunderstood the depth and danger of her
+antagonism. He had no idea of the powerful self-control which curbed her
+fierce passions, and gave double force when she allowed them to break
+forth in all their fiery strength. Her coarse nature had mated itself so
+vehemently with the eloquent demagogue, that he was sometimes startled
+to find himself completely duplicated in the form of a woman—so
+completely that he began to dislike himself in her. This feeling often
+broke forth mockingly, as he was apt to scoff at himself when the worst
+traits of his own character forced themselves on his intelligence.
+Mirabeau forgave himself for thus reviling his own rude nature—but the
+woman forgave nothing.
+
+Men like Count Mirabeau are often the most fastidious beings alive,
+regarding delicate shades of propriety in their friends, and almost
+invariably look for objects of affection above their own level. In order
+to create a real impression upon this man, it was necessary to enlist
+his imagination, and that always lifted itself to the grand and
+beautiful, not to say the unattainable. Mirabeau held his immediate
+compeers but lightly, as, in his better moments, he often despised
+himself.
+
+Louison Brisot was ambitious; and in the riot and turmoil of the
+Revolution, now growing formidable, she found scope for all her evil
+passions, and all her intellect. In this Revolution she saw but one
+leader, Mirabeau. His eloquence inspired her; his stubborn will held all
+her own powers in thrall. She saw strong, fierce, brave men yield to his
+invincible force of character. If he moved, the people went with him; if
+he spoke, they held their breath, and listened as if this man, with the
+blue blood of France soiled in his veins by all the baser passions known
+to themselves, were, in fact, a being to worship and follow with
+clamorous praises. With women like this, love is a score of baser
+passions disguised under one name, which they desecrate. Mirabeau knew
+this, and took no pains to deceive the woman regarding the amount of
+respect that he felt for her. Had he known from the first that she had
+witnessed that dangerous interview with the queen, his audacity would
+have tempted him to brave her.
+
+Louison felt this, and gave him no opportunity, being one of those
+extraordinary women who could wait, though every fierce passion of her
+soul were at a white heat. Two words broke from her lips as she left the
+house, and those were,
+
+“Double traitor!”
+
+For a day and a night Louison shut herself up in her own apartments, and
+strove to organize some plan of operation for herself. Should she make
+it known to the clubs that Mirabeau had held a private interview with
+the queen, whom they all hated with fiendish detestation, and turn the
+force of public indignation on him at once; or should she wait, watch,
+and gather up facts that would ensnare him completely, and see the lion
+pant and struggle in the net her hands had cast over him.
+
+Louison’s nature, which was at once fierce and crafty, led to the
+quieter course. With all her courage, she thought of openly assailing
+this powerful man with thrills of terror. She knew him to be
+unscrupulous as herself, and far beyond her in influence. Would the
+clubs, in fact, believe her if she ventured to stake her unsupported
+word against his? As yet that meeting had no results. If Mirabeau had
+sold his influence to the queen, money would be forthcoming; and no fear
+would prevent the count from lavishing it with dangerous prodigality.
+For money he must change his course in the Assembly; let him do this
+ever so adroitly, she could connect the change with his unusual
+expenditure, and thus sustain a charge it would be dangerous to make on
+her own unsupported assertion.
+
+This terrible woman had, at last, gained control over her disturbed
+passions, so far as was necessary to the hypocrisy and treason by which
+her vengeance might be carried out. She was not the only woman in that
+dark epoch, who hurled her own personal wrongs and evil passions into
+the general anarchy, and called them patriotism. Patriotism! The amazons
+and butchers of France made this grand word so hideous, that liberty
+turns from it with distrust, even to this day; like the holy religion of
+Christ, it is used to cover a thousand sins—and treason is never so
+dangerous as when it cloaks itself under a name that true men hold
+sacred.
+
+If ever a time has been on earth, when women could possess all the power
+of men, it was during the French Revolution. How did it end? Who among
+those females has left a trace in her national history which is not
+written in blood, and in acts more atrocious than men would have dared
+perpetrate, had not the cheers of blood-thirsty women urged them on.
+While there was no law, men and women stood on a level—anarchy made no
+distinctions of sex. When women become immodest, men sink to their
+lowest level. What a fearful level was that to which the proud old
+nation of France was brought when assassination took the mockery of law,
+and indiscriminate murder became a national amusement.
+
+A few great and true-hearted women certainly were drawn into this awful
+maelstrom; but it was to sicken in the sea of blood that overwhelmed
+them, and perish under the heels of an enraged multitude, whose fiendish
+acts their own enthusiasm had aided to inspire. Who among all the army
+of women that marched to Versailles, on that gloomy day, has an honored
+place in the history of France now? Of the hundreds who mingled their
+voices with those of Danton, Robespierre, and Marat, at the clubs, is
+there one who has not been consigned to the blackest infamy by all
+historians? Madame Roland, who gloried in writing her husband’s letters,
+and was in character and position lifted far above the infamous rabble
+of women who made demons of the men they influenced, died on the
+scaffold, bravely as she had lived; but the last words on her lips were
+a bewailing cry over the atrocities perpetrated in the name of her ideal
+god.—Liberty.
+
+Louison Brisot possessed all the crafty and unscrupulous qualities that
+made leaders in those horrible times. Like most of her compeers, who
+were not blindly led, she seized upon the evil passions of others to
+work out her own desires and crude ambition. With a sharp intellect and
+depraved heart, she had flung herself at the feet of Mirabeau, partly in
+homage to his undoubted genius, and partly because he was the brightest
+power in that Assembly of demagogues. But the count had never even
+pretended to give her, in return for her adoration, anything like
+respect. Sometimes he deigned to accept her as the instrument of his
+ambition, as he always used the talent of others for his own
+advancement, whenever it came in his way; but for all she could do for
+him he gave no return, save that careless acceptance which exasperated
+while it enthralled her.
+
+So long as Mirabeau loved no other woman, Louison contented herself with
+an ostentatious exhibition of her fancied power over him. This won her
+the notoriety which so many women coveted; but when she knew that the
+queen, a woman she hated more than any other in France had cast the
+charm of her high position and personal loveliness over this powerful
+man; when she saw the tender reverence with which his lips touched that
+white hand, the passion of her love blazed into fury. She saw herself
+hurled down from the position which had been assumed till it was
+recognized as one of power, and laughed to scorn by the person whose
+very contempt was more valuable to her than the purest love of a meaner
+man.
+
+Louison gave no sign of the agitation that had at first overwhelmed her,
+but watched and waited with feline patience for any movement that might
+bring the haughty man she both loved and hated, within the grasp of her
+vengeance.
+
+There was no social rule by which the agitators of France governed
+themselves in those days, and there was no association so debased that
+these men dared not glory in it. With them there was nothing to conceal,
+because there was no shame; they worshiped excess in a goddess called
+Liberty; they crowned her with roses; and while defying all decency,
+called on the whole world to witness their orgies and share in them.
+
+In a state of society like this, it is not strange that a woman like
+Louison could find access anywhere, or that she had made herself almost
+an inmate of Mirabeau’s house, and entered it at any time that suited
+her pleasure.
+
+One evening Louison called at Mirabeau’s residence; but it was closed,
+and she was told that on the day before Mirabeau had left his lodgings,
+and taken a house in the Chaussée d’Anton, which he was fitting up with
+great splendor. Louison turned away from the lodgings, which had been
+deemed far too sumptuous for a friend of the people, with a heart on
+fire again, and the bitterest word she knew of escaped through her
+clenched teeth.
+
+“The aristocrat!” she hissed, rather than spoke. “He has done this with
+money from that woman—the meeting in the Park was not their first. His
+soul is poisoned with her gold. I will look upon this new palace myself,
+but not till I have walked off my rage. He must not look upon me while
+this fire burns so hotly.”
+
+The woman pressed both hands upon her heart as she turned from the door,
+and was herself terrified by the fierce struggle going on there; the
+very breath, as it rose panting to her lips, seemed to strangle her.
+What better proof of Mirabeau’s utter subjection to the court did she
+want than this removal to an aristocratic quarter and luxurious
+dwelling? No one knew so well as herself that Mirabeau had no income
+from property, nothing but his talent and influence to sell. He still
+retained so much of the habits of his lordly birth, that the squalid
+penury affected by Robespierre and Marat revolted him. He had never yet
+been able to throw off the tastes of a gentleman in his mode of living,
+and in this lost all the independence which was so necessary to
+statesmanship.
+
+A new thought came into Louison’s head. Mirabeau had taken money from
+the court. Might not this be his sole motive for asking or accepting
+that interview with Marie Antoinette. Had he ever hesitated to cajole or
+deceive a woman in the pursuit of any object? And what reverence would
+his audacious nature feel for the queen, merely because she was seated
+on a throne which already shook to its foundations?
+
+This idea came with force upon the angry woman, the thought that money,
+instead of love, had taken her idol to St. Cloud, swept away half the
+jealousy that tortured her. She began to feel a bitter triumph in the
+supreme duplicity of which she suspected the count guilty.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXX.
+ TAKING AN OBSERVATION.
+
+
+With no hesitation or fear, Louison turned toward the Chaussée d’Anton.
+The thoroughfares were full of people, men and women, conversing
+together in knots, and fraternizing with the municipal guards, in coarse
+and equal companionship. More than once she was hailed by some person in
+the crowd, who received a sharp or witty reply in return, which often
+sent shouts of laughter after her. Now and than she stopped to speak
+with some patriot, whose notoriety gave him a claim to her attention,
+but moved on again, laughing and flinging back jokes and jeers as she
+went.
+
+As Louison turned a corner, with a feverish laugh still upon her lips, a
+man came suddenly around the angle, whom she recognized at once. This
+man she knew to be the secret and most bitter enemy of Mirabeau, and at
+another time would have avoided him; for his small, lean figure,
+fantastically arrayed in a well-worn coat, and buff small-clothes,
+brushed thread-bare, was well calculated to inspire contempt and
+ridicule from a creature so reckless in her liking as Louison. But she
+paused in her swift progress, and spoke to the man now.
+
+“Ah, citizen Robespierre! is it you that I was almost running against?
+Have the Cordeliers become so strong that they can spare you from the
+club so early?”
+
+The man hesitated, occupied himself a moment with the buttons of his
+olive-green coat, and passed his hand over the plaited ruffles that
+fluttered in his bosom. Louison had never addressed him so familiarly
+before, and he was by nature a timid man—so timid, that he was
+disconcerted by the abrupt speech of a woman who had hitherto avoided
+him. Before he was ready to reply, Louison relieved his embarrassment by
+a new question.
+
+“It is well to look modest, citizen, and keep in the background. Only
+great men can afford to retire into the shadow; but I knew what spirit
+inspires the club, and the women of Paris are as well informed. Surely
+you must be aware of that?”
+
+Robespierre answered her now, for vanity gave him courage.
+
+“I did not think that a friend of Mirabeau would find any merit in a man
+who has so little hold on the good will of the people,” he said, in a
+low, rasping voice, while a faint sneer stole over his lips, which was
+the nearest approach to a smile any one ever saw on his face.
+
+“How modest we are!” exclaimed Louison, showing her white teeth, as she
+smiled upon the little man, whom it was the fashion to ridicule even in
+the Assembly, where his terrible force of character was, at the time,
+but imperfectly known. “A true patriot, citizen, sees merit in every one
+who loves his country and hates the king; but what is the homage of a
+poor girl like me worth, compared with Theroigne, of Liege? Was it not
+you who introduced her to the Cordelier, and called out, that was the
+Queen of Sheba?”
+
+“No; that was Laclos. Theroigne is a woman for poets to adore, and she
+inspired him.”
+
+“But they tell me that Robespierre is himself a poet, and that great
+genius fires his patriotism.”
+
+The sneer so natural to Robespierre’s lip melted into a simper, and the
+lids drooped over the greenish gray of his eyes.
+
+“I do not know who has overrated my poor ability,” he said; “but if a
+spark of poetry ever inspired me, mademoiselle would enkindle it. Why
+does she so entirely confine herself to the Jacobins? Is it because
+Mirabeau reigns there as a god?”
+
+“Not so, citizen. A true woman of France claims perfect freedom to think
+and worship where she pleases. I have been at the Cordeliers many a
+time, and listened to the eloquence of a man whom the nation will yet
+learn to know as one of its greatest orators, and most potent leaders.”
+
+Louison bent her stately head, thus enforcing her compliment, and
+prepared to move on; but Robespierre followed her.
+
+“Mademoiselle, I speak in the Assembly to-morrow. Will you come?”
+
+“Does Mirabeau speak?”
+
+“Yes, and I oppose him; for that reason you will not come?”
+
+“For that very reason I will come. The man who possesses power enough to
+defeat any measure urged by Mirabeau, must be worthy of adoration.”
+
+“Ah! if I could inspire such homage from women, and such power among
+men!” said Robespierre, with a sort of bitter sadness. “Count Mirabeau
+carries the heart of France with him.”
+
+“But it may not be forever,” said Louison, almost in a whisper. “What
+would Mirabeau be if the faith of the people fell from him?”
+
+“You ask this question, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Why not? All men should be watched. The price of liberty is eternal
+vigilance. Some American said that; or, is it my own thought? I cannot
+tell; but some day the place of Mirabeau will be vacant. Who is ready to
+fill it?”
+
+“Mademoiselle, you suggest an impossibility.”
+
+“There is but one man in France. Others may not see it; but to me his
+destiny is plain. That man, shrouded in modesty, stands before me.”
+
+“Mademoiselle!”
+
+“That man is Maximilien Robespierre.”
+
+Louison moved swiftly away, as she spoke, and left the man standing
+quite alone, so amazed, that he did not move till she was out of sight.
+Then he turned from the course he was pursuing, and went to his sordid
+lodgings, inspired by new ambition. Louison had divined the one great
+weakness in his character, and, while inspiring his vanity, aroused a
+more powerful ambition than she dreamed of. Still, she had spoken
+something of the truth, and with her quick intellect saw more in this
+lean, little man than those who sat with him every day had yet
+discovered.
+
+“That is well done!” said Louison, as she walked toward the Chaussée
+d’Anton. “This man is becoming a favorite with the people. He is shrewd,
+cold-hearted, indomitable. Sooner or later he will stand in the path of
+Mirabeau, perhaps undermine the foundations of his popularity; for, much
+as Robespierre loves France, he hates the count. Yes, yes; I did well to
+flatter the man. My next effort shall be with Marat.”
+
+Louison fairly started with surprise when she reached the residence of
+which Mirabeau had just taken possession. It was a grand structure, that
+had been abandoned as it stood, by some noble emigrant, who was now safe
+upon the borders. The eloquent demagogue had rather seized than hired
+the building, with all its luxurious appointments; and, even at that
+early day, was entertaining a party of riotous friends in the grand
+saloon.
+
+A servant, out of livery, but still richly dressed, opened the door, and
+let a flood of light upon Louison where she stood, with calm audacity,
+waiting for admission, as if the place had been her own home. The
+servant had belonged to the noble family by which the house had been
+deserted, and recognised the woman in her real character. When she asked
+for Mirabeau, he answered, with something like a sneer in his voice,
+that the count was entertaining his friends, and must not be disturbed.
+
+Louison laughed, gave her handsome head a disdainful toss, and, passing
+by the astonished servant, entered the hall, which she surveyed with
+tranquil curiosity, lifting her face to examine the exquisitely carved
+corbel of the ceiling, and giving a general survey of the statues and
+antique ornaments which surrounded her. After her curiosity was
+satisfied, she took the scarf from her shoulders, and, untying the gipsy
+bonnet from her head, hung them both on the arm of a mailed statue that
+stood near the door, gave the bright, crisp ringlets on her head a
+vigorous shake, and, guided by a riot of voices, walked toward the
+saloon, with all the easy confidence of an invited guest.
+
+The picture which this woman intruded upon was something wonderful in
+its splendid incongruity. A Venetian chandelier, whose heavy pendants of
+flat, half opaque glass swayed to and fro in a sea of radiance, shed a
+broad blaze of light upon a table gorgeous with exquisite china,
+malachite and crystal vases, running over with flowers, glittering with
+gold and silver plate. Crystal goblets, sparkling with wine, amber-hued,
+ruby-tinted, and of purplish darkness, swayed to and fro in the hands of
+half a dozen loosely-clad women, who were busily wreathing them with
+flowers, in imitation of the ancient Greeks, themselves looking like
+heathen goddesses, rather than Christian women.
+
+A group of men in full dress, worn awkwardly, except in one or two
+cases, leaned upon the table in various attitudes, and watched the women
+as they proceeded in their classical work, now and then rifling the
+vases, and tossing their blossoms across the table in aid of the growing
+garlands.
+
+Everything that the light touched was warm with rich coloring. Masses of
+frescoed flowers glowed out from the ceiling. Each panel in the wall was
+an exquisite picture. Broad mirrors were sunk deep in frames carved in
+masses of delicate golden foliage, broken up by clusters of white
+lilies, devised at the royal works at Sevres. These lilies seemed to be
+cut from luminous pearls, and shed their own light upon the mirrors; for
+the stamens were of perfumed wax, and burned like a star, while a
+perfume, like that of the natural flower, stole out from each tiny
+flame.
+
+All this splendor Louison took in at a glance, which filled her soul
+with fiery indignation. Who were these women whom Mirabeau had invited
+to his new home without consulting her? By the immodest splendor of
+their dresses they might belong to the court or the theatre. Her lips
+curved and her eyes flashed as she regarded them. She stood unobserved,
+with one foot advanced on the Gobelin carpet, searching the group with
+indignant curiosity. Growing calmer, she recognised some of the men as
+among the most talented and dissolute of Mirabeau’s companions. They
+were arrayed in court dresses, and disguised by wigs of long, curling
+hair, that floated in love-locks over the glowing velvet of their coats;
+while the women had combined the loose scantiness affected even then by
+the Jacobins, with rich materials hitherto known only to the nobility.
+The brilliant crimson of their rouged cheeks, the black patches
+scattered on forehead and chin, masses of hair, piled roll upon roll,
+and curl upon curl, would have deceived any person not born of the
+court, into believing them of noble birth and breeding.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXXI.
+ THE MIDNIGHT REVEL.
+
+
+One by one, Louison made these people out, even before she heard their
+voices. In the first she saw her great political rival, Theroigne de
+Mericourt, of Liege, one of the most influential, audacious, and
+beautiful women of the revolution.
+
+Louison recognized this woman with a pang of bitter jealousy. What right
+had the Queen of the Cordeliers in the house of Count Mirabeau?
+
+Another woman lifted her face from the goblet she was wreathing, and
+demanded more flowers for her garland. Two or three eager hands were
+outstretched to a vase, and some one flung her a handful of lilies,
+among them was a purple _fleur de lis_. The woman turned pale through
+her rouge when she saw the flower; gave a quick, half-frightened glance
+at the man who flung it at her, then cast it upon the floor, and
+trampled it into the carpet with well simulated indignation.
+
+“I wonder that you dare give me a flower that has become hateful to all
+France?” she said, stamping once more on the poor broken blossom. “Nay,
+I marvel that it can be found under the roof of so true a patriot as we
+all know the count to be. Give me roses, heart’s-ease, anything that
+will take this perfume of royalty from the air.”
+
+Louison knew this woman also. She was Madame Du Berry, who, once lifted
+from the dregs of the people by the favoritism of a bad king, had gone
+back to her original element, taking a certain queenly air even in her
+fallen state, which lingered around her as she trod that poor emblem of
+royalty under her feet.
+
+“Ah, madame! that is ungrateful in one who owes so much to the
+protection of that poor flower.”
+
+“But I owe more to France, and I belong to the people. Do not make me
+blush that I ever left them!” cried the hypocrite, busying herself with
+the pansies and roses that lay upon the table before her.
+
+Louison watched that face keenly, and read something there which aroused
+a vague suspicion of the woman’s sincerity. She caught one brief, quick
+glance of the eyes turned upon Mirabeau, and understood at once that
+there was some understanding between these two persons. Slowly she drew
+back into the shadow of the hall, and watched them, unseen, as the revel
+went on.
+
+Mirabeau was sitting at the head of the table, leaning back in his
+cushioned seat, with an air of a lord entertaining his vassals. His
+dress bore no marks of the foppery which seemed so unnatural in his
+guests; being noble, he cared nothing for the appearances of high birth.
+Knowing himself powerful, he gloried in a certain individuality that
+distinguished him alike from the nobility to which he had belonged, and
+the people he had adopted. His massive head wore its own thick, tawny
+hair, swept back from his temples and forehead in waving rolls; his coat
+of plum-colored velvet, without lace or embroidery, fell away from a
+snow-white vest, carelessly buttoned half-way up. Here it revealed the
+broad plaited ruffles which shaded his bosom, and fell so carelessly
+apart at the throat, that the massive curve of his white neck was
+clearly exposed until it swelled into the broad chest. In his powerful
+strength and sublime ugliness this man made the grandest figure in that
+gorgeous scene. That which the others simulated he felt; and a smile of
+pleasant scorn came and went around his mouth, as he sat watching the
+awkward assumption of his guests, who, for once, were masquerading as
+noblemen.
+
+At first Louison had intended to show herself before these people, and
+confront the man who had so suddenly disenthralled himself from her
+influence; but the glance which she saw pass so swiftly between him and
+Du Berry, changed her mind. She resolved to find some method of
+listening to all that passed, and thus make herself mistress of any
+secret that might have brought them together.
+
+As she stood within the shelter of a mailed statue, near the grand
+stair-case, Louison saw a side-door open, and a little figure steal
+softly into the hall, as if afraid of being seen. His face was darker by
+far than any shadow could make it, and he moved stealthily across the
+floor till a good view of the supper table was obtained; then he
+crouched down in the shadow of the stair-case and seemed to disappear.
+That moment the door of the saloon was closed.
+
+The mailed statue stood between Louison and this creeping object. She
+felt sure that he had not observed her; but a faint light streaming into
+the hall through the door he had left ajar, made her position a
+difficult one to conceal. She cast wistful glances at this little stream
+of light, which came, she was convinced, from some apartment adjoining
+the banqueting-saloon. At last, keeping within the shadow of the statue,
+she glided toward this opening, and found herself in a small apartment,
+lighted only by the faint gleams that came from the hall, and broke
+through the side of a panel, which evidently was used as a concealed
+door connecting with the saloon. Some antique tapestry fell apart just
+before this panel, and under it the woman concealed herself, drawing the
+tapestry so close as to obstruct all light from the room. Through the
+crevice she commanded a full view of everything that transpired in the
+saloon, and could distinctly hear each spoken word. Never had a jealous
+woman and a spy better opportunities of observation. Directly in the
+line of her vision sat Mirabeau, leaning back in his chair with an
+expression of broad, animal enjoyment on his face.
+
+Near him, with the delicate whiteness of her garments clinging around
+her superb form, and her bare arm uplifted, stood Theroigne de
+Mericourt, waving the goblet she had crowned with flowers over her head,
+as she called out,
+
+“To Mirabeau, the god of the people! The man who flung his title
+underfoot that the _canaille_ may trample on it. He did not wait for the
+people to tear off his coronet.”
+
+A dozen goblets flashed in the air as she spoke, so quickly that the
+flowers fell from them bathed in a rain of wine-drops.
+
+“To Mirabeau! Life to him! Destruction to all tyrants!”
+
+The mingled voices of men and women went up simultaneously in this
+shout. The crystal light of the goblets rippled around a dozen heads,
+while Mirabeau sat still, smiling like a sultan, to whom homage in any
+form was an inheritance.
+
+After this riotous toast was given, Theroigne remarked that the host was
+drinking pure water instead of wine. Then kissing her goblet, and
+bathing her red lips in the perfume of its flowers, she leaned over the
+table, and bade them drink to the toast, which should be a crowning one
+of the festival.
+
+Mirabeau took the goblet and swung it around his head, as Theroigne
+snatched another from the table, and cried out,
+
+“Fill! fill with red wine now! and drain each glass to the dregs, as we
+will yet drain the hearts of Louis and his Austrian wife.”
+
+A shout followed, a crash of glasses, and the mellow gurgle of wine, as
+it flowed down the thirsty throats of the company.
+
+Theroigne drained her goblet, and drew a deep, long breath; with her
+tongue, she lapped the wine from her lips, and muttered in a low voice,
+but loud enough for all to hear,
+
+“It has a rare taste of blood!”
+
+Louison from her concealment, saw that two persons in the company lifted
+their goblets, but tasted no drop of the wine. Mirabeau touched his lips
+to the flowers, but dashed the wine over his shoulder; and while the
+rest were drinking, it sunk with a broad, red stain, into the snowy
+ground of the carpet.
+
+Du Berry lifted her goblet also, but turned so deadly white that the
+rouge upon her face stood out frightfully from its general pallor.
+Dropping the glass, she put her hand to her throat, as if a spasm of
+pain had seized her, and would have left the table but for a commanding
+look from Mirabeau, which warned her of danger.
+
+“They understand each other,” thought Louison; “this is not simply a
+carouse. Du Berry and Mirabeau share secrets together; and these idiots,
+swaggering in the cast-off garments of some cowardly nobleman, cannot
+see it.”
+
+She was mistaken. Theroigne de Mericourt was quick-sighted as herself.
+Du Berry had affiliated herself with the revolutionists—but the
+extremists always held her in distrust. She was still a beautiful woman,
+and a certain prestige lingered in her history, which would have been a
+recommendation to the powers that were rising on the waves of the
+national revolt, had it not been connected with the old king, whose
+memory was hated.
+
+“Turn down your goblets,” said the young amazon, shaking the last drops
+from her glass, and tossing the flowers into the face of her _vis-a-vis_
+at the table. “I hold the man or woman who has not drained every drop as
+an enemy to France.”
+
+Before Du Berry could reach forth her hand, Mirabeau had pushed his
+empty goblet toward her, and seized upon hers.
+
+“If I did not drain my glass at once, it was because admiration is
+sometimes more powerful than the love of liberty. Having drank to the
+death of royalty, let me pour out a libation to the goddess, who knows
+so well how to teach Frenchmen their duty.”
+
+Here Mirabeau poured the contents of his glass into a malachite vase
+that stood near him, half choked up with flowers.
+
+Theroigne’s dark eyes flashed. She had brought half the leading patriots
+of the clubs to her feet; but Mirabeau, up to this time, had kept aloof
+from her influence, and she felt her power incomplete without his
+subjugation. It was a great step that he had invited her to his house;
+but other women were equally honored. Du Berry sat at his right hand—was
+there a preference in this?
+
+Du Berry took Mirabeau’s lead and sprang to her feet.
+
+“The women of France are the soul of her revolutions,” she said; “and
+Theroigne is their leader. Fill up once more to the first woman of
+France.”
+
+“To Mirabeau alone belongs the pleasure of proposing this homage to the
+great spirit of the revolution,” answered the host. Amid the confusion
+and riot that followed, Du Berry escaped further notice of her
+imprudence in refusing to drink to the death of a man and a woman who
+had been forbearing and most kind to her when she had deserved so little
+consideration at their hands.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXXII.
+ THROWING OFF DISGUISES.
+
+
+Then evening wore on, and Mirabeau’s guests came out of the awkwardness
+of a sumptuous masquerade, where they had been aping the life they
+professed to despise, and their coarse natures revealed themselves amid
+flowers, jewels, laces, and silks, with ludicrous incongruity.
+
+Mirabeau enjoyed the scene with keen zest. In his heart he despised the
+paltry display which only made his plebeian friends unnatural and
+awkward; but the whole scene amused him, and, with his usual
+forethought, he had arranged it for his own advantage. In this adroit
+way he hoped to mingle such elements together as would render his
+projects, regarding the royal family, less open to observation.
+
+Louison understood the whole scene. One by one she began to recognize
+the men who figured under those splendid garments; and even in her anger
+she smiled as the coarse hand of Marat protruded from the ruffles of
+gossamer lace that fell from under his coat-sleeve, in a rude attempt to
+wave kisses across the table to Theroigne, who received his advances
+with a disdainful laugh, which Du Berry joined, more covertly. She was
+no stranger to the splendid objects that surrounded her, and took some
+pride in the ultra refinements which she had brought out of her former
+grandeur.
+
+Marat, whose vanity was extreme, drew back from the ridicule of these
+women with a growl of anger; low born and humbly bred as himself, they
+had easily adopted the careless self-possession which he aimed at in
+vain. But this man was already making his influence felt in the clubs,
+and no one present felt strong enough to ridicule him openly.
+
+Du Berry laughed behind her fan; and Theroigne turned her face away and
+made signs of disgust to Mirabeau, who leaned back in his chair and
+smiled upon them all.
+
+Marat witnessed all this reflected in a mirror upon the opposite wall,
+and he never forgot it.
+
+Louison saw his coarse face darken, and knew that she could depend on
+him when her hour of vengeance came.
+
+Marat, as if to assure her of this, started to his feet.
+
+“Come, citizens, we have played at this folly long enough,” he said,
+coarsely. “Why should we ape that which we despise, and will yet trample
+into the earth? I, for one, am sick of this farce. True patriots only
+grow strong in their own elements. Bah! these perfumes suffocate me!”
+
+With these words, the brutal man snatched off his wig and sent all its
+powdered curls flying across the room, thus more completely exposing all
+the coarseness of his features. Then he threw open the velvet coat, and
+attempted to draw it from his shoulders, cursing its tightness, and
+making vicious threats against the more slender aristocrat to whom it
+had belonged.
+
+Theroigne burst into a peal of laughter as he tugged at the sleeves, and
+distorted his shoulders in a fruitless effort to free himself from the
+splendid garment; for in his fury he had torn open the laced ruffles on
+his bosom, and revealed to the whole company under garments of his own,
+coarse, dingy, and scarcely fit for a beggar.
+
+“Let me help you, citizen!” cried the amazon, springing to her chair,
+placing one foot on the edge of the table and leaping across it. “Upon
+my life, you have hard work not to look like an aristocrat. There, now,
+the coat is off, and you have torn all this lovely lace to tatters. So
+much the better. Marat is himself again. You cannot chain our lion of
+the revolution with ribbons or ropes of flowers.
+
+“See! see!” cried one of the guests, “what mischief one woman can do!
+Theroigne, in her zeal to take Marat out of his trappings, has deluged
+herself with wine. See how it trickles down her dress!”
+
+Theroigne cast a glance at the table, which was scattered with broken
+crystal, that glittered like fragments of ice in a red flood of wine
+which her foot had spilled. Then she shook out the folds of her white
+dress, which were dabbled red as the table; and, turning to Marat, cried
+out recklessly,
+
+“We are friends now and forever! I have only taken your colors, Marat,
+in advance!”
+
+“All France shall wear them yet,” Marat muttered, as he spurned away the
+coat he had taken off, with his foot.
+
+“So be it!” cried Theroigne. “Like you, I detest anything an aristocrat
+has touched. Let us be ourselves.”
+
+The amazon tore a garland of roses from her head, and trampled them down
+with the coat Marat had flung off.
+
+“Oh! if it were but the crown of France!” she said, fiercely.
+
+“And the woman who wears it,” growled Marat, who had drank wine enough
+to render him more than usually ferocious.
+
+Mirabeau caught the ruffian’s scowling glance, as he muttered these
+words under his breath, and guessed their meaning.
+
+“It is, doubtless, a noble sentiment which the citoyen utters; but he
+speaks too low. If it promises good to France, let us all join in it.”
+
+“You shall all join in it before I have done,” answered Marat, sullenly;
+“but there must be a baptism first. You, Mirabeau, are not prepared as
+yet. If some one would draw the blue blood from your veins, our patriots
+would trust you, and ask no questions.”
+
+“As it is,” said Mirabeau, laughing, “the people trust me, and with that
+I am content.”
+
+“There speaks out the audacious pride of the aristocrat,” was the bold
+answer; “half noble, half plebeian—one eternally fighting against the
+other. Who can trust either? Not Marat, for one.”
+
+Mirabeau’s face, grand and powerful in its supreme ugliness, darkened
+like a thunder-cloud for one instant, then cleared away with a laugh.
+
+“The air of this mansion does not agree with Marat,” he said.
+
+“No!” cried the ruffian; “it stifles me.”
+
+“Come, come!” cried Theroigne, “we must not quarrel with each other. It
+is the garments and the place. When Mirabeau gave us permission to
+ransack the mansion, and use what pleased us, he did not remember that
+the very atmosphere of luxury sickens a true patriot. Come, one and all!
+let us be ourselves again. We had a fancy to see how a nobleman, who
+grinds his luxuries out of the poor man’s labor, enjoyed his monopoly;
+but the whole thing surfeits me.”
+
+As she said this, Theroigne left the saloon, swept across the hall, and
+up the grand stair-case, followed by the whole party, except the host
+and Madame Du Berry, who had not joined in the harlequin frolic of the
+evening, having no curiosity to gratify regarding the usages of the
+aristocracy.
+
+When the last of his guests left the room, Mirabeau turned a somewhat
+anxious face on Du Berry.
+
+“Did this man terrify you, mademoiselle?” he said.
+
+“A little; he seems to regard me with peculiar spite.”
+
+“It is his nature; besides, he had been drinking too much wine!”
+
+“His very look made me shiver.”
+
+“But you must have more courage. It is with such men that you can have
+the influence we need.”
+
+“And this person from Liege?” questioned Du Berry doubtfully.
+
+Mirabeau smiled.
+
+“Now tell me,” said Du Berry, “what this strange scene means?”
+
+“Only this,” answered Mirabeau. “The house that I occupy, not long since
+belonged to a member of the court who very wisely emigrated, leaving all
+its appointments behind,—even, as you see, a portion of his wardrobe. He
+was a favorite with our friend at St. Cloud: and I received an
+invitation that my residence here might save it from pillage. I took
+possession. It was a dangerous experiment, for these people watch me
+with the vigilance of hounds. To-night I gave them a supper, inviting
+the most violent of the clubs. They believe, and I permit it, that I
+have taken a brigand’s possession of this house, and insisted on
+ransacking it from top to bottom. In the wardrobe they found some rich
+dresses, which the owner feared to encumber himself with; and at the
+instigation of Theroigne, of Liege, got up the scene you have witnessed.
+It is wonderful how eagerly our Jacobins seize upon every opportunity to
+lift themselves, if it is only for an hour, into an atmosphere of
+luxury, while they pretend to despise it.”
+
+“Hark!” said madame, under her breath, “it seemed to me, as if some one
+stirred.”
+
+“No; it is only our friends casting off their nobility. Was anything
+ever more absurd than the scene they enacted?”
+
+Madame burst into a hearty laugh.
+
+“Oh, _mon Dieu_! I never shall forget Marat in that dress. It was a
+hyena in the silver fox-skin. How his eyes peered out from under the
+curling wig. It was superb!”
+
+Again madame broke into a mellow laugh, and mimicked the awkward pose of
+Marat in his aristocratic dress, with inimitable humor.
+
+Mirabeau laughed till the tears came into his great, bold eyes. Then
+madame gave a comic imitation of Theroigne.
+
+“Oh!” she said, between the acts of her little comedy, “it is not often
+that a woman, taken from the _canaille_, can glide gracefully into the
+manners of the court.”
+
+“That,” said Mirabeau, with a meaning smile, “is only reserved to women
+of wonderful talent.”
+
+Madame laid her white hand with a graceful motion on her heart, thus
+acknowledging the compliment.
+
+“Oh, count! what a charming courtier was lost when you turned patriot.”
+
+“Madame, is it not possible for a man to be a courtier, and yet love his
+country?”
+
+“I begin to fear not. Mirabeau, these people distrust me. That woman——”
+
+Mirabeau interrupted her with a laugh.
+
+“That woman—well, what of her? Can she forgive your arch wit, your
+superb beauty?”
+
+“Hush, hush!” said madame, with a touch of mournful regret. “I am no
+longer beautiful, and these fearful convulsions have frightened all the
+little wit I ever possessed out of my brain; but, through it all, I have
+one feeling which nothing can destroy, gratitude to the king, and that
+gracious lady who would not countenance insult or spoliation against a
+fallen woman. It might have been half counterfeit, I know; but in the
+season of my bitter humiliation I was spared. I say to you, Count
+Mirabeau, I would rather perish than see harm come to them.”
+
+“We will both perish before that shall happen!” said Mirabeau,
+earnestly; “but let us beware of revealing a sentiment in their favor.”
+
+“Guard yourself, my friend. They are coming,” cried madame, catching her
+breath.
+
+True enough, a tremendous rush of feet came down the broad stair-case,
+and the superbly-dressed company, that had left the table in regal
+splendor, came back a rabble of riotous people, carelessly dressed,
+reckless in demeanor, and ready to blaspheme, or assert any wild theory
+that came into their heads, without regard to the decencies of language,
+or the presence of women. Indeed, respect for the sex had long ceased to
+be a restraint upon men who had trodden everything pure and beautiful
+under the cloven hoofs of an impossible idea.
+
+Louison knew that nothing of interest to herself would be gathered from
+the noisy arguments these men fairly hurled at each other over the
+fragments of a feast that had satiated them. She was about to withdraw
+from her hiding-place, when she became conscious of some object
+crouching on the floor. It was so hidden by the tapestry, that she would
+have gone away unconscious of a companion in her spying, had not her
+foot touched the little creature whom she had seen glide from that very
+apartment, and conceal himself in the hall, earlier in the evening.
+
+“Imp, what are you doing here?” she whispered, grasping the shrinking
+creature by the arm. “Spying upon your own mistress?”
+
+The dwarf wrenched himself from her grasp, and darted from the room.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXXIII.
+ THE DOUBLE SPY.
+
+
+Louison had lured the dwarf to her own lodgings. That moment he was
+attempting to force himself from under the powerful hand which she
+pressed upon his shoulder.
+
+“Tell me, little wretch, or I will inform your mistress that you spy
+upon her!”
+
+“No, no! I pray you.”
+
+“Spy upon her, and for what?”
+
+“Nothing. Oh, madame! it is for nothing. Zamara has all his life had the
+habit of listening. He loves to know everything; that is all. He never
+betrays.”
+
+“Unless it is for his interest,” said the woman, laughing maliciously,
+as her threatening eyes read the little, aged face that had grown dark
+and wrinkled, like a withered prune, during the progress of his servile
+life. “Of course, in these times, secrets are commodities that sell for
+good prices. You have many to sell, and I wish to buy. Is there anything
+that Zamara loves better than gold?”
+
+“No, no!” cried the little Indian, and his eyes struck fire. “Nothing
+but madame, my mistress.”
+
+“Do you love her better than this head?” exclaimed the woman, burying
+her hand in the crisp hair, which was now more than half white, and
+shaking the head her words threatened till the creature’s teeth
+chattered. “Answer me that, jackanapes.”
+
+The dwarf threw up both his long, thin hands, and held on to his head,
+seized with sudden terror.
+
+“My head—my own head? No, no! There is nothing on earth that Zamara
+loves better than that. Take your hands away, you hurt me!”
+
+“Well, there, you are free. I don’t mean to hurt you; but understand
+this, if you wish to keep this worthless head upon your miserable little
+shoulders, you will forget that any mistress exists to you in the world,
+except Louison Brisot.”
+
+“And who is Louison Brisot?”
+
+“Look in my face.”
+
+“There, I do,” faltered the dwarf, lifting his heavy eyes to the bold,
+handsome face bending down to his level.
+
+“Then do not forget it, for I am your mistress. It is for me that you
+must watch, and spy, and listen.”
+
+“But why for you?”
+
+“Because I can have your head cut off if you don’t—cut off and stuck
+upon a pike. Have you never seen such things?”
+
+“Yes,” gasped the dwarf, and his dark face turned livid. “I saw them
+carried along the road from Versailles. It was terrible.”
+
+“You saw women carrying them?”
+
+“Yes; I saw it.”
+
+The poor dwarf shuddered, and wrenched himself from the hand that seemed
+to burn his shoulder.
+
+“Those men were strong, powerful, full of life; but they offended the
+women of France. While their huge trunks lay in Versailles, you saw
+their heads dancing over that army of women. Look at me. It was I who
+lifted this hand, and in the twinkling of an eye those great, shaggy
+heads fell.”
+
+“Oh, _mon Dieu_! let me go. Let me go!” cried the poor wretch.
+
+“No; there is no such thing as letting go. You must obey me, or——”
+
+Here the woman drew her finger across her throat with the slightest
+possible action, and uttered a short laugh as the dwarf winced in
+cowardly fear.
+
+“What is it that you want of me, madame?” he gasped.
+
+“That you report everything to me. A little thing, but it is all I ask
+in exchange for your miserable life.”
+
+“But about what?”
+
+“About your mistress; about Count Mirabeau; and, above all, about the
+queen.”
+
+“The queen! I—I know nothing about her. How should I?”
+
+“How should you, little craven? Who is it that carries letters from
+Mirabeau to the Austrian?”
+
+“It is not Zamara! Upon my life, upon my soul, it is not Zamara!”
+
+“But you know who does take them?”
+
+“No; I am not trusted so far. She doubts me—me, who stood by her when
+all her friends fell off, who went with her into exile among the
+detestable English, where the skies forever weep rain, and one is
+chilled to the soul. All this Zamara did, yet the mistress will not
+trust him.”
+
+“But he can find out?”
+
+“Yes; Zamara knows how to do that.”
+
+“Well, listen. Some one takes letters from Count Mirabeau to the queen,
+and they pass through the hands of your mistress.”
+
+“No, no; she would not be permitted. She never sees the queen—never!”
+
+“Still, it is through her these letters pass. I know it from words that
+fell from the count—careless words, which he fancied I did not heed.
+That much I know—you must find out the rest.”
+
+“If I do, what then?”
+
+“Why, that paltry life of yours will be safe. I have the power—I have
+the will. No one, great or small, shall touch it.”
+
+“And my mistress?”
+
+“Do not trouble your little head about her. She professes to belong to
+the people—she, who came from its dregs. Let her prove herself their
+friend, or be proven their enemy. You have nothing to do with that.”
+
+“Ah! but she has been kind to me—only that sometimes she suspects.”
+
+“Not so kind as I will be, if you prove sharp and faithful.”
+
+The dwarf bent low and kissed the hem of that woman’s garment, in token
+of submission, as he had often kissed the almost regal robes of the
+countess, his mistress.
+
+“I shall remember that madame has the power to kill,” he said, abjectly.
+
+“A safe way of insuring honesty,” laughed the woman. “I am not afraid
+that you will venture to trifle with your own life.”
+
+The dwarf took his cap from the floor, where it had fallen in the first
+tremor of his fear, and cast a furtive look over his shoulder, longing
+to escape from that dreadful presence; but Louison seemed to find
+pleasure in tormenting him.
+
+“_Mon Dieu!_ how pale you look through all that blackness!” she said.
+“There is wine. What you have to do requires more courage. Drink,
+drink!”
+
+The dwarf seized upon the goblet which Louison filled, and drank off
+wine enough to have intoxicated a strong man before he relinquished his
+hold on the glass.
+
+“That is good wine,” he said, drawing a deep breath, and kindling into
+something like courage. “One does not fear so much with that in his
+veins. Now will madame, or mademoiselle, I do not know which she is,
+inform me exactly what she wishes of Zamara?”
+
+“Sit down here,” said Louison, placing herself on a couch, and tossing
+one of its cushions to her feet, on which the Indian crouched like a
+dog. “I will tell you just what you are to do—and make sure you do it.”
+
+“Zamara listens,” murmured the dwarf, feeling a warm glow of wine
+burning through the duskiness of his cheek.
+
+Thus, with his great, black eyes half closed, and his features relaxing
+into something like repose, he sat inertly, while Louison went into the
+detail of her plans, in which he was to act the part of a traitor and a
+spy upon the only real friend he had ever known.
+
+Persuasion or bribery might have failed to turn that pampered creature
+into the foul ingrate he became. But Zamara had seen awful deeds during
+the riots of Paris, that the very thought of danger from that quarter
+made a craven of him. His own poor life was the only real possession
+that he had on earth; when that was threatened, all I that was good and
+honest in his nature gave way. He arose from the cushion the abject
+slave of the woman whom he regarded with crouching fear and deadly hate.
+
+“You will know where to find me, for this is my home.”
+
+Zamara looked around the room with contempt in his heart. The flimsy
+curtains, knotted back with tufts of faded pink ribbon; those poor
+plants in the window, pining for want of a little water; the table,
+littered over with Jacobin pamphlets and rebellious journals; the
+pictures on the walls, those mirrors in tarnished gilding, the faded
+silk of the couch, dead flowers in the vases, all bespoke the reckless
+desire of their owner to ape the luxury she pretended to despise. Zamara
+saw this, and his miserable little heart filled with contempt of the
+woman he feared. He had lived too long in the regal splendor of the
+little Trianon not to sneer in his soul at the vulgar mockery of
+elegance affected by this woman of the people.
+
+“You will know where to find me,” said Louison, again, looking around
+her room with great satisfaction. “It is not likely that you can forget,
+having once been here.”
+
+“No; I shall never forget,” answered the dwarf, with a gleam in his eye,
+and something almost like a sneer in his voice, “never!”
+
+Louison had been terribly wounded in her vanity by the position in which
+she discovered Theroigne de Mericourt and Du Berry. Those two women,
+both almost as worthless as herself, had become her bane since the night
+she had seen Mirabeau smiling on them as guests of a table to which she
+was not invited. She had heard of the elegance which Du Berry still kept
+up, and knew that Theroigne was following her example, with the fearless
+audacity of a bold, beautiful woman, ready to risk her power rather than
+sacrifice one iota of the personal luxury which she considered as her
+right.
+
+“These women would thrust me aside,” she reasoned, with vindictive hate.
+“They have already taken my place in the clubs, and now crowd me away
+from Mirabeau’s table. If they can ape queens with safety, so can I. But
+let them take care, I have one almost in my grasp. She thinks to play
+double, and win on both sides. We shall see! We shall see!”
+
+These thoughts swept through her mind as the dwarf stood by, longing to
+go, but afraid to move. She had noticed the incipient sneer on his face,
+and it wounded her self-love.
+
+“This is not a palace,” she said, sharply. “I know that; but who can
+tell what may happen. I am far more likely to—but no matter. There is no
+knowing what ship comes in first when the ocean rages. Remember this,
+either Count Mirabeau, or your mistress must not meet or communicate,
+without all the particulars coming to me at once. Your life depends on
+that. Now go, I think you understand me.”
+
+“Yes, I comprehend,” answered the dwarf, crushing his cap nervously with
+both hands as he edged toward the door.
+
+“And you will not forget, I make sure of that,” said Louison, waving her
+hand as a signal that he might go.
+
+Zamara took the hint and glided through the door.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXXIV.
+ LOUISON AND MARGUERITE.
+
+
+Dame Doudel held a letter in her hand. “It is from my sister Tillery,”
+she said. “Just as usual, she wants you. As if there was no person in
+the world but herself.”
+
+“I should like to go. Dame Tillery is always kind, always glad when I
+come,” said Marguerite, flushing with pleasure. All at once a thought
+chilled this sweet enthusiasm. If she went to Versailles then, perhaps
+_he_ might come in her absence, and never take the trouble of calling
+again.
+
+Dame Doudel saw the change in Marguerite’s countenance without
+comprehending it.
+
+“Do not be troubled, little one,” she said. “You shall go, if it
+disappoints you so much. My sister has no children of her own, and I
+would not stand in the way of any good fortune that might come to you
+for all the world. So brighten up! brighten up! and get your work done.
+She will not be here to-day or to-morrow—you have plenty of time.”
+
+Still Marguerite’s pretty face was clouded, and her bosom swelled with a
+sigh, soft and quick as the bland air that shook the snow-white curtains
+at her window. Two days! Perhaps she might see him in that time. Surely,
+if he cared about coming again, there would be time enough. “Now fill
+your basket, Marguerite, and come with me to the market. If you are to
+have holidays with my sister, we must work hard now.”
+
+Marguerite sighed. Her own share in the business had grown very dull
+since so many courtiers had been driven from the kingdom. There could be
+scarcely a market for flowers, when the people of the nation were
+starving for bread. Still she said nothing, but gathering up the
+garlands and bouquets that lay heaped on the table, prepared to go out.
+
+These two females, as they came out of their humble domicil, formed a
+strong but by no means unpleasant contrast. Dame Doudel, with her thin
+features, sharp, black eyes, and prompt action, was the very embodiment
+of those national traits which have rendered the women of France among
+the most brilliant and practical in the world. Marguerite, with her
+sweet, young face shaded by a straw gipsy tied under the chin with a
+knot of blue ribbon, and the outlines of her slender person scarcely
+concealed by the thin mantle of white muslin that floated over her
+dress, seemed pure and innocent as the flowers she carried on her arm.
+Even in that busy and riotous season, when all France was in a state of
+agitation, people turned in the street to look at this pretty creature
+as she stepped daintily along, tapping the pavement with her high-heeled
+shoes, and looking down with loving fellowship on her flowers, as if
+each bud were akin to her.
+
+When Dame Doudel and her protegée reached the market, a little tumult
+arose among the women, most of whom recognized Marguerite as the person
+who had with one word so effectually represented their cause to the king
+on that memorable day at Versailles.
+
+“It is the child our Mirabeau brought to us when he said that the market
+mast be represented by a girl pretty and innocent; for nothing less can
+speak well for its devotion to France. From that day we have made her
+the child of the market. We are all her mothers. When the king made her
+a promise, it was for us. When he kissed her forehead, it was a seal of
+good faith to us. The king is good! The king is good! If he breaks faith
+with us, it is because of the Austrian.”
+
+With these words, accompanied with ardent caresses, the women of the
+market swarmed around the girl as if each one had some proprietorship in
+her innocence and beauty. They loaded her with fruit; they added to her
+lovely burden of flowers, and embraced her as if she had been a goddess.
+
+Marguerite received the homage with faint blushes, almost crying as she
+thought how little she had done to deserve so much affection. In vain
+she strove to convince them that she felt like an impostor. They would
+not permit even herself to diminish one virtue in their idol; would not
+believe that anything less than perfection could rest in the being whom
+Mirabeau had chosen to represent them before the king.
+
+At last Marguerite shrunk away from all these demonstrations, and
+bursting into tears, cried out,
+
+“Do not praise me! Do not love me so much! I did nothing! I used no
+argument; nay, I was worse than a coward, and could only cry out for
+bread, bread for our famished people. Then a panic seized me, and I
+fainted at the king’s feet!”
+
+“Yes, yes! but he lifted you in his arms; he kissed your forehead while
+the Austrian was looking on. His heart would always go out to the people
+if she would let it. What was the need of words. He saw our wants in
+your face; he heard them in that one word—_bread_!”
+
+Marguerite was standing by Dame Doudel’s stall, around which the women
+of the market had assembled, forgetting their traffic, and filled with
+enthusiasm. Their praises went to the young girl’s heart. With a love of
+royalty deep-seated in her nature, she felt her present position among
+these ardent women as a fraud which she had no right to maintain.
+
+Dame Doudel, while she rejoiced in the scene, watched her protegée
+closely, fearing that some imprudent word might extinguish the
+enthusiasm which was exalting her into something scarcely less than a
+goddess. All at once, Marguerite burst into a passion of tears, and
+retreating from the crowd of her admirers, caught Dame Doudel by the
+dress.
+
+“Oh! tell them—tell them that I love the king, the queen, and everything
+that belongs to them! Tell these good women they are breaking my heart
+with praises that I do not deserve, never can deserve!”
+
+“Hush, child! Hush, I command you!” cried the dame, breathless with
+terror. “What is it to them? Who asks you not to love the king—we all
+love him!”
+
+“What—what does she say? Who is it among us that has made her cry—tell
+us that!”
+
+“It is nothing. She is a tender-hearted little thing, and weeps with
+joy. Cannot you see that yourselves? Hush, my darling! let me speak for
+you. I know these women; they wish no evil to the king. Hush! hush!”
+
+Still Marguerite’s tender conscience was not pacified. She was timid,
+but by no means a coward. Those women evidently believed her heart and
+soul one of themselves, while she shrunk from all sympathy with them.
+How could she make them understand this without wounding her
+benefactress.
+
+“Let me speak! Oh! let me tell them!” she pleaded, clinging to the
+frightened dame. “It need harm no one but myself.”
+
+“I cannot. I have already told them you were one of us. Would you prove
+me a liar, and have me hooted out of the market?”
+
+“No, no! I did not think of that.”
+
+“Then be quiet.”
+
+“I will—I will. Only tell them that I deserve nothing.”
+
+“Very well; but look up. Wipe your eyes, and try to smile.”
+
+Marguerite tried her best to obey. She wiped her eyes with a fold of her
+muslin mantle, and made a pitiful attempt to brighten her face; but just
+before her, or rather above her, as she looked up, stood a young woman
+mounted on one of the stalls, who was regarding her with the keen
+scrutiny of an enemy. Marguerite gave a faint cry, and clung to Dame
+Doudel in sudden terror.
+
+“Do not speak—let them all go; but take me away—take me away from that
+woman!”
+
+The words died on those white lips, leaving them parted till the teeth
+shone through. The great, blue eyes of the girl widened and glowed with
+kindling horror. She knew that the woman who stood there, so fiendish in
+her beauty, was, in fact, a murderer. A sick faintness settled down upon
+her, and she sunk to a market-stool perfectly insensible.
+
+Then the voice of Louison Brisot broke forth in clear, ringing tones,
+that fell from her lips hot with the seething anger of a jealous woman.
+
+“My friends—women of France, tell me, if you can, who it is that you are
+worshiping?” she demanded, looking around upon the crowd which was now
+increased by a rabble from the streets. “Have you grown weak enough to
+pay homage to a child like that? What could she do for France? See how
+she sinks down and withers like a dead lily, at the first sound of my
+voice. Is it of such material that freedom is moulded? Is she a creature
+to represent the liberty of a nation? Why the first trumpet blast would
+frighten the life from her body. What has she done that you gather
+around her so!”
+
+“She is goodness itself—a child of the people, innocent as an angel. It
+was she who stood before the king that day at Versailles!” cried a dozen
+voices. “Why should you come here, Louison Brisot, to assail her? What
+can one like you know of a blameless child like her?”
+
+“But who is she—I demand that? Who is she?” cried Louison, trembling
+with rage; for this was the first time her opinions had been questioned
+among the women of the market.
+
+A broad-chested, keen-eyed woman, seated among the vegetables on her own
+stall, with both arms bare to the elbow, folded over her bosom, answered
+this question promptly,
+
+“She is the friend of Mirabeau. He chose her to speak for us before the
+king. What more do you want, Louison Brisot!”
+
+“The friend of Mirabeau! Let me look on her face!”
+
+Louison Brisot sprang from the stall, where she had been accustomed to
+harangue the women, and forced a passage to the spot where Marguerite
+lay insensible, half supported by the arms of Dame Doudel.
+
+“Let me look on her face, I say. Mirabeau has no friends that are not
+mine.”
+
+The deathly pallor on Marguerite’s face was white and cold as it had
+been when Doudel fell at her feet on that awful day when the Bastille
+was taken. Had she seen the young creature blooming, and with smiles
+upon her lips, it is doubtful if she would have known her again. As it
+was, a triumphant smile lighted her face when she turned upon the crowd.
+
+“This is an aristocrat, and no friend of Count Mirabeau’s.”
+
+The market women laughed, some with good-natured, mellow laughter,
+others bitterly, and casting menacing glances at Louison.
+
+“As if we did not know,” said the woman, who had from the first,
+answered Louison so boldly. “I, myself, went with her before the king.
+Count Mirabeau put her especially under my care—the lamb! Who will have
+the face to gainsay me in that? Not you, Louison Brisot, who never saw
+her.”
+
+“But I have seen her,” almost shrieked Louison; “and as I tell you, she
+was trying to save one of the king’s guard at the Bastille.”
+
+“And why not?” called out the portly dame who had spoken before. “Who
+among us was not at the taking of the Bastille? I was, and she went with
+me.”
+
+Louison’s outstretched arms fell to her side. She was not convinced; but
+this evidence coming from the market, baffled her. She looked around on
+the crowd of faces uplifted toward her, some were angry, some drawn with
+sneers; but most were laughing at her defeat, in careless good-humor.
+The stout woman who had, in fact, been one of a committee to wait on the
+king that day at Versailles, swung herself down from the stall on which
+she sat, and began to arrange her vegetables in high good-humor.
+Another, as she held up a splendid fish for the inspection of a
+customer, asked Louison if she thought that fine fellow was an
+aristocrat, too; and shook her sides with laughter when a sharp glance,
+but no answer, came in reply. In less than ten minutes the excited
+throng around Dame Doudel’s stall had dispersed, and the whole market
+was given up to business, made a little brisker by the time that had
+been lost.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXXV.
+ MIRABEAU BUYS FLOWERS.
+
+
+The crowd settled back, chaffering for fish, sorting out vegetables, and
+running up accounts, while the business of the day went on, and Louison
+Brisot made an ignominious retreat, for the first time, from the people
+she had almost ruled by her eloquence and fierce beauty; for those
+market women had become almost men in their tastes, and looked upon
+youth and beauty with the admiration of another sex.
+
+A few of Dame Doudel’s nearest neighbors hovered around the fainting
+girl; but Louison had disappeared from the market before Marguerite came
+to herself.
+
+The moment she opened her eyes, these warm-hearted women began to
+encourage and console her. What had she to fear? Why did she faint? Was
+it because of Louison Brisot? That was foolish—no one minded Louison
+now. Since it was known that Mirabeau had put her aside, when a proper
+person was wanted to lay their troubles before the king, she had been of
+little account. The market women were wives and mothers, honest women,
+who wanted to earn bread for their children in an honest way; and
+Mirabeau knew best how they should be represented. If he had wanted
+Louison Brisot, or Theroigne, to lead them, would he not have said so?
+But he did nothing of the kind.
+
+“Take this young girl,” he said; “you go to entreat the king, not to
+insult him. Liberty is grand, it is pure; when she pleads, it should be
+through innocent lips.” That was what our Mirabeau said—and he was
+right. “You have spoken for us, little one, and we will let no one wrong
+you, much less Louison.”
+
+“You are kind, I feel your goodness here,” said the poor girl, pressing
+a hand to her heart, which was still heavy with pain. “I only wish it
+possible to deserve the trust you place in me.”
+
+Marguerite spoke wearily, and her mournful eyes filled with tears. The
+shock that face had given her brought back that awful scene at the
+Bastille. The girl had a vivid imagination, and for a time the market,
+with all its gleaming fish, tinted vegetables, and crimson meat-stalls,
+vanished from her sight—she stood under the shadows of the Bastille, its
+grim towers shook to the foundation as a vast horde of human beings
+raged around them, men and women, soldiers and citizens, all crying out
+for some human life. A human life—whose was it? What was that which came
+crashing down from the tallest of those towers? The horror of the
+reality was scarcely more dreadful than the memory that woman’s face
+brought back upon her with a suddenness that struck the very life from
+her heart.
+
+“Let me go,” she said, appealing piteously to Dame Doudel; “I have stood
+here too long. They are all kind; but the air stifles me.”
+
+Marguerite took up her basket of flowers and left the market, followed
+by kindly words and pleasant looks from the women through whom she
+passed. With a slow, weary step she wandered away into the street, not
+once offering her flowers, but walking on dreamily, unmindful where she
+went, or whom she met. Indeed, she was so utterly heedless of everything
+around, that a woman was following her all the time, keeping a little
+way off, and she quite unconscious that the enemy she most dreaded was
+on her track, bitter and vindictive as a she wolf.
+
+“Will you sell me some flowers?”
+
+Marguerite started, looked up, and saw the strong, ugly face of Count
+Mirabeau bending over her.
+
+“Some flowers—some flowers!” repeated the girl. “Yes—yes. If—if you want
+them.”
+
+“Of course, I want them. Let me select, but with your help, though.
+Shall it be roses, or myrtle?”
+
+“Myrtle, I think,” said the girl, too sad for a choice of the brighter
+flowers.
+
+“But roses, too, and some of those sweet-smelling things.”
+
+“Here is a bunch in which they are all tied up. Will you take this,
+monsieur count?”
+
+“You know me again, sweet Marguerite?” said the count, taking the
+flowers and fastening them among the ruffles in his bosom. “Know me well
+enough to blush like your own roses; while I have seen that lovely face
+too often for my peace of mind.”
+
+“Do the flowers please you?” said Marguerite, dropping her eyes under
+the bold stare Mirabeau fixed upon her.
+
+“Please me? Of course they do. Here is a likeness of the king, if you
+can forgive the head for the sake of the gold.”
+
+“A Louis d’or,” said Marguerite, hesitating—“a Louis d’or?”
+
+She held the coin a moment, and gave it back again, with a gentle shake
+of the head.
+
+“What, my little Jacobin, do you hate the king like that? My
+foster-brother told me a far different story.”
+
+“Hate the king? Oh, no! I love the king, and am no Jacobin, though I do
+sell flowers, and in some sort belong to the market.”
+
+“Love the king, and refuse to take his likeness, even when stamped on
+gold, that is beyond belief.”
+
+“It is not that; but you offer me too much. The flowers you have are
+worth only a few sous. I will take that, but no more.”
+
+“But if I insist upon it?”
+
+“Dame Doudel would not permit me to accept gifts even from monsieur.”
+
+“Dame Doudel! Oh! she sits in the market—I know her well. But what has
+she to say in this matter? When Mirabeau sees a pretty girl, and she
+pleases him with her merchandise, or her face, all the old women in
+France shall not limit his generosity. Take the gold, child—take the
+gold.”
+
+Still Marguerite shook her head.
+
+“I cannot take it, monsieur count. Dame Doudel is only a good, kind
+woman, who loves me; but she would never let me receive alms and call it
+selling.”
+
+Mirabeau was looking earnestly at the girl’s changing face as she spoke.
+
+“You were the girl I sent to the king that day, and a more lovely little
+embassadress never was chosen.”
+
+Marguerite blushed, but a bright smile flashed over her face.
+
+“I was honored. It frightened me; but I was so grateful that you
+permitted me to go.”
+
+“There was another person grateful, I doubt not, and that person was the
+queen, who dreaded something much worse, I will be sworn! I heard all
+about it, and have never repented the choice we made, though there was
+some fierce anger among the grand army of women at the time. You stood
+in the way of more than one whose brazen ambition would have confronted
+angels with satisfaction.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” answered the girl, lifting her earnest eyes to the count,
+and speaking with gentle confidence. “There was one in the market, this
+morning, who reviled me before all the women, as if I had been to blame
+in something.”
+
+“Indeed! And who was it?”
+
+“They called her Louison.”
+
+“Louison Brisot?”
+
+“Yes, that was the other name—a tall, handsome woman, with eyes like
+fire.”
+
+“Oh, yes! I recognize the description. So she dared to assail you. My
+favor has driven the creature mad, or she would not have found the
+courage to attack any one Mirabeau has exalted by his notice. This shall
+not happen again, I will answer for that.”
+
+“Oh! I am not afraid. It is only the sight of her face that can hurt
+me.”
+
+“Her face? Why it is bold enough, but one of the handsomest in Paris.”
+
+“Oh, it is terrible!” cried the girl, shuddering. “If I could only
+forget it.”
+
+“Why, what can distress you so in Louison’s face? Surely, it has done
+you no harm.”
+
+“I saw her kill a man with her own hands, only because he was faithful
+to the king.”
+
+The poor girl trembled as she spoke; her sweet, young face grew cold and
+white; and the eyes that she lifted to Mirabeau were full of the anguish
+she could not speak.
+
+“Louison Brisot has much to answer for, and she shall some day give a
+strict account,” said Mirabeau, sternly; “but let her pass now—I have
+something else to talk of. This man, was he your friend, and did he love
+the king?”
+
+“Better than his own life, or he would have joined the insurgents and
+been saved,” answered the girl, promptly.
+
+“And you? Remember, child, it is an unpopular, if not a dangerous thing,
+to speak well of Louis, or his wife.”
+
+“I know it—Mother Doudel has warned me; but I sometimes think it is
+cowardice not to say the truth. My father suffered wrong from the old
+king, but loves Louis and his queen well enough to die for them. In that
+I am like my father.”
+
+“You are a brave girl!” exclaimed Mirabeau, reaching forth his hand,
+which took hers in a firm clasp. “I did not expect this. So you would
+serve the king. Well, well, it may be that the chance will be given you.
+If it should, what then? Would all this bright courage fail?”
+
+“You ask this because I fainted that day at Versailles. I was so
+young—so very, very young, and all that crowd of women terrified me.”
+
+“But are you so much older now?”
+
+“Yes; years on years. It is a long, weary time since then—every day a
+year.”
+
+“But can you be silent?”
+
+“If silence will serve the king, I can be dumb.”
+
+The pallor had left her face now, and it was kindled up with a generous
+glow that spoke well for the courageous soul within.
+
+“But if Dame Doudel should not approve?”
+
+“In this I would not ask her; that which my father approves I will abide
+by. His first lesson was duty to my God; his next, duty to my
+sovereign—loyalty with him is sacred as religion.”
+
+“Strange girl,” muttered the count, who gave that forced respect for
+conscience and religion, which simple truth wrings even from infidels.
+“Strange, brave girl!”
+
+Perhaps the man was contrasting his own mixed, and, to a certain extent,
+ignoble motives, with her pure heroism; for his eyes sunk abashed from
+the earnest purpose kindling in hers, and he began to pick the flowers
+to pieces which had just been fastened in his bosom.
+
+“Don’t!” she said, with tender pathos in her voice. “Don’t! you will
+hurt them!”
+
+“Hurt them!” repeated the count; “hurt them! Would to heaven I had never
+done worse things than that. But tell me where you live, in the old
+place?”
+
+Marguerite gave Dame Doudel’s address.
+
+“I shall not come myself, perhaps, but you will hear from me. Remember,
+my name should not be mentioned. No one must be informed that we have
+met. If you wish to serve the king, it must be cautiously. Some friends
+of his have need of a trusty messenger, who can pass in and out of the
+palace unsuspected; you would not hesitate?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“But neither your mother nor Dame Doudel must know.”
+
+“I will not tell them.”
+
+“It may prove dangerous in the end.”
+
+“I am not afraid of any danger that comes only to myself; but that which
+I do must not harm Dame Doudel or my mother.”
+
+“Of course. It is for their safety that they should know nothing.”
+
+“Then, if danger comes, it will only reach me.”
+
+“Be cautious, and there is no danger.”
+
+“It is hardly worth while to be cautious for myself, so few people would
+miss me if I were to die before night; there is my father—and one
+other.”
+
+“And who is this one?”
+
+“I had better not tell—he might not like it.”
+
+“_He!_ Well, I must not ask. But perhaps Jacques could tell me.”
+
+“Monsieur Jacques, no, no. He seldom comes near us now.”
+
+Marguerite did not see the smile that passed over that mouth, or the
+laughter that sparkled in the eyes that Mirabeau bent upon her. Her mind
+had gone back tenderly to the prisoner of the Bastille, and she wondered
+in her heart what he would do if any harm should take her away from him.
+
+“Oh, yes!” she murmured; “there is good reason that I should be
+careful.”
+
+“The best reason in the world,” answered Mirabeau; “for, without
+caution, you can do nothing for our friends at St. Cloud—with it, a
+great deal.”
+
+“Then you also are friendly to the king?”
+
+Mirabeau looked into the girl’s face with a strange, puzzled expression
+in his own. The simple truth that he read there was enough. One element
+of this man’s power lay in his almost intuitive knowledge of character,
+and in the prompt selfishness with which he seized upon the talent and
+labors of other men, adapting them to his own genius so completely that
+even to himself he seemed to make them entirely his own. The firm
+resolution which lay in her heart was made known to the man. As a
+gentle, truthful girl, he would not have trusted her, but he saw more
+than that, and spoke out frankly.
+
+“Yes, my girl, I _am_ friendly to the king. I am so friendly to this
+great nation, too, that the one grand aim of my life shall be to bring
+the people and the court into harmony.”
+
+“Oh! if you could! If you only could!” cried the girl. “It is the work
+of an angel you undertake.”
+
+“That is why Mirabeau seeks an angel to help him,” he said, bending his
+head toward the flower girl, as if she had been a duchess.
+
+“Do not mock me, monsieur. I am only a poor girl, with so few to care
+for in the world, that I can afford to take a little danger on myself.
+When you want me, I shall not stand back.”
+
+“I am sure of that, and say, good morning! knowing that I have one true
+friend more.”
+
+As Mirabeau said this, he lifted his hat with a courteous bend of the
+head, and swept down the street, forgetting to pay the sous which
+Marguerite had named as a fair price for her flowers. In this one act
+the nature of that little, great and most wonderful man, betrayed
+itself. He was ready to toss away gold for a tuft of flowers, but forgot
+entirely the trifling sum which was their just value. Prodigality has
+always a germ of meanness lying at the core. All this time Louison
+Brisot had been watching them.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXXVI.
+ ANOTHER CUSTOMER.
+
+
+“Will you sell me a flower?”
+
+Marguerite started, with a thrill of surprise. “Was it Count Mirabeau
+come back with the money he had forgotten? Or was it—”
+
+The girl lifted her eyes to the face of her questioner. It was the man
+who had twice told her of his love in the ruins of the Bastille—who had
+helped her wreathe those pretty garlands in her attic-room, which, since
+that day, had been the brightest corner in Paradise to her.
+
+“Will I sell flowers to you?” she faltered, blushing brightly as her own
+roses. “Yes! No! Pray help yourself! Dame Doudel would be angry if I
+took money.”
+
+“And I should hardly know how to give it—so we will arrange that with
+the good dame. Only you must make up my little bouquet with your own
+hands.”
+
+Marguerite slid the handle of the basket back on her arm, and went to
+work robbing different bouquets of their choicest flowers.
+
+“Dear me! how my hands shake, the basket is so heavy,” she said.
+
+“Let me hold the basket.”
+
+“What, you? Well, there, hold it, I will not be long; but my hands have
+got such a trick of trembling.”
+
+With an amused smile St. Just watched those fluttering hands as the girl
+plucked the most fragrant flowers from her store, robbing her prettiest
+merchandise for his sake.
+
+“The dew is all off them,” she said, regretfully. “If I had only known
+this morning; but the jasmines are all gone; and I had some lovely white
+roses, pink at the heart, as if a red rose had left its shadow there;
+but I put the last into Monsieur Mirabeau’s bouquet.”
+
+“Who? What name was that?”
+
+“Monsieur la Count Mirabeau!”
+
+“And you know _him_?”
+
+“Know him? Oh, yes! It was the count who would have me go before the
+king and queen.”
+
+“And you gave him flowers to-day?”
+
+“Gave? Well, I suppose so, for he forgot to pay my poor little sous.”
+
+The young man laughed.
+
+“Yes, yes; there is no doubt of its being Mirabeau. He usually does
+forget to pay!”
+
+“But he meant to. Only I would not take the Louis d’or he offered, for
+that was worth more than I had in my basket.”
+
+“So he offered you a Louis d’or; the last he had, I dare say. Oh, yes!
+it was sure to be Mirabeau; there was no necessity of telling his name.
+So he ran away with your flowers, thinking his pretty speeches payment
+enough. Oh! you blush. May I ask——But no, that would not be quite fair.”
+
+Marguerite stood before him, downcast and blushing with the unfinished
+bouquet in her hands.
+
+“You seem to know citoyen Mirabeau better than I thought of,” said the
+young man, so coldly that the girl looked up with a guilty and startled
+expression in her eyes.
+
+“But I know him so little,” faltered the poor girl, thinking guiltily of
+the conversation she had just held.
+
+Still the young man fixed his eyes on Marguerite’s face, where it was
+not difficult to read the restless secret which disturbed her. He saw
+those frank blue eyes sink under his scrutiny. In order to hide her
+embarrassment, she searched with both hands among the flowers.
+
+“Oh! here is one left. See! it blushes clear through the heart.”
+
+“Yes, I see it blushes,” said the young man, coldly.
+
+Marguerite twisted a bit of grass around the little tuft of blossoms she
+had arranged, and held it up timidly.
+
+“Does it please you?” she said, with a glance of lovelight breaking
+through all her timidity.
+
+No one on earth could have resisted that look. Before he was aware of
+it, this young man had the blossoms in his hand, and was smiling down
+upon the sweet face, turned with such childlike appeal to his.
+
+“I think you are good and honest,” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud.
+
+“_You_ should not doubt me,” answered the girl, drawing herself up with
+the grace and dignity of a queen.
+
+“I never do—I never will,” he answered, fixing his deep earnest eyes
+upon her.
+
+She smiled, and took her basket from his hands.
+
+“Now I must be going. Good-day.”
+
+The young man was hiding her little bouquet in the snowy frill on his
+bosom, taking from there a tuft of dead blossoms, which had been
+concealed next his heart.
+
+“See, I have not parted with this,” he said, blushing almost as rosily
+as the girl had done. “Even now I do not like to throw it away.”
+
+“Oh! do not throw it down—that is, people might trample on it, you
+know.”
+
+Marguerite, unconscious of the action, held out her basket, and the
+young man laid his tuft of dead flowers among its blossoming contents.
+She looked into his face with a sweet, grateful smile, and buried the
+treasure he had given her deep down in her basket, for those poor dead
+blossoms had spent their breath on _his_ bosom, and were more dear to
+her than a whole wilderness of breathing roses.
+
+They parted then. The young man moved away in one direction, sighing
+dreamily as the fragrance of those flowers stole up from his bosom, and
+the girl wandered off into elysium, feeling as if every step she planted
+on the pavement sunk into the mosses of fairy-land, and wondering in her
+happiness why all the faces she saw looked so haggard and careworn.
+Could they not comprehend that _he_ had cared enough for her flowers to
+let them perish on his heart?
+
+Louison saw Mirabeau when he paused to speak with Marguerite, and
+watched him with a glitter of hate in her eyes, as he placed the little
+bouquet in his bosom. There was something in his air and manner that
+enraged her more than an insult would have done. She could understand
+the homage which even a bad man unconsciously pays to entire innocence,
+and felt with bitterness that it could never, on this earth, be hers. In
+every way this young creature had thwarted and disappointed her. When
+she struggled, with fierce ambition, for a place on the committee of
+women, sent before the king that memorable day at Versailles, this girl
+had been selected in her place by Mirabeau himself. This was her first
+accusation against him. But he had neither feared her anger or cared to
+appease her reproaches; on the contrary, treated both with careless
+laughter and annihilating contempt.
+
+While the count tolerated, in any degree, Louison’s ambition or
+caprices, she put up with this, and smothered the resentment smouldering
+in her bad heart, for she knew well enough that all the power she had,
+and more that was adroitly, simulated, sprang entirely from the favor of
+this man, whose popularity with the people was unparalleled. But of
+late, even this frail hold had begun to slacken. While swerving warily
+round from intense radicalism to a limited monarchy, he had made few
+confidants, and among them Louison found herself completely ignored. But
+what he refrained from telling her, she had in many underhanded ways
+discovered for herself, and was weaving all her threads of information
+together, in hopes of meshing this lion in her own net.
+
+This girl _was_ in the Bastille, and _not_ of the people. Some one among
+the men who fell that day was near to her, I can swear! Did I not see
+her wring her hands and cry out when that guard fell, headlong, from the
+tower? I wish it were possible to get at the man’s name, then I might
+trace her; but old Doudel would lie her through anything, and swear that
+she was her own child, if one attempted to find her out. There is no use
+in quarreling with these market women, they cling together like bees of
+one hive. Why this morning they almost hooted me from the market—me,
+whom they would flock around, open-mouthed, when I came to them as a
+messenger from Mirabeau. When I denounced that girl, they protected her.
+Why? That scene in the street answers one.
+
+Louison went home with bitter jealousy in her heart that swept aside her
+wonderful patience. Mirabeau had avoided her pointedly of late. She
+would endure this no longer. Women of every grade and class were
+preferred to her, from the queen, whom it was rank treason to know, down
+to the fallen Du Berry; every one, any one, could claim consideration
+from Mirabeau rather than herself. Yes, yes, but she was not quite
+ready. Some tangible proof of Mirabeau’s treason to his party must be
+obtained before she might dare accuse him, even to his enemies.
+
+For days and nights Louison kept herself in-doors, brooding over these
+thoughts, afraid to trust herself at her usual haunts, lest she should
+again betray her cause, as she had done in the market-place. At last
+this restraint became irksome. Louison was a person who craved
+excitement of some kind so keenly that it was necessary to her life.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXXVII.
+ THE SEALED LETTER.
+
+
+One day just as Louison was about to break loose from her self-imposed
+solitude, Zamara, the dwarf, crept into her lodgings, and placed a
+letter in her hand. She knew the handwriting, and questioned the dwarf
+sharply.
+
+“I was told to watch for a flower girl who goes to Dame Doudel’s stall
+every morning for her flowers,” the little wretch said in reply to her
+eager questions.
+
+“So, so! He is writing to her! He finds something in that milk-and-water
+face to admire. I thought his choice was something more than a wish to
+satisfy these clamorous fish women who call themselves wives and
+mothers, as if there lay some great merit in being one or the other.
+Bah! how I hate their pretensions! But when it comes to that strength is
+every thing in these days, and the market women are strong.”
+
+Thus the woman reflected as she held the unopened letter in her hand.
+Zamara stood apart, regarding her earnestly. He had brought the letter
+from craven fear of the woman who had threatened him, and was anxious to
+propitiate her further, if the occasion presented itself.
+
+“Is madam in doubt how to open it safely? Zamara can tell her; he
+learned that art at the Grand Trianon, years ago. It gave him many
+secrets worth knowing.”
+
+Louison started out of her angry thought, and tossed the letter toward
+him.
+
+“Open it, then, and see that those impish hands leave no mark. It may be
+that the girl will get her letter.”
+
+Zamara went to the window, turned his back on Louison, and in a minute
+came forward with the letter open in his hand. It contained an
+inclosure, carefully sealed, and addressed, to “Her Royal Highness, the
+Queen.”
+
+Again Louison recognized Mirabeau’s handwriting, and the hot blood
+rushed in torrents to her face.
+
+“It is the dagger that shall pierce his traitor heart,” cried the woman,
+fiercely. “Open this! Open this, carefully! The wax that bears his arms,
+the aristocrat, must not be broken. Ha, ha! I have him now!”
+
+Louison reached forth her hand as she spoke, clutching and unclutching
+her fingers like a bird of prey, eager for his food.
+
+“There it is, without a scratch of the seal, or a break in the paper,”
+said the dwarf, fawning upon her. “Nothing is easier than to fasten it
+again.”
+
+Louison did not hear him; she was searching the contents of that letter
+too keenly for any thought beyond it. Four closely-written pages were
+devoured by her eyes, which flashed and burned beneath the lashes that
+drooped over them as she read. Once, twice, three times she went over
+each line, reading more carefully at the last. Then she began a fourth
+perusal, but paused in the midst, holding the paper firmly, and biting
+her lips till they burned blood-red under her white teeth.
+
+“What can I do,” she muttered, “to make the evidence complete? That
+Austrian woman must have the letter, and answer it.”
+
+“That can be done,” said Zamara, softly, for he entered into the evil
+spirit of the woman with the keen zest of a rogue who had been long out
+of practice.
+
+“But how?”
+
+“Let the pretty demoiselle carry a letter, not that, but something so
+like it that no one will ever guess it is not the same.”
+
+“But who can make anything like it?”
+
+“I can, madame—give me pen, and paper like that. Why, lady, before now,
+Zamara has affixed the king’s name to a _lettre-de-cachet_ when his
+mistress had an enemy that she did not care to trouble old Louis about.
+She always kept plenty of blanks in her escritoir, and Zamara has a
+swift, steady hand. Will you trust him with the letter?”
+
+“Not to take from the house—I will not let it go out of my sight.”
+
+“Of course not; Zamara never expected that. Madame may sit by while he
+does his work.”
+
+“If you can—— Well, well, begin.”
+
+Louison laid pens and paper before the dwarf, and drawing her chair to
+the table where he placed himself, watched his dusky little hand as he
+spread the original letter before him and proceeded to duplicate it,
+smiling to himself as he watched her astonishment with sidelong glances
+now and then, while helping himself to ink.
+
+“You see, my lady, the countess could trust no one but Zamara. Even at
+the height of her fortune she needed some person who had the learning
+and knowledge which she lacked terribly; for ignorance, you know,
+madame, comes with low birth.”
+
+Zamara stopped suddenly, for a hot red flashed over Louison’s face; and
+the dwarf remembered that her origin was quite as low as that of Madame
+Du Berry; but he recovered himself instantly.
+
+“It is not often that a woman who rises has the genius to lift her mind
+with her good fortune. When that happens, it is always because she keeps
+with the people, disdaining to fritter her greatness away among
+aristocrats, who laugh at her always when they dare. This was the case
+with my lady, the countess, who depended only on her beauty and the old
+king’s favor.”
+
+“And now,” said Louison, with a sneer, “both the old king and her
+beauty, if she ever had any, which I do not believe, are dead and gone.”
+
+“Dead and gone,” repeated Zamara, shaking his head. “It is only genius
+that lives.”
+
+The little wretch made a low bow, with one hand upon his heart as he
+spoke, and Louison fairly blushed with pleasure, for such flattery was
+both new and delightful to her, even from that miserable dwarf.
+
+“Now go on with this work,” she said, smiling broadly in return for his
+grimaces. “I am impatient to see it done.”
+
+Zamara took up the pen again and applied himself to his task with
+avidity. It was a long time since his natural talent for evil had been
+called into action, and he enjoyed this new indulgence with wonderful
+zest.
+
+Louison watched his little withered hand as it crept, like a mouse,
+across the paper, and congratulated herself warmly on the good fortune
+that had cast this strange creature in her way. At last the letter was
+finished, and Zamara laid it side by side with the original. Louison
+examined it with an exclamation of pleasure. It seemed to her impossible
+that Mirabeau himself could detect the forgery.
+
+“But the seal,” she said. “How are we to obtain that?”
+
+Zamara smiled, his craft was equal to everything; and he had only waited
+for Louison to discover this difficulty that he might be prompt to meet
+it.
+
+“Wait a moment,” he said; “it is easily done.”
+
+The dwarf seized his hat and disappeared. Directly he came back with a
+roll of wax and some white plaster of Paris in a paper, out of which he
+mixed a paste, and impressed the seal upon it, thus forming a mould from
+which duplicates might be taken. No artist ever handled his clay with
+more dexterity than this little traitor accomplished his work. In half
+an hour two missives bearing Mirabeau’s writing and seal, so nearly
+alike that nothing but an expert could have distinguished them, lay side
+by side on Louison Brisot’s table. True, the seal which Zamara had
+duplicated was somewhat blurred, while the other had a clear impression;
+but no one acquainted with Mirabeau’s habits would have wondered at
+this; in fact, a neatly arranged letter was scarcely to be expected of
+him. He had been especially dainty about this as Marie Antoinette was
+the only woman in France whom he was doubtful of pleasing.
+
+“Now,” said Louison, delighted by all her fellow conspirator had done,
+“we keep back this letter, written by Mirabeau’s own hand, while the
+other goes to the queen by his agent. The Austrian will suspect
+nothing—who could? She will answer him. That answer once in my hands,
+and I hold that audacious traitor, and all his party, in my power. This
+service you have rendered me: I shall not forget it.”
+
+“Madame may be sure of Zamara’s good faith.”
+
+“I _am_ sure,” answered the woman, with haughty self-reliance; “but our
+first object is this letter. How are we to make it certain that the
+queen’s answer will reach us first?”
+
+“Trust me; this girl is told that I am faithful and true to the queen.
+She will go first to the stout landlady at Versailles, who has charge of
+her majesty’s dairy at _la petite Trianon_. I learned this much about
+her movements, and know that the woman can at any time gain access to
+the lady in waiting, and through her to the queen. Thus Mirabeau’s
+messenger will penetrate to her majesty unsuspected; and is deemed the
+safest bearer of a correspondence, fearfully dangerous both to Mirabeau
+and the queen.”
+
+“This will ensure the delivery of his letter to the queen; but how will
+the answer reach me?”
+
+“Zamara will bring it to you if he lives.”
+
+“I think you will,” Louison said. “At any rate, I have no better means
+of securing it. Now go at once, and good speed.”
+
+Zamara left the house carrying the forged letter in his bosom. He went
+directly to the domicil of Dame Doudel, and found Marguerite keeping
+house, busy among her flowers. Without a word he gave her the package.
+She turned very white at the first glance, and cast a frightened look at
+Zamara, astonished and repulsed by his strange appearance.
+
+“Who are you?” she asked, holding the package in her hand. “Who are you,
+and what is this?”
+
+“I am Count Mirabeau’s messenger, and know where the package is going.
+He trusts me as he trusts you. We are all friends of the same
+illustrious person.”
+
+Marguerite turned whiter than before. The dwarf seemed like an evil
+spirit forced into perilous association with herself. She answered
+nothing, but hid the package away among the folds of her dress, after
+reading the portion intended for herself.
+
+“When will you be ready to start?” inquired the dwarf.
+
+The girl hesitated; some intuition keener than any process of the mind,
+possessed her. She shrunk from this strange creature as if some reptile
+had crept in among her flowers.
+
+“That depends——Tell the Count that I will redeem my promise.”
+
+A crafty smile crossed the dark face of the dwarf. He saw that the girl
+was not disposed to confide in him.
+
+“I asked,” he said quietly, “because the count will trust no one but
+myself to come here for the reply. He is not willing to seek it
+himself.”
+
+“No, no! He must not do that.”
+
+“And it is impossible that mademoiselle should go to the Chaussée d’
+Antin.”
+
+“Impossible! Oh, yes, quite impossible!”
+
+“So you understand the count was wise in making so insignificant a
+person as I am his messenger.”
+
+Marguerite answered only with a troubled smile.
+
+Zamara was puzzled how to continue a conversation that was so entirely
+on one side. By listening industriously when Mirabeau was with his
+mistress, he had learned the arrangements made between them, by which a
+safe correspondence might be kept up with the court; but he could obtain
+no information from this gentle girl; all his craft was lost upon her
+innocence. He lingered awhile in the room; but Marguerite had taken up
+her flowers, and was too deep in her fragrant work for any thought of
+him, save that his presence was annoying her. So he took himself off a
+good deal discomfited, while the poor girl sat trembling among her
+flowers, full of apprehensions because this strange creature had
+possession of her secret.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
+ DAME TILLERY PROCLAIMS HER HEIRESS.
+
+
+Scarcely had the dwarf been gone an hour, when a loud voice was heard in
+the passage. The door of her little room swung open, and Dame Tillery,
+landlady of The Swan, came sailing into the room like a ponderous,
+full-rigged Dutch vessel making port with all her canvas up.
+
+“Marguerite, my child, I am glad to see you; get up and embrace me,
+little one. Oh! that is delicious!”
+
+Marguerite started from her seat, scattering all the blossoms from her
+lap, and embraced the dame with such affection that the word “delicious”
+was repeated over and over again.
+
+“Have you come for me, my friend, as your letter promised?”
+
+“Come for you? Of course, I have! What else could have brought me to
+Paris? Are not all my duties at Versailles? There is enough of them, let
+me tell you, since her majesty has enrolled me among her ladies of
+honor.”
+
+“Her ladies of honor? I did not know——”
+
+“Yes, yes, I understand. There was no place at the palace exactly; but
+the queen is a woman, and grateful. I had saved her life—what could she
+do? The Duchess de Polignac held on to her place though she has gone
+abroad like a coward. No woman of the people had been given a position
+at court, which was a great mistake, but true, nevertheless. I said
+position, little one, and you will observe that my language generally
+has improved since I became one of her majesty’s ladies, to say nothing
+of my appearance and manner of dressing.”
+
+“I see that you are splendid!” said Marguerite glancing at the gay
+dress, which made the stout woman look doubly ponderous.
+
+“Ah! this is nothing, little one. Your own eyes saw me that day when I
+went to court, after the one great act of my life, when with my own
+hands I held an infuriated beast by the horns, and flung him to the
+earth just as it was plunging upon her majesty, and about to gore her
+with two horns curving so, and sharp as swords. You have heard the
+story, I dare say?”
+
+Now as Marguerite had been present and heard the thing magnified at
+least fifty times from Dame Tillery’s own lips, the question seemed a
+little superfluous. But she answered “Yes, yes, every one who knows you
+has heard of that.”
+
+“But not of my presentation at court the day after you saw her
+majesty—that was the crowning glory of my life. You should have seen the
+queen standing there among her ladies, longing in her heart to embrace
+me, which she would have done, no doubt, but we were out of doors, in
+the royal park—a special grace, understand. So I went up to her myself,
+and would have knelt, which was my duty, only I was a little troubled
+about getting up again, and so made a curtsy instead. At which all the
+court smiled approval, and looked at each other in amazement, as if a
+woman of the people was not expected to be polite.
+
+“Even the queen smiled, feeling my triumph, I dare say, as if I had been
+an arch duchess, and her own sister. That was a glorious day; something
+to remember, and to be remembered by my grandchildren. Only there is an
+impediment—never having had any children of my own is a drawback when
+one thinks of grandchildren. This depresses me sometimes; but then I
+think of sister Doudel and you, and feel sure that all will come right.
+I shall propose to my sister that you take the name of Tillery, and
+carry me down to future ages. This is what brings me to Paris now. I
+mean to make you my heiress, Marguerite. You shall inherit The Swan from
+roof to cellar, my place at court, the dress that I wore—everything. In
+fact, I mean to make a lady of you.”
+
+“And will you do one thing?”
+
+“My child, I will do everything.”
+
+“Will you take me to St. Cloud?”
+
+“Will I? Of course.”
+
+“Very soon?”
+
+“The moment I get home. Twice each week I send butter for her majesty’s
+own table from the dairy at _la petite Trianon_, for that was the
+department the queen gave me when Polignac persisted in remaining first
+lady of honor. Blind as a bat; had she given me her place, all the women
+of France would have felt it as a compliment to themselves, and drawn
+nearer to the court, if it were only for my sake.”
+
+“Do you think so?” inquired Marguerite, innocently, for the order of
+things had been so deranged in France, and she had heard so much about
+the power of the people, that Dame Tillery’s grand boast made a profound
+impression upon her.
+
+“Do I think so? Of course, I do. What is it makes the women down yonder
+think so much of you? Why, it is because our friend Mirabeau sent you up
+with that committee of women. How much greater the effect would have
+been had the queen chosen me for a place near her majesty’s person. Why,
+child, look at me! I could make three of you any day, and hold my own
+with the balance. Just observe this for a presence.”
+
+Here Dame Tillery shook out her dress and sailed across the room,
+exhibiting a person that would, indeed, have outweighed four of the
+slender girl who looked on.
+
+“You see,” said the self-satisfied dame, returning to her old position,
+“you see what a chance has been lost. This Duchess de Polignac would
+keep her place, and their majesties let her selfishness have its way.
+Then what does she do? When the king and queen get more and more
+unpopular; when all their friends should have stood by them like rocks,
+this Polignac emigrates, flies from the palace like a thief; while all
+France finds me at my post, making the best butter in the world for the
+royal table, as if nothing had happened. There is the difference, little
+one, between loyalty and that make-believe thing, which drove Polignac
+into a foreign land.”
+
+“I know that you are true to the queen,” said Marguerite, greatly
+impressed, yet somewhat amazed by Dame Tillery’s pretension. “Sometimes
+I fancy Mother Doudel does not think the less of you for that.”
+
+“Perhaps not. I think, at heart, my sister is loyal. Only she does not
+know the queen as I do. How should she, not being a member of the
+household? But you and I, little one, understand each other, we have
+stood side by side at court. Now tell me what it is you wish to see her
+majesty about.”
+
+Marguerite blushed and looked a little startled. She had promised to
+keep her mission a profound secret—and with this pure girl all pledges
+were sacred.
+
+“I love the queen.”
+
+“That is enough!” exclaimed the dame, waving her fat hand; “that is
+enough. I ask no more. I shall say this pretty girl is my adopted
+daughter, and will, sometime, be heiress of The Swan—she was with me,
+your majesty will remember, on that glorious day when I saved your
+majesty’s life. Receive her well for my sake. It will be done.”
+
+“But I shall ask for nothing. The only favor I want is an opportunity to
+serve the king, and die for him, if that will do him good.”
+
+“But it wont. Running away and dying isn’t likely to help either the
+king or queen. It wants brains, brains for that.”
+
+Here Dame Tillery tapped her forehead with one finger, and nodded
+significantly.
+
+“All you want is a guide, and one is always at hand.”
+
+Marguerite drew a deep breath, and uttered a silent thanksgiving that
+her way to the queen promised to be made so smooth.
+
+Having thus given vent to the self-importance that consumed her, Dame
+Tillery took off her outer garments, and, seating herself in the cosiest
+chair the little room contained, watched the young girl.
+
+Then Dame Doudel came in from the market, light, sharp, and active as a
+bird. She saw the landlady of The Swan leaning back in her chair, flew
+towards her, and in an instant was buried in her bosom.
+
+“Sister, my dear, dear sister!”
+
+At first the good landlady forgot her dignity, and gave her sister a
+hearty embrace; but remembering herself, she put the little woman gently
+away.
+
+“Dame Doudel, I love you dearly; but you are a Jacobin.”
+
+“Sister Tillery, you are a royalist.”
+
+“Yes, heart, soul, and body; but one of the people, too.”
+
+“Carrying water on both shoulders is dangerous in these days,” answered
+Dame Doudel, sharply.
+
+“It is just that which will yet unite the people with their king. These
+cries of fraternity, equality, liberty, are an insult to us of the
+court.”
+
+“But the court itself must adopt them before the people will be
+satisfied, I can tell you that.”
+
+“Dame Tillery—Dame Doudel, why are you talking so sharply? This has
+never happened before. It makes my heart sore to hear you. Forgive me, I
+cannot help speaking.”
+
+Both women turned from the heat of their dispute and looked kindly on
+that girl, who sat like a troubled angel amid her flowers, regarding
+them with tears in her eyes.
+
+“Why should dissension have crept in here?” she said, gently. “We all
+love each other.”
+
+“True!” said Doudel, reaching forth her hand.
+
+“True!” answered Tillery, forgetting her dignity, in an honest burst of
+affection, in which the smaller woman was gathered up in a cordial
+embrace. “We both love the people!”
+
+“And the royal family. Our blessed Lady give them wisdom!” said Doudel,
+yielding a little on her part. “Heaven forbid that their enemies should
+increase!”
+
+Marguerite arose, wiped her eyes, and kissing them both with angelic
+fervor, went away, leaving the sisters together. They were not so far
+apart, after all. The very last persons who gave up their love for the
+king were the _Dames de la Halle_, to whom Doudel belonged.
+
+“Think what it would be if this child should prove a bond of union
+between the people and the court,” said Doudel, after the two had
+conversed together half an hour. “The dames have great faith in her
+since she came home with the king’s kiss upon her forehead. She has the
+wish to serve her country. Keep her in it, for you can. Shall I tell you
+a name—the name of a person who has seen her more than once in this very
+room. Bend your head.”
+
+Dame Tillery bent her head, and Doudel whispered a name in her ear.
+
+“A stern Jacobin,” said the landlady, shaking her head in disapproval.
+“Altogether given up to those false doctrines which threaten to drag
+down the throne of France. But does he know who she is?”
+
+“Yes; she told him herself. Sister, I have an idea that he loves our
+little girl.”
+
+“Then it is high time that I take her away. She must have nothing in
+common with these agitators.”
+
+“Not even if it were Count Mirabeau?”
+
+“Count Mirabeau!”
+
+“He came into the assembly one day, with a flower she gave him from her
+basket in his bosom.”
+
+“And flung it away afterwards, as he would put her aside in a week.
+Sister, I know Mirabeau. When the States-General assembled at
+Versailles, he staid at The Swan. I liked him then, but afterwards, when
+I took my place at court—not that I wish to boast, sister—it came to me
+that her majesty, the queen, hated this man, and would not endure him in
+her sight. So, if you hope for any preferment for our child, keep aloof
+from Mirabeau.”
+
+“The poor child wants no preferment. We can take care of her, Madame
+Gosner and myself. She is given up to France, I look to the girl. I have
+not set in the market so many years for nothing; and you have no
+children.”
+
+“That is true—that is true! But this Mirabeau is a dangerous man. The
+girl is safer with me just now.”
+
+“But you will let her come back again?”
+
+“Will I? Of course, sister. Exaltation, you will find, has not hardened
+my heart. But just now you must not stand in the way of her
+advancement.”
+
+With these sisterly feelings and amiable words the two women decided
+that Marguerite should go to Versailles for a time; thus unconsciously
+aiding in the important mission with which she was charged.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER LXXXIX.
+ MARGUERITE SEEKS THE QUEEN.
+
+
+Slowly and sadly Marie Antoinette walked up and down one of the most
+secluded avenues in the Park at St. Cloud. Not yet forty years of age,
+in fact, lacking some years of that, she was beginning to look worn and
+anxious. The brightness of her smile was gone, and in its place came a
+mournful tremor of the lips, which sometimes betrayed a stern
+resolution, not always just, and seldom wise, which sometimes locked her
+sweet mouth as with iron. With all the ability of Maria Theresa, her
+august mother, she had neither the experience, the cool patience, or
+indomitable perseverance of that great and most womanly sovereign.
+
+Born to the imperial purple, the empress grew up with a notion which she
+understood, and anchored her power in the love of her people; but Marie
+Antoinette, from first to last, was a stranger in France, and for many
+years almost a stranger to her own husband. Scarcely had this woman
+begun to find happiness in her domestic life, when the shock of a great
+moral earthquake, which vibrated from its center in France over the
+whole world, begun to make the earth tremble under her feet. For this
+woman there never had been an hour of absolute peace. As a wife, she had
+for years been subjected to deep and bitter humiliation; and her first
+maternal joy was dashed with a terrible disappointment. The heir which
+she gave to France was distorted and imperfect as her own happiness had
+been. Alas! in everything which fills the measure of a mother’s pride,
+and a queen’s ambition, she had met such sharp disappointment as wrings
+the heart of a true woman—and this Marie Antoinette undoubtedly was.
+
+The queen walked alone, as I have said, so weary, and broken-hearted
+that, for the moment, she longed to lay down her burden and die. The
+crown, which her husband had inherited, was so full of thorns that her
+head was wounded by them. In the throes of a great national convulsion,
+the very friends for whom she had sacrificed so much, had crept from her
+one after another, like frightened animals from a burning mansion; and
+in that regal old palace she found herself more lonely than the meanest
+woman who clamored for bread in the streets of Paris.
+
+The queen thought of these things as she moved along. Being alone, and
+only human, her eyes filled with bitter tears. She came in sight of the
+temple, in which Count Mirabeau had sought an interview, which was of
+momentous importance to her; but it seemed as if even there she had
+sacrificed her pride for nothing. Either this man had no power to help
+his struggling king, or he was inert in using it. It seemed to her that
+no one in France was active but the men and women who most hated their
+king.
+
+“Madame, your highness!”
+
+The voice that uttered these words was sweet and timid, like that of a
+child pleading.
+
+“Lady—your highness, I mean!”
+
+Marie Antoinette wiped the tears from her eyes, and walked on a step or
+two, afraid to turn her head lest some inferior might see her weeping,
+and report her weakness to those who hated her. But the voice went to
+her heart, and after a struggle she turned.
+
+A young girl stood before her, blushing, panting for breath, and with
+her head bowed down as a beautiful devotee might bend before a picture
+of the Virgin.
+
+“Is there some mistake, or did you wish to speak with me?” said the
+queen, gently.
+
+“I—I came on purpose. I promised to give that which I carry in my bosom
+only to the queen.”
+
+“That which you carry in your bosom! Are you a messenger, then? Are you
+from Paris?”
+
+“Your highness, I came from Paris three days ago. One day I was on the
+route to Versailles; another I took for rest; and this morning I came
+here with Dame Tillery.”
+
+A faint smile crept over the queen’s face.
+
+“Dame Tillery is your companion, then—a kinder could not be found; but
+you have something more than she knows of to say, I trust?”
+
+“Oh, yes! I have a letter!”
+
+“A letter! From whom?”
+
+“Your highness, it is from Count Mirabeau.”
+
+“From Mirabeau! Hush! Speak lower. Even here spies creep in. Surely, the
+stout old dame whom you speak of knows nothing of this?”
+
+“Your highness, the letter was intrusted to me. I told no one.”
+
+“That was wise—that is truly loyal. Turn down this path and follow me.”
+
+Marie Antoinette turned into the path which led to the summer temple,
+where she had met Mirabeau, and hurrying up the eminence, entered the
+building. Marguerite followed her into the little retreat, and, looking
+around to make sure that no one was watching them the queen closed the
+door and locked it.
+
+“Now,” she said, in nervous haste, “give me Count Mirabeau’s letter.”
+
+Marguerite took the letter from her bosom, and dropping upon her knees,
+held it up.
+
+It was a heavy package, containing two or three sheets of
+closely-written paper. The queen attempted to control herself, but
+constant anxiety had shaken her nerves, and she sat down on a low couch,
+which circled half the temple like a Turkish divan. She broke the seal
+in trembling haste, for she had heard nothing of her new ally for weeks,
+and, giving way to her old prejudices, had begun to distrust him.
+
+Marguerite leaned against the opposite wall, and watched the queen as
+she bent over the closely-written sheets. Once or twice she saw that
+face in all the rare beauty, which humiliation and constant dread had
+failed to kill. Bright smiles kindled it into youth again, and for a
+moment, it was exultant; but most of the time anxious frowns swept the
+white forehead, and the red lips worked in an agony of proud impatience.
+She read the letter twice. Once, hurriedly snatching the pith from each
+sentence, and again with grave thoughtfulness. At last she folded the
+paper, and grasped it between her fingers with nervous violence. It was
+hard to guess whether it had given her most pain or pleasure. She seemed
+to have forgotten that Marguerite was looking at her, but murmured whole
+sentences together, as if arranging them in her memory.
+
+“A grand federation in Paris. So they wish us—us to join the people in a
+carousal over the downfall of the great stronghold of the monarchy. He
+advises it. This man, who claims to be ours at heart, advises me to urge
+this new humiliation on the king. Is this friendship, or subtile
+treason?”
+
+She unfolded the letter again, and read a portion of it with evident
+repulsion. “This assembly will draw many people from the provinces,
+whose loyalty will be enkindled to enthusiasm by a sight of the king and
+his family joining in a celebration, which may yet be made to win him a
+triumph over his enemies. Do not be surprised when you hear that
+Mirabeau has gone into this idea with all his heart. There may be danger
+in it; but leave that to him, and out of these threatening elements
+shall be moulded a new foundation to the throne of France. Take the
+advice of one who knows the people; show yourself and your children at
+the——”
+
+Here the excited woman broke off, and crushed the paper in her hand with
+passionate vehemence.
+
+“Never! Never!” she cried. “How dare this man advise me so? Are we to
+grovel on our knees in order to keep the shadow of power they have left
+to us. Great heaven! has it come to this?”
+
+The haughty woman flung herself forward on the divan, and writhed in her
+tortured pride, feeling in her soul that she would be compelled to
+accept the advice her whole nature revolted at. Then she began to sob,
+and, covering her face with both hands, wept and moaned in piteous
+distress.
+
+Marguerite stood watching her, filled with gentle compassion. She saw
+that the poor queen wept like any other woman, and wondered at it. Then
+her timidity gave way to the flood of pity that swelled her heart, and,
+drawing close to the divan, she fell upon her knees, and touched her
+trembling lips to the white hand, which still grasped the paper, as if
+it were strangling a serpent.
+
+“Oh, lady! sweet, sweet lady, do not cry so! It breaks my heart.”
+
+Marie Antoinette had been too cruelly wounded in her troubles not to
+feel the genuine sympathy conveyed in these words. She lifted her face,
+all flushed and bathed with tears, and let it fall on the girl’s
+shoulder. It was sweet to know that some one, pure and good as an angel,
+could feel for her. So, in her womanhood, she forgot all sovereignty,
+and clung to the girl, still weeping.
+
+“Who are you?” she said, at length, looking wistfully at the fair, young
+face. “Oh, I remember.”
+
+“Only a poor girl, who loves you, and would die for you. Oh, madame! if
+a drop of my best blood could fall for each of those tears, you should
+never weep again.”
+
+Marie Antoinette smiled through her tears.
+
+“They try to persuade us that we have no friends among the people,” she
+said. “Yet aid and comfort comes to me through a young creature like
+this. But how came Count Mirabeau to trust you?”
+
+“He knew that I was to be trusted.”
+
+“Do you know this man well?”
+
+“No, madame. I scarcely know him at all; but he trusts me. It was Count
+Mirabeau who chose me from among so many to speak for the women before
+the king that day at Versailles.”
+
+“Ah! now I comprehend the whole. Poor girl, poor girl! Your father in
+prison—alas! alas! how much we have permitted you to suffer. How much
+you have forgiven!”
+
+“We have suffered, your highness, but there was nothing to forgive.”
+
+“The same sweet voice, the same honest face. I will accept both as a
+good omen. I see now, you came with Dame Tillery and so escaped
+suspicion. Does the dame know that you are with me?”
+
+The queen asked this question with some anxiety; for her faith in Dame
+Tillery’s discretion was small indeed.
+
+“No, lady; it was not my secret to tell.”
+
+“Brave girl!”
+
+“The Count wanted a messenger who would be safe and silent. He asked me
+to come and place that in the hands of our queen. I had nothing else to
+think of, and thanked our blessed Lady that even in that little I might
+do some service to my sovereign.”
+
+“A great service, child—a great service; more than you dream of.”
+
+Marguerite’s face brightened.
+
+“I wish it had been less easy,” she said, with gentle humility.
+
+“Nay, but I am glad that your coming was without suspicion or danger.”
+
+“But I should like the danger; then it would seem as if I had done
+something.”
+
+The queen sighed and answered with a faint wave of her hand; then her
+thoughts seemed to turn to the letter.
+
+The cloud of trouble swept over her face again, and she fell into
+thought, not wild and passionate, as at first, but heavy and harassing
+doubts, doubled the traces of age on her face. At last she arose with a
+weary air, and prepared to leave the temple. In her deep preoccupation
+she forgot Marguerite and going through the door, closed it on the girl.
+
+Marguerite, neither spoke nor moved, but stood patiently waiting. She
+heard the queen pass swiftly around the temple, then all was still
+again. Was she really left there without directions? What was she to do,
+how act? Her heart slowly filled with misgiving, she was almost afraid.
+
+“She will come back. In her trouble she forgot.”
+
+With these thoughts the girl seated herself on the divan, folded her
+hands, and waited, trembling a little as the utter loneliness crept over
+her. She had been seated thus, perhaps, ten minutes, when quick
+footsteps came around the temple again, and she had scarcely time to
+start to her feet, when the door was pushed open, and Marie Antoinette
+stood on the threshold.
+
+“Ah! you have waited—that was right. Sit down and rest awhile until I
+come back again; it may be an hour, perhaps two—but wait.”
+
+With these words the queen disappeared as swiftly as she had done
+before.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XC.
+ A BITTER HUMILIATION ACCEPTED.
+
+
+Marie Antoinette walked rapidly toward the chateau, revolving the
+subject of Mirabeau’s letter in her mind. The advice he gave was bitter
+as wormwood to her; and had she stood first in power, it would have been
+trampled under her feet. But now she felt that all its gall would be
+forced upon her. In his fear of bloodshed, Louis was sometimes almost
+pusillanimous. His kind heart was filled with infinite pity and love of
+the people, who were hunting him down like bloodhounds, and with his own
+hands he sometimes tore away those barriers of dignity which should have
+been his defence, and trusted to the magnanimity of a people who could
+not comprehend the word.
+
+Would he submit to the humiliation prepared for him? In her heart of
+hearts the queen knew that he would; not that he was a coward—no braver
+man ever lived; but because he really wished to act rightly, and was
+willing to make great sacrifices in atonement for the wrongs his
+ancestors had heaped upon a people who had at last been driven frantic
+by oppression. She remembered, with a pang of shame, that in a contest
+with the people Louis had always been forced to yield, and that yielding
+only increased the audacity of their demands. This thought wounded Marie
+Antoinette like a poisoned sword. The blood burned hotly in her cheeks.
+Oh! if she only had the power to act out the imperial thoughts within
+her! The monarchy of France might fall, but it would be with her husband
+and herself at the head of a struggling army, and amid the clash of
+unsheathed swords, as her mother had fought when she took her child in
+her arms and appealed to her Hungarian subjects on the heights of
+Presburg. But she was only a woman, and must eat her heart out with vain
+wishes. Her mother wore an imperial diadem, while her head ached under a
+crown which only gave the power of suffering.
+
+On entering the chateau, she went directly to the cabinet of the
+king—this was his work-shop, where he filed iron and made locks with the
+assiduity of a blacksmith’s apprentice, for in every palace he
+inhabited, a room of this kind was fitted up as a refuge from the perils
+and tumults that tore his kingdom like the first heave of an earthquake.
+Louis was at the forge, with one hand on the bellows, in the other he
+held a spike of iron in a blast of burning coals, where it was reaching
+a white heat. The queen laid her hand on his arm. Her face was pale, and
+her lips trembled. Was this work for a monarch whose power was
+threatened? How calm and serene he seemed toiling there at his useless
+locks. If they were only swords, now!
+
+“Louis, leave this heat and smoke awhile—a message has come from Paris.”
+
+The king heaved a deep sigh, dropped his hand from the bellows, and left
+the red-hot spike to cool in the embers in which it was buried. Then he
+shook the black dust from his hands, and drenched them in a silver bowl
+that stood ready, from which they came out delicately white, and heavy
+with jewels.
+
+“Come, I will attend you now,” he said, with the voice and look of a
+martyr. “Ah, me! if there were no Paris, and no statesmen to annoy me, I
+might, perhaps, finish one lock in peace.”
+
+“Sit down here,” said the queen, finding a chair for herself, and
+motioning that he should take a seat beside her. “This is the most
+private place we can find in a palace haunted with spies.”
+
+Louis declined the seat, and leaned against his work-bench in a weary
+attitude.
+
+“Nay, read it to me; I can understand it best so.”
+
+The queen began to read in a low, trembling voice, for the subject was
+hateful to her. Once she broke down altogether, and flung the letter
+from her in bitter passion.
+
+“I cannot read it,” she said. “My lips refuse to frame the hideous thing
+these people demand of us.”
+
+Louis took up the paper, folded it neatly, and laid it on his
+work-bench.
+
+“Tell me, for I see you have read the letter. Evil tidings can be told
+in a few words,” he said, tenderly. “Is this some new outrage from the
+Assembly or the people direct?”
+
+“From both. Louis, they band together in offering us nothing but insult.
+This letter is from Mirabeau.”
+
+“Then he, too, forsakes us.”
+
+“No. He professes to be firm in our cause, and I think he is; but his
+advice is terrible.”
+
+“In a word, tell me what it is?”
+
+“It is settled that a grand festival will be held in Paris, celebrating
+the taking of the Bastille.”
+
+“Ha!”
+
+“Deputies are to come from every district in the kingdom. This hideous
+blow, which made the throne totter under us, is to be made the subject
+of a grand jubilation.”
+
+A red flush shot over the usually calm features of the king; a little of
+that indomitable pride which gave the title of Grand to his
+great-grandfather kindled in his bosom.
+
+“These people dare to thus openly insult their king, after all he has
+yielded to them!” he exclaimed.
+
+The queen looked up; her eyes kindled. This sudden outburst of energy
+gave her hope.
+
+“That is not all; they will demand more.”
+
+“More? Is there no end to their insolent exactions?”
+
+“There never will be an end, so long as you yield, sire.”
+
+“You are right; I have already yielded too much.”
+
+Marie Antoinette shook her head, and sighed heavily.
+
+“In yielding that which is just, sire, you have opened the way to
+fearful exactions.”
+
+The king looked down; his troubled eyes sought the floor.
+
+“Tell me,” he said at length, “what do my people clamor for now—more
+than you have spoken? I see there is something beyond that.”
+
+The queen arose, pale and trembling with indignation.
+
+“There is to be a carousal—a great national orgie—in Paris, at which all
+the traditions that have made France the foremost government in Europe,
+are to be trampled under the heels of the _canaille_, and you, sire, you
+are selected as high-priest of the occasion. You will be invited to
+preside at a celebration which is to bury all the traditions of a long
+line of kings under its ashes. This is the news which Count Mirabeau
+sends.”
+
+The hot blood of outraged royalty rose, and burned over the king’s face.
+
+“They will not dare ask this thing of me. It is impossible!”
+
+“It is already decided. The clubs have united upon it. The demagogues of
+the Assembly snatch at the idea as a means of increasing their
+popularity with the people. Mirabeau assures us that he is compelled to
+go with the current, but hopes to guide and direct while he seems to
+yield. In less than two days a deputation will be here to demand your
+sanction to the hideous insult, and your presence while it is
+perpetrated.”
+
+“But I will not go.”
+
+The queen’s eyes flashed like diamonds.
+
+“Great heavens! if we only had a loyal army this moment on the frontier,
+these traitors might be taken at their sacrilegious work, and crushed
+like bees in a hive!”
+
+Louis, who had for a moment stood upright and kingly, settled down to
+his original attitude, the color left his face, and he answered
+despondingly,
+
+“That would be to spill the blood of Frenchmen. Anything but that!
+Anything rather than that!”
+
+“Where a people rise in revolt against a lawful government, there must
+be bloodshed, sire, or submission.”
+
+Louis took up Mirabeau’s letter, and began to read it. Marie Antoinette
+watched him eagerly, the proud blood burning over her face, and a look
+of defiance in her eyes. She dreaded the persuasion, the eloquent
+reasoning which divested this gathering of the people of half its
+repulsive features.
+
+The king read slowly, and with thoughtful deliberation. In her passion
+the queen had hurled all the odious features of this popular design
+before him at once; but Mirabeau softened them almost into an intended
+concession and compliment to the court. It might be made, he urged, a
+means of great popularity throughout the country, while opposition would
+be sure to deepen the general discontent. The extremists, he urged, were
+already terrified lest the appearance of the royal family at a festival
+dedicated to liberty, should undo the slanders so industriously
+circulated against it. They only hoped that, by a refusal to preside at
+the people’s festival, Louis would embitter the populace more thoroughly
+against him.
+
+Mirabeau wrote eloquently and in good faith. Every word made its
+impression on the king. Marie Antoinette saw it, and tears of bitter
+humiliation rushed to her eyes.
+
+“You take his advice, sire?” she said, almost with a cry of despair.
+
+Louis looked at her a moment, and laid down the paper. It was not in his
+character to decide so promptly as that.
+
+“It requires thought.”
+
+“Requires thought for the King of France to resent an insult?”
+
+Louis shook his head, and a low moan broke from his lips.
+
+“Alas! this trouble is great, and I am but one man!” he said, with
+pathetic gentleness. “After all, the power of a king lies in the love
+and faith of his people.”
+
+Marie Antoinette knew then that the crowning humiliation, against which
+her soul had risen so hotly, would, in the end, be consummated. Without
+a word she turned away and left the room, pale as a ghost, and bowing
+her proud head downward. After a little she remembered that her manner
+had been abrupt and lacking in respect; touched to the heart, she turned
+back and softly opened the work-room door. The king had fallen forward
+upon his bench, and with his face buried in both hands, lay writhing in
+silent anguish.
+
+“Ah!” she thought, mournfully, “he has the power to endure, but not the
+will to act.” So, with sweet forbearance, she smothered the clamorous
+pride in her own bosom, and stealing up to the work-bench, wound her arm
+around her husband’s neck.
+
+“Louis!”
+
+The king looked up, and turned his heavy eyes upon the tearful face bent
+so lovingly to his.
+
+“Ah!” he said, gently. “An evil fate made me king when France was
+falling into convulsions. You should have been the leader, my beloved.”
+
+“Not so,” was the kindly answer. “What have I done but make the people
+hate me? I, who would have given my life for their love.”
+
+“For that we must both be ready to make great sacrifices. Oh! if I could
+only lay my heart bare before this concourse of Frenchmen, and let them
+see how honestly it is theirs, the thing with which they threaten us
+would be a blessing.”
+
+The king spoke earnestly, and his eyes filled with tears.
+
+“Shall I write this to Count Mirabeau?” said the queen, touched by this
+gentle despondency, and forgetting her first wrath in the intense
+sympathy which she felt for her husband.
+
+“I think he is faithful!” said Louis, wistfully! “Let us at least
+consider his advice.”
+
+Then the queen knew that she must submit, and without another word of
+protest, she went forth to accept the thing she loathed.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XCI.
+ THE BAFFLED SPY.
+
+
+An hour after this, Marguerite sat beside Dame Tillery in the little
+donkey cart which had brought them from Versailles. She carried a letter
+in her bosom directed to Count Mirabeau. The girl was very silent and
+thoughtful, and Dame Tillery managed her donkey in sullen dignity, for
+long after she was ready to start home Marguerite had kept her waiting.
+
+At last curiosity overcame the good woman, and she began to ask
+questions.
+
+“Well, Marguerite, did you get a sight of her majesty, or was it a
+mistake when they told me that she was walking in the Park. It was a
+great favor if they let you in. Nothing less than a member of the
+household could have done that for you; but, passing as my heiress, you
+have privileges. I hope you understand.”
+
+“Oh, yes!” answered Marguerite dreamily. “I understand that you are very
+kind to me.”
+
+“But about her majesty; did you get a glimpse of her?”
+
+“Yes, I saw her.”
+
+“But not too near. I hope you did not take a liberty like that?”
+
+“No, I think there was nothing wrong in what I did. You are kind to
+bring me here; and the queen is very beautiful—a grand, noble lady.”
+
+“Beautiful! I should think so. No one but a born traitor would dispute
+that.”
+
+“But troubled. Oh, how troubled!” resumed the girl, as if speaking to
+herself.
+
+“And reason enough,” answered Dame Tillery. “Her enemies grow keener
+every day; as for her friends—— I never boast, Marguerite, you know
+that, being more modest than most women; but if half her friends had
+been like me, earnest and capable, this miserable tumult would end.
+Instead of that, half the court has slunk away from her, and St. Cloud
+seems more like a prison than a palace.”
+
+“It does, indeed,” sighed Marguerite. “Poor lady! Poor, wronged queen!”
+
+Here Dame Tillery heaved a portentous sigh, and taking the reins in her
+left hand, drew forth a huge pocket-handkerchief, and wiped her eyes.
+
+“If you feel her wrongs so much, what must they be to me, a member of
+her own household, and like a mother to her ever since the great empress
+died.”
+
+Marguerite made no answer to this pathetic appeal. She had fallen into
+deep thought, and was wondering how it would be possible to get back to
+Paris, and safely deliver the letter hidden away in her bosom.
+
+The good dame talked incessantly of her own greatness, and the influence
+which her devotion had secured in the royal household; but, as her
+companion had heard it all over and over again at least fifty times, it
+had no more effect on her thoughts than the rush and gurgle of a brook.
+All at once Marguerite started out of her reverie, and laid her hands
+upon the reins with which Dame Tillery was guiding her donkey.
+
+“My friend, you must not be angry, but I do so long to be in Paris, if
+it is only for a night. Every step we take the other way, seems to draw
+a drop of blood from my heart.”
+
+“What, homesick—and with me!” exclaimed the dame, drawing up her reins
+in blank astonishment.
+
+“If you would only go with me, your sister Doudel will be so pleased.”
+
+“Oh, yes, I dare say! Now that you have had a look at her highness, you
+are dying to tell all about it. Well, well! since the court left
+Versailles, there has not been so much custom at The Swan that its
+mistress cannot go away for a night, and no great harm done. So, if you
+have set your heart upon it, my child, we will just take the road to
+Paris, and give my sister a surprise. Poor soul! she has not had our
+privileges, and will be delighted to hear that her protegèe has been
+introduced into the heart of the palace.”
+
+Dame Tillery entered into a severe struggle with her donkey. At this
+point that respectable animal objected to being forced from the road
+which led to his own stable, and took the journey to Paris with sullen
+protest and most unequal speed, sometimes creeping like a snail,
+sometimes going sideways, and occasionally pushing backward, as if
+determined to reach home by that process. But the good dame held her own
+in the contest; and at last drew up at her sister’s door, in high
+spirits, having brought the vicious animal into complete subjection.
+
+As Marguerite hurried toward the entrance, a little figure glided out
+from the shadows cast by a neighboring building, and seizing hold of her
+dress, checked her swift progress. It was the dwarf who had given her
+the letter which Mirabeau sent to the queen.
+
+“The letter,” he said, in a whisper; “I have been waiting for it. Count
+Mirabeau is impatient. Give me the letter.”
+
+The dwarf spoke eagerly, and clung to her dress. She saw the steel-like
+flash of his eyes and drew back, warned by an intuition which checked
+her first impulse to give up the precious document.
+
+“Come, come, be quick. He waits.”
+
+“Where is the count?”
+
+“In his own house. Come, now, the letter!”
+
+Marguerite withdrew the folds of her dress from Zamara’s grasp, and
+moved forward.
+
+“But you will not go without giving up the letter?” pleaded the little
+wretch. “I shall be blamed. Oh, mademoiselle! give it me!”
+
+“Tell Count Mirabeau that it shall reach him by a safe hand,” said the
+girl, growing more and more resolute.
+
+“But how are you to judge? Why choose another when I am here by his
+order?” pleaded the little traitor, stricken with terror.
+
+“Because I was directed to deliver all that was given me into the
+count’s own hands.”
+
+“And you will?”
+
+“Yes, I will.”
+
+“But to-night? Will you give it to him this very night?”
+
+“Yes; this very night.”
+
+Here Dame Tillery came on to the doorstep, almost sweeping the dwarf
+away with her skirts.
+
+“Come, come—what are you waiting for? Surely, they have not locked the
+door so early.”
+
+Marguerite, finding herself thus set free, glided into the house, and
+Dame Tillery followed.
+
+The dwarf drew back into the shadows again, grinding his teeth with
+impotent rage. He dared not return to the woman who had kept him day
+after day upon the watch for Marguerite’s return. His errand had been a
+failure, and, cowering with dread, he reflected that his very life was
+at stake, for Louison Brisot’s threat had chilled his soul with dread of
+her vengeance. So he slunk away, and, leaning against the wall of a
+neighboring house, waited in terror for Marguerite to come forth. After
+awhile the door opened cautiously, and a street lamp cast its momentary
+light upon Marguerite, who, shrouded in a cloak, and with a hood drawn
+over her face passed into the street.
+
+The dwarf followed her in sheer desperation. He had no doubt that she
+was on her way to Mirabeau’s residence, where the letter she carried
+would pass out of his reach forever—that the wretched creature knew
+would be death to him. So, without any definite object, and actuated
+only by a wild desire to save himself, he followed on, keeping at a safe
+distance. Marguerite walked rapidly, gliding like a shadow along the
+street, until she came in sight of Mirabeau’s dwelling; then she paused
+a moment to gather courage, and pushing back her hood looked around, to
+be certain no one was in sight.
+
+That moment a young man passing along the street, stopped short in his
+rapid walk, and cast a sharp glance at the young face momentarily
+exposed to his view.
+
+“Great heavens!”
+
+This exclamation had hardly left his lips, when the girl entered the
+building, which he knew to be occupied by Count Mirabeau.
+
+“The villain! Poor, foolish child!”
+
+Muttering this through his clenched teeth, St. Just drew back into the
+shelter of an arched passage, and watched the house with a wild hope
+that another minute would bring the girl into the street again. As he
+stood with his eager eyes fixed on the opposite door, something that
+seemed like a crouching dog stole up the steps, and pressed itself
+against the door, which swung partly open, letting a gleam of light into
+the street. Then he saw what had seemed a prowling animal lift itself to
+an upright position, till it took the statue of a child, and pass
+through the hall beyond.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XCII.
+ THE VIPER TURNS.
+
+
+“At last! at last!” exclaimed Louison Brisot, springing forward like a
+panther, and seizing the dwarf, Zamara, by the shoulder as he came
+through the door of her apartment. “I began to think you had been
+playing me false.”
+
+“Because I was late? That is hard. I can watch, not hasten the movements
+of others,” answered the dwarf, snappishly.
+
+“What, getting savage? That looks well. You have got the letter—I
+understand that. Success always makes cowards audacious.”
+
+“Yes, I have got the letter; but only by creeping, like a thief, into
+Mirabeau’s house. Now, what am I to get for it?”
+
+“Get for it? Why, your life, craven—your own precious life!”
+
+“But I want more. The life of a dog—a slave, is not worth having, unless
+there is enjoyment in it.”
+
+“Enjoyment!” cried the girl, laughing boisterously. “Why, what can a
+little withered thing like you want of enjoyment?”
+
+“What can you want of it?” questioned the dwarf, fiercely. “I am human.”
+
+“Scarcely!” answered the woman, with brutal sincerity; “but you shall
+have your enjoyment. I have been so much from home that my cat is
+getting ferocious. You shall tame him for me; he killed my dog in a hard
+fight. You may have better luck.”
+
+A fiendish scowl convulsed the dwarf’s face.
+
+“I do for madame what no one else can, and for that she taunts me. I
+will not bear it.”
+
+“Indeed!” drawled the girl, delighting in the creature’s futile rage.
+“How will the marmousette help himself?”
+
+“Easily!”
+
+“But how? The creature makes me laugh.”
+
+“I will not give you the queen’s letter to Mirabeau.”
+
+“You have got it, then?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How? From the girl?”
+
+“No. She would not part with it; but delivered it to the count with her
+own hands.”
+
+“Delivered it to the count! But you have it?”
+
+“Yes. I followed her into the house, hid in the room you know of, and
+stole it from under his very hands while he leaned back with shut eyes
+to ponder over it. You see there is an advantage in being small. I went
+in and out like a shadow.”
+
+“And the letter! Give it up. I am burning with impatience. The letter!
+Where is it?”
+
+“Why should I give the letter to you for the privilege of taming your
+fiend of a cat?”
+
+“The letter, insolent—the letter, or I will have you hung at the first
+lantern.”
+
+Zamara turned his back upon the excited woman, and was leaving the room.
+
+“What is this? Where are you going?”
+
+“To give Mirabeau his property, with a full account of all you have done
+to get him in your power. He has money to reward, and power to protect
+those who serve him.”
+
+“You would betray me, then, poor, miserable traitor?”
+
+“If I were not a traitor how could I be of use here?” answered the
+dwarf. “Traitor, if you will; but no one has yet called Zamara a fool;
+and I do not intend to give reason for it. I know the value both of love
+and hate. You ask the greatest luxury on earth at an unfair price. I
+refuse to sell it while better customers can be found.”
+
+Louison Brisot was struck dumb by the creature’s audacity. In her
+arrogant self-conceit she had fancied that terror made him her slave;
+but he turned upon her at the critical moment, when she had proofs of
+Mirabeau’s complicity with the queen almost in her grasp. She had
+taunted him a minute too early.
+
+“You shall not leave the room. I will have the letter,” she cried,
+darting before him, and placing her back against the door. “Give me that
+letter, man, or I will find it for myself.”
+
+The dwarf almost smiled in the face of that beautiful fiend. He drew
+back and cast a sidelong glance toward the window, which was not very
+far from the ground. Louison saw his intent, and prepared to spring upon
+him. Still half-smiling, he thrust one hand into the bosom of his dress,
+and she cried out,
+
+“That is right. What folly to think of playing the traitor with me!”
+
+But, instead of the package she expected, Zamara drew a poniard from his
+bosom, and, with the sheath of embossed gold in one hand, and the sharp,
+slender blade quivering in the other, stood ready to receive her.
+
+Louison burst into a mocking laugh. Even with that weapon the puny
+creature could be no more than a child in her grasp. She sprang forward,
+determined to wrest both the poniard and letter from him.
+
+Zamara stepped sideways prepared for her, his black eyes gleamed living
+fire, his mouth was set like a vise; the poniard shook and flashed in
+his hand.
+
+“Have a care,” he said, in a low, sharp voice. “The point is poisoned
+with carroval; if it touches you, that black heart will never beat
+again.”
+
+Louison had heard of that fearful poison, which only the savages of
+Darien know how to prepare. One drop of which, penetrating the flesh,
+strikes death through the heart in a single moment—half an inch deep the
+point of that glittering blade was dulled by this resinous poison. The
+girl drew back horror-stricken, her lips bloodless, her cheeks white as
+snow.
+
+“Fiend!” she muttered, trembling in all her limbs.
+
+The dwarf laughed. “You see there are things more powerful than brute
+strength,” he said; “this one drop of resin makes the dwarf a giant. Now
+we can talk on equal terms. You want the letter in my bosom, and I am
+not unwilling that you should have it.”
+
+“Then why not give it to me at once?”
+
+“Because you are insolent—because you have treated me like a dog.”
+
+“It was but a jest,” said Louison, almost humbly.
+
+“Such jests do not suit me.”
+
+“Well, well, they shall not be repeated.”
+
+“Then I cannot work like a cur because I am told. My mistress was always
+munificent.”
+
+“Doubtless,” answered Louison, impatiently. “But I have no King of
+France to scatter gold at my feet; besides, in these times, safety is
+better than gold.”
+
+“But how is one sure that you can give safety? Let it be known that she
+is working in opposition to the great Mirabeau, and Louison Brisot will
+be more likely to want protection than the dwarf she dares to insult.”
+
+Louison seemed struck by this speech; for a moment her eyes fell, but
+directly her courage came back.
+
+“You cannot understand,” she said. “There is no man in the Assembly has
+so many bitter enemies as Mirabeau. One grave charge fastened upon him
+is enough to hurl him from power and blast his popularity.”
+
+“But who will you find more powerful? The next leader may not care to
+bend his will to that of a woman more than Count Mirabeau.”
+
+“You are sharp, Zamara, and wiser than I thought. Listen now. I do not
+wish to injure this man, but to—no matter what I wish.”
+
+“It is power through him, or revenge that you cannot get it. I
+understand,” said the dwarf, while a look of slow cunning stole over his
+swarthy face.
+
+Louison regarded him with astonishment. She had fallen into the mistake
+of measuring the creature’s intellect by his size, and thus thrown off
+her guard, had given him an insight into her character and motives,
+which might prove dangerous.
+
+“Zamara,” she said, with abrupt frankness, “I do not wish to use that
+letter against Mirabeau, but to secure him more firmly. Will you give it
+to me now, and for that purpose?”
+
+“No,” answered the dwarf, with a cunning smile. “I will keep it for the
+same purpose.”
+
+“Wretch!”
+
+“Stand aside, I wish to go. You have sneered at and insulted me so often
+that this blade quivers in my hand—a touch of its point and you are
+dead.”
+
+Louison stepped aside, for the gleam of a serpent was in the little
+creature’s eyes, and she knew that he had a serpent’s longing to strike
+her down.
+
+When Zamara was gone, Louison sat down utterly confounded. Her
+instrument, her slave, the creature whom she had depended on for help,
+had openly defied her. What would he do? Show the letter to Mirabeau’s
+enemies, and thus make it useless to her? Or would he go to the count
+himself and tell him all that she had done?
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XCIII.
+ THE QUEEN’S LETTER.
+
+
+It was getting late, but Louison cared nothing for that, the exactions
+of society had long since been thrown away in her wild life. She hastily
+arranged her dress and went into the street. She had intended to seek
+Mirabeau that evening, ready for a contest, with two letters,—that which
+Mirabeau had written to the queen, and the answer which she had failed
+to obtain. As it was, she went forth half armed, but feeling
+sufficiently secure. After all, it was of less importance what the queen
+had written to Mirabeau, than what this revolutionary leader had written
+to the queen. Like a good general mustering his forces after a partial
+defeat, this woman arranged her thoughts as she threaded the streets of
+Paris. When she had reached the Chaussée d’Anton, her courage returned
+with that supreme audacity which no misfortune or rebuff could conquer.
+
+A subject of bitter anger met Louison at the very door of Count
+Mirabeau’s dwelling. The porter denied her that free admission which she
+had always commanded. She was requested to wait in the hall till Count
+Mirabeau’s pleasure could be learned. “He did not receive now as
+formerly, and no one was admitted, unannounced, to his presence.”
+
+Louison was white with sudden wrath; as she turned upon the man specks
+of angry foam shot to her lips.
+
+“Is this a rule for all?”
+
+“Yes; all but very intimate friends, of whom I have a list.”
+
+“See if the name of Louison Brisot is on that list.”
+
+The haughty confidence in her tone rather startled the man, who drew a
+memorandum-book from his pocket, and turned over the leaves in nervous
+haste.
+
+Louison possessed neither fear nor delicacy. While the man was glancing
+over some names written in his book, she drew close and read them for
+herself. She saw two names that kindled her wrath to a white heat—Madame
+Du Berry, and lower down Marguerite.
+
+“No, madame—or, I beg pardon, mademoiselle, the name is not here,” said
+the man, closing his book.
+
+“That is because there should not be a servant in this house so ignorant
+as to ask my name. I will find Count Mirabeau myself.”
+
+Louison waited for no protest, but made her way at once into the
+library, where Mirabeau was writing. He lifted his eyes as the woman
+presented herself, and looked at her from head to foot with a stern,
+questioning glance, still holding the pen in his hand. She gave him back
+a look of reckless defiance. Then Mirabeau laid down his pen, and
+touched a silver bell that stood upon the table.
+
+The porter had followed Louison, anxious to exculpate himself, and was
+instantly at the door.
+
+“I gave orders that no one should be admitted. How is it that they have
+not been obeyed?” said the count.
+
+“Pardon, monsieur. I am distressed to say it, but the lady was informed,
+and still she came in.”
+
+“Very well. You may go!”
+
+Mirabeau took up his pen as he spoke, and went on writing as if Louison
+had not been in the room. The insulting coolness of the act drove
+Louison beside herself. She went to the table, and bent her white face
+close to the calm, massive features of this strange man.
+
+“Are you afraid of me that your man has such orders?” she whispered, for
+her voice was locked with intense anger.
+
+Mirabeau looked up and smiled as he uttered the single word,
+
+“Afraid!”
+
+“Yes, afraid!” she said, with biting scorn.
+
+“No, only tired,” answered the man, leaning back in his chair, with a
+slight yawn, which drove the woman mad.
+
+“Tired! Tired of what?”
+
+“Of you, I think.”
+
+His insolent calmness struck the woman dumb. She could neither speak nor
+move. Her consternation amused Mirabeau, to whom a woman’s anger was
+generally a subject of ridicule or philosophical speculation. Just now
+he rather enjoyed the rage of his visitor; it was picturesque, sweeping
+thus over the stormy beauty of her face.
+
+“Count Mirabeau, this is an insult!”
+
+Mirabeau smiled.
+
+“An insult for which you shall pay dearly.”
+
+This fierce threat brought a faint color over the man’s face. She saw it
+and exulted. At least, she had the power to stir the blood in his veins.
+A little more, and she would make a tiger of him. Oh! for words bitter
+enough! They would not come. If she could have coined bullets into
+insults, they would been too weak for the need of her seething anger.
+
+Mirabeau took up his pen and began to write. A half-completed letter lay
+before him, and he went on with it calmly. All at once he felt her white
+face droop toward his shoulder, and her breath bathed his cheek. She was
+reading the letter over which his hand moved. With his fist dashed down
+on the paper, and his frowning face uplifted, he thundered out,
+
+“Begone, woman! Begone, I say!”
+
+In his anger, Count Mirabeau was terrible. Sometimes he concealed it
+beneath smiles, and sharp, witty jeers, holding himself under firm
+control, as he had done during this unwelcome interview; but Louison
+had, in fact, worn out his patience—and he was not a person to bear
+threats tamely from man or woman. Now the coarse nature broke out, and
+once more he bade his tormentor begone, as if she had been some
+repulsive animal in his path.
+
+As often happens, one powerful passion silenced another. Mirabeau’s rude
+strength subdued the woman’s wrath till it came within the level of
+words. In bitter, stinging taunts, that man, with all his eloquence, was
+no match for the girl, who, for the moment, hated him.
+
+“Where shall I go, to that temple in the park of St. Cloud, where a vile
+traitor meets a——”
+
+Mirabeau started up, his face crimson, his large hand clenched. It was
+Louison’s turn to laugh—and her voice rang out in one long, mocking
+taunt.
+
+“You look surprised. Those eyes start from your head. You order me to
+begone, but forget to tell me where. If that temple does not please you,
+perhaps Madame Du Berry——”
+
+The girl broke off appalled. She had brought the tiger in Mirabeau’s
+nature uppermost, and even her courage shrunk a little under it. The man
+turned upon her like a wild beast, but even in that supreme moment
+restrained himself. Her words surprised him. He could not fathom the
+extent of her knowledge, and was too proud for questions; but doubt and
+keen anxiety broke through the storm on his face. How much did that evil
+creature know?
+
+“So you dared to level me with the crowd of silly women whose hearts you
+have trampled on,” said Louison, encouraged by his fierce agitation.
+“You thought a few curt words, and unmanly insults, would send me
+whining among their ranks. With your lips on the hand of a queen, you
+could afford to scoff at a woman of the people. But I will give you
+proofs of your mistake. The people shall know of this treason before the
+night is an hour older.”
+
+With a mighty power of self-control Mirabeau sat down at his table, took
+up the pen, and went on writing. He would not let the woman see that she
+had shaken his nerves by a single thrill of apprehension.
+
+“You do not believe me. Well, what if I tell you exactly how much gold
+has been drawn from the royal treasury to gild the treason of Count
+Mirabeau?”
+
+The pen in Mirabeau’s hand gave a sudden leap upon the paper, then
+glided on evenly as before.
+
+“What if I tell you what fair girl it was who brought a letter from St.
+Cloud this very evening?”
+
+“Even then,” said Mirabeau, at last, pausing a moment in his work, “what
+would the word of Louison Brisot be against that of Mirabeau? Foolish
+woman! you are wasting time! Go, carry your bundle of falsehoods where
+you will, they only weary me, and I am busy.”
+
+“I will,” answered the woman. “Henceforth there is war between us two.”
+
+Again Mirabeau smiled; though startled, and full of keen apprehension,
+he would not let the woman see how terribly her words had disturbed him.
+Still they were but words, and an accusation, without evidence, could
+easily be borne down, especially as it would seem to spring from the
+jealousy of an angry woman, whose vindictive character was well known at
+the clubs.
+
+Louison stood a minute pale and silent, waiting for him to speak; but
+the proud man would have perished rather than show, by word or look, the
+wound she had given him. His calmness hurt her worse than his anger had
+done. He did not believe her; before the hour was over she would
+convince him.
+
+“The clubs are still in session, before they close your treason will be
+known there.”
+
+“And you will have done your worst. Come and tell me how the news is
+received. It will be interesting. I shall wait for you,” said Mirabeau,
+without lifting his head.
+
+“Yes, I will come, if it is only to be the first who shall tell you that
+your power in France is at an end. Count Mirabeau, you stand from this
+night exposed to the world as a demagogue and a traitor!”
+
+“Be sure and come. You shall have no trouble in reaching me this time.”
+
+Louison left the room and the house. When the door closed upon her,
+Mirabeau flung down his pen, and resting his head upon his two hands,
+gave way to the terrible shock her words had brought upon him. She was
+right; let France once know that he had been in treaty with the court,
+and his great power would melt away like a snow-wreath. All that he
+possessed on earth was his influence with the people. In the clubs and
+the Assembly he had almost as many enemies as friends. The extremes both
+hated him and feared him. They would seize upon anything which promised
+to injure him.
+
+Would Louison go to them with her charge? It was more than likely. Her
+keen wit and vindictive thirst for vengeance would find the shortest way
+of reaching him. But she had no evidence; his letter reached the queen,
+and her answer was safe in his own possession. What, then, but
+unsupported suspicion, had the woman to offer his enemies. Such evidence
+he could afford to scorn. After all, why should he care for the threats
+of a woman like Louison Brisot—a creature who would never have been
+heard of but for the notice he had given her.
+
+Mirabeau remained a full hour thinking over all that threatened him.
+Then he remembered the queen’s letter and, rendered cautious by anxiety,
+resolved to burn it after another careful perusal. A deer of lapis
+lazuli, with hoofs and antlers of burnt gold, crouched upon a small
+block of agate at his elbow. Under this dainty toy he had placed the
+queen’s letter after reading it. Mirabeau reached forth his hand, lifted
+the deer, and found nothing underneath. He gazed in consternation at the
+empty space, then searched among the papers on his table with a hand
+that began to shake violently. Had that evil creature stolen the letter?
+
+No, that was impossible; she stood on the other side while looking over
+his shoulder, in that position the deer was beyond the reach of her arm.
+But the letter was gone, and he had not, for a moment, left the room
+after it was placed in his hands by that fair girl. Where could it be?
+Why had it left his hand for a single moment? Mirabeau ground his teeth,
+and cursed his own carelessness as he tossed the papers to and fro on
+his writing-table; but it was of no avail—the queen’s letter was gone.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XCIV.
+ LOUISON BRISOT VISITS ROBESPIERRE.
+
+
+A little man sat alone in his lodgings where he led an existence of
+austere economy, such as many of the most noisy patriots only affected.
+This man was sincere in his simple mode of life, and honestly rigid in
+the self-denial, which had become a habit within him. The only gleam of
+vanity that broke around him lay in the showy color and cut of his
+clothes, which were unlike those of any other man in his class of life.
+With this exception, Robespierre cared nothing for his surroundings. He
+was proud of a very insignificant person, and ambitious for power, but
+had not thought of gain as a means of working out his ambition. Indeed,
+Robespierre, like many of his compatriots, was proud of his poverty, and
+used it as a stepping-stone to the influence he craved.
+
+“A woman wishes to see citoyen Robespierre.”
+
+These words from a slatternly servant aroused the man from a pamphlet
+which he was reading, and he started up surprised, and a little nervous,
+for it was getting late in the evening, and in order to read in comfort,
+he had thrown off the only coat he possessed, and unwound the voluminous
+cravat from his throat, both of which articles lay across the back of
+his chair.
+
+“A woman—a lady? Who is it?”
+
+“Don’t know.”
+
+“Well, what is she—young or old, beautiful or ugly?”
+
+“Beautiful, I dare say the citoyen will think.”
+
+“Well, well, keep her waiting till I get my coat on.”
+
+Robespierre ran to a little mirror hanging on the wall, and folded the
+soft, white cravat around his neck, caressed the ruffles of plaited
+linen that had begun to hang limp, and a little soiled upon his bosom,
+into something like their original crispness. Then he thrust his arms
+into a coat originally of bright olive-green, from which the nap had
+been considerably worn by constant brushing. Scarcely had he settled his
+slight figure in these garments when the door of his room opened, and
+Louison Brisot made her appearance. She had evidently been walking fast,
+for a warm, bright color glowed in her cheeks, and her bosom heaved and
+fell with her quick breathing.
+
+Robespierre had seen this young person before, and received her with a
+feeling of disappointment. Notwithstanding the honied flatteries she had
+bestowed on him that night in the street, he distrusted her. Louison was
+known as the devoted friend of Mirabeau, and Robespierre regarded her
+with something of the dislike which he felt toward that powerful man,
+whose greatness had so overshadowed him both in the Assembly and with
+the people.
+
+“I am fortunate in finding you alone, citoyen,” said the girl, who
+scarcely heeded the confusion into which she had thrown the little man,
+whose character and ability had not yet found full recognition in
+France. “We are not known to each other much, but shall be better
+acquainted, I hope, after my errand is explained. Have I your permission
+to sit?”
+
+Robespierre came forward and placed one of the two chairs his room
+contained, for the accommodation of his visitor. Then he stood up,
+leaning one hand on the table, and waited in grave silence for her to
+speak. She did this suddenly.
+
+“You know Mirabeau well, but do not like him,” she affirmed rather than
+questioned.
+
+“Yes, the count has made himself well known in the Assembly.”
+
+“Where he overshadows more able members than he ever can be, and
+tyrannizes over the true patriots of France by the force of his own
+brutal character.”
+
+“Mirabeau is a powerful man,” answered Robespierre thoughtfully. “This
+day he stands with his foot upon the neck of France, and the people
+sustain him.”
+
+“Because they think him a true patriot.”
+
+“Yes, he has attained a marvelous hold on the people.”
+
+“But if those who worship him now could be made to see him false as he
+is—a traitor to their cause, a parasite of the court, a double-sided
+villain—what then? Would they cling to him still?”
+
+“Cling to him? No! The people are great; the people are just!”
+
+“One question more. Who is there among the patriots who could take his
+place?”
+
+For the first time, a slow, dull crimson came into Robespierre’s face,
+and his eyes shone with inward fire. The ambition that consumed him
+flashed out with an irrepressible illumination of the face that a moment
+before had seemed so parched and void of all expression.
+
+Louison answered the look as if he had spoken.
+
+“You are right, citizen. The man is Maximillian Robespierre. I, of all
+the women of France, have known it. While others reviled him, I have
+seen the elements of greatness rising and growing in this man. While
+Mirabeau trifles with his power, plays with his popularity, and loses
+his triumphs, this man hoards his strength and bends his energies to one
+great purpose—the liberty of the people.”
+
+Robespierre gazed on the woman in amazement. He believed himself to be
+all that she described, felt the indomitable spirit, which she
+understood so well, burning in his soul, and replied to her as if she
+had been talking to another person.
+
+“You are right. The man who is to lift France out of her chains must
+have but one duty, one idea—to that humanity itself must bow; for her
+sake life should be as nothing. The purposes of other men must bend to
+his will. Count Mirabeau is not that man. His soul wanders away from its
+wavering object back to his grosser self. He wastes his life in projects
+that have no issue. He loves himself rather than France. The
+aristocratic blood in his veins is forever leading him back to our
+enemies. He coquets with a great nation as if it were a woman.”
+
+“Yet the people love him, and follow him blindly—most of all, the women;
+and of these, with blind persistence, the women of the market, who wield
+a wonderful power over the starving multitude who come to them for food.
+
+“I know. I have seen their devotion. This man does not arise in his
+place without a crowd to cheer him on. His speeches are broken up with
+acclamations, and carried to the world on a thousand lips, warm with his
+praises. Yet, I declare to you, this man stands between these very
+people and their liberty—he blocks the way more earnest men are eager to
+tread. But why have I spoken thus, and to a woman known as his warmest
+admirer?”
+
+“Not so, citoyen. While Mirabeau was honest, I adored him. Now——”
+
+“Now? What have you discovered? Why are you here? Not because I am known
+as his friend? That is impossible. I look upon him as a stumbling block
+in the way of all true patriots.”
+
+“And I look upon him as a traitor!”
+
+“Ah! I know men say that; but the proof? Where is the proof? No one has
+been able to find it; and every futile charge only makes him the
+stronger.”
+
+“What if he were known to visit the queen privately?”
+
+“To visit the queen? No, no! He is not rash enough for that.”
+
+“But if he had?”
+
+“That would be a strong lever in skillful hands; but the proof must be
+clear, and the witnesses trustworthy.”
+
+“What if he had taken money from the court?”
+
+“Money! Why, that would kill him with the people.”
+
+“Where does the money come from with which he keeps up princely state in
+the Chaussée d’Anton? Has any one put that question home to him?”
+
+“As for that, it is understood that Mirabeau is reconciled with his
+father, a wealthy man in the provinces.”
+
+Louison broke into a laugh.
+
+“So that is the way he accounts for it; and the people are fools enough
+to believe him. Credulous idiots, have they no eyes?”
+
+“But suspicions are not proofs.”
+
+“Is this a _proof_?” cried the girl, losing all patience with these
+lawyer-like questions. “Is that Mirabeau’s handwriting? Will his
+besotted worshippers stand firm against a paper like that?”
+
+Louison cast down Mirabeau’s letter to the queen as she spoke.
+Robespierre took it up and read it carefully. He was a cool, wary man,
+slow of conviction, impossible to move when his opinion was once formed;
+but the woman who watched him saw that hard, dull face light up with
+almost ferocious satisfaction, and his gray eyes were absolutely black
+with excitement as he turned them upon her.
+
+“This letter; how came it in your possession, citoyenne?”
+
+“I bribed Mirabeau’s messenger to give it up.”
+
+“It is genuine! It is genuine! Louison Brisot, you have done wonderful
+service to those who love France. I will lay this letter before the
+Assembly.”
+
+Louison turned white. This prompt action, which would sweep all power of
+retreat from her, took away her breath. As yet she had made no terms for
+herself.
+
+“When Mirabeau is dethroned, and another sits in his place, then what of
+Louison Brisot?” she said.
+
+“She will have the gratitude of all France,” answered Robespierre,
+looking up from the letter, which he was perusing a second time. “What
+more can a true patriot want?”
+
+“That which Mirabeau has, and you seek for—power!”
+
+“Power?”
+
+“The man who controls all others must share his power openly, or in
+secret, with Louison Brisot.”
+
+A faint, hard smile crept over Robespierre’s face; it disturbed the
+woman who gazed so fixedly upon him. Had she done well to exchange the
+insolent forbearance of Mirabeau for this iron man?
+
+“At last we can lay his black heart bare before the people he has duped.
+Nothing can save him. The man who arraigns him is immortal.”
+
+Robespierre was speaking to himself. Louison listened. She saw that he
+had no thought of her—that keen, selfish ambition possessed him
+entirely. She drew toward him softly as he pored over the paper, reached
+over his shoulder and took the letter from his hand.
+
+He started and uttered a faint snarl, like some wild animal when its
+food is torn away.
+
+“Why have you taken it?” he said, “I was getting his treason by heart.”
+
+“But I have scarcely read it myself. Besides, there are others who love
+France.”
+
+“No, no! Let this rest between you and me. Robespierre must strike the
+blow himself.”
+
+The sight of this man’s eagerness to crush his rival made Louison doubly
+anxious to keep the power she possessed under her own control. What, if
+in ruining Mirabeau, she only acted as the instrument of a harder man’s
+ambition. After all, had she not been too hasty in allowing the jealous
+feelings of a woman to hurry her so completely into a combination with
+Mirabeau’s enemies? Had she been wise to threaten this man, to whom
+defiance, in any form, was like flashes of scarlet to an enraged animal?
+
+She looked at Robespierre in that olive-green coat, with its high
+rolling collar, under which his spare, angular figure seemed to shrink
+away into insignificance, and a smile of derision almost curled her
+saucy lips. She remarked with an inward jeer, the striped vest, in which
+lines of warm buff predominated, whose broad lapels, opening wide upon
+the bosom, gave place to a profusion of twisted muslin and clustering
+ruffles, from which that contracted face, lean, dry, and hard, rose in
+grotesque contrast.
+
+Louison almost laughed at herself for the thought of lifting this man
+into the seat of Mirabeau, whose brutal strength and dashing elegance
+came back upon her mind with the sudden force of contrast. She
+remembered how grandly the broad ruffles rolled back from his massive
+throat; how imperial was the poise of that haughty head, with its shock
+of tawny hair, and wonderful mobility of countenance. Even the supreme
+insolence of his bearing had its charm for this woman, who was ready to
+adore the man whose ruin she was planning, while she solemnly believed
+that it was hate which led her on. She turned away from the
+contemplation of Robespierre’s meagre figure, wondering at herself that
+she had even so far put a creature like Mirabeau into his power.
+
+After all, Louison Brisot was a woman, and capricious even in the wild
+patriotism and burning jealousy, which led so many of the women of
+France into acts that seemed to unsex them. She began to scorn herself
+for the idea of casting a grand, leonine creature like Mirabeau into the
+power of a man, whose appearance was so utterly insignificant.
+
+No, Louison would not do it. Mirabeau should have another chance. It was
+like chaining a lion that foxes might torture him. No,—no! That letter
+once given up, and where was she? Simply an informer, to be used for
+that eager little man, who could not even smile frankly.
+
+Louison put the letter in her bosom, while Robespierre was gazing on it
+with eager longing.
+
+“But you are not going? You will not take it away?” he exclaimed,
+sharply.
+
+“It belongs to me—I shall not harm it. When all is ready you know where
+to find it.”
+
+“But, citoyenne, that paper belongs to the people.”
+
+“And I am one of the people,” answered Louison, laughing.
+
+“Leave it—leave it with me.”
+
+“Yes, when I like you better than myself.”
+
+Robespierre measured the woman with a keen, hungry glance. He was not
+altogether a brave man, but crafty and cruel enough to have killed her
+with his own hands, if that would have given him possession of the
+paper; but Louison, a handsome, bright woman, was, in fact, powerful
+enough to have defended herself against two such men as Robespierre. He
+glanced at her tall, subtle person, her strong, white arms, and burning
+eyes, that seemed to read the craven purpose that was creeping through
+his brain and felt how useless any struggle would be against her. So he
+slunk back into the chair, from which he had half-started, with a
+feeling of abject defeat.
+
+“But you will keep it safe? It will be forthcoming when the patriots of
+the Assembly call for it?”
+
+“You have seen it—and who doubts the word of Robespierre?”
+
+“But I must have the proof—too many unfounded or unproved charges have
+been made against this man. They only make him more defiant and more
+powerful.”
+
+“But the letter will be in my keeping—you can find it at any time.”
+
+“Then you will not leave it?”
+
+“No!”
+
+“But promise me that you will not part with it to another.”
+
+“Well, I promise. Good-night, citoyen.”
+
+Robespierre followed the woman with his keen eyes, longing to spring
+upon her and wrest the document from her bosom. His thin hand clutched
+and opened itself on the table with an impatient desire to be at work.
+
+At the door of Robespierre’s lodgings Louison met two men, whom she knew
+and recognized. For one moment she paused. If her design was carried
+out, these were the very persons whose aid she wanted; but she only
+hesitated a moment, then passed on, saying,
+
+“Good-evening, citoyen Marat. Good-evening, St. Just.”
+
+Marat answered her with a careless jest. St. Just simply bent his head,
+but neither smiled on her, or at the wit of his companion. Louison stood
+a moment in the passage, and watched these two men as they mounted a
+flight of stairs leading to Robespierre’s room.
+
+“Shall I go back,” she thought, “and settle the whole thing with these
+men at once? No, not yet. By to-morrow I may have the other letter, or
+it may be—it may be——”
+
+Louison hurried into the street with this half-uttered sentence on her
+lip, and walked rapidly toward the Chaussée d’Anton. When she came
+opposite Mirabeau’s house her face lighted up. She had said to herself,
+“If I find it dark, then it shall be Robespierre; if not, Mirabeau shall
+have another chance. I will not give him up to these hounds without
+that.” Womanhood was strong within her that evening. She panted to
+conquer this great man, but not destroy him. When she thought of that, a
+feeling of terrible desolation fell upon her. She shuddered to think how
+near the scaffold was to a political offence.
+
+The porter made no objection to her entrance this time, but waved his
+hand toward the library, as if she had been expected.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XCV.
+ THE FRAUD OF FASCINATION.
+
+
+“Ah! you have thought better of it—I knew that it would be so,” said
+Mirabeau, receiving the woman he had parted with in such bitter anger,
+with a broad, frank smile. “Why will you degrade yourself with miserable
+threats, my beautiful friend?”
+
+“Threats! Only threats! Nay, it was something more. I am not to be
+defied with impunity.”
+
+“Defied! No. With me it was confidence, not defiance.”
+
+“Confidence! How?”
+
+“How? Not even yourself, Louison, can make me believe you capable of a
+mean action.”
+
+“A mean action! But you had concealments with me.”
+
+“Only for a time. In a few days you would have known everything.”
+
+“You made a confidant of that woman, Du Berry, who is worse than an
+aristocrat, and only claims to be one of us when all else reject her.”
+
+“On the contrary—I made her my tool.”
+
+“You invited that insolent woman, Theroigne de Mericourt, to your table,
+while I was almost driven from your door.”
+
+Mirabeau laughed till the ruffles on his broad bosom shook again.
+
+“Ah! you heard of that! Why, the whole troop of rioters forced
+themselves upon me—these two women with the rest. Robespierre, Marat,
+and some others, members of the Assembly, all came in a little mob
+together. I could but entertain them. Such men resent neglect.”
+
+“But Madame Du Berry! I was here—I overheard your conversation with that
+woman.”
+
+“Then you only learned one fact, that I considered her a useful
+instrument, by which a great end might be attained. She still has
+friends at court. I wished to draw myself into communication there.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” answered Louison, with a bitter laugh. “You wished to
+visit a little temple in the grounds at St. Cloud.”
+
+Mirabeau winced, but the smile never left his lips as she went on.
+
+“You desired, above all things, to kneel at the feet and kiss the hand
+of the queen. For a citizen of France, sworn to make her people free, it
+was a glorious ambition.”
+
+“Go on,” said the count, leaning back in his chair—“go on. What more
+have you learned?”
+
+“What more? Why, that the kneeling was done—the kiss given. I saw your
+perjured lips on the Austrian’s hand with my own eyes. The whole base
+treason was made plain to me then, as it is now, when I have your letter
+at command.”
+
+Mirabeau’s eyes flashed. She had the letter still in her possession. His
+greatest anxiety was laid at rest.
+
+“Then,” he said, with a pleasant, mellow laugh, “you have been playing
+the spy upon me all this time. Quite unnecessary, my friend. When my
+plans were matured you would have had them all. These others were my
+instruments; you had a grander and higher role to play.”
+
+“Yes, I understand, that of a cast-off garment when the fashions change,
+or an orange when the juice is exhausted,” answered the woman, tartly,
+but wavering a little in her bitter unbelief.
+
+“Mon Dieu! how thoroughly you play the jealous dame, Louison. I had
+hoped better things of you; but it is folly, I suppose, to expect broad
+confidence and a clear understanding of great aims in any woman.”
+
+Louison flushed angrily. It had been her pride to mate her own bold
+spirit with that of Mirabeau.
+
+“Wise men or women do not act blindly when nations are at stake,” she
+said, in a tone that was becoming more and more apologetic. “Deceive me
+in ever so little, and you deceive me in everything.”
+
+“But I have not deceived you, my beautiful tigress!”
+
+“You have met the queen?”
+
+“Granted.”
+
+“Taken money from the queen?”
+
+“That is false—a wicked slander that would blister honest lips,” cried
+the count, sitting upright, and flashing a storm of fierce wrath upon
+her.
+
+Louison looked around the magnificent room, and bent her splendid eyes
+upon him in silent unbelief. He understood the expression of her face,
+and answered it.
+
+“All this costs me nothing. It is the property of a refugee, and I
+seized upon it as a servant of the people.”
+
+“To ape the manners of an aristocrat,” answered Louison, with a faint
+sneer.
+
+“To win the power which shall hurl down aristocrats to a level with the
+people, or lift Mirabeau and those he loves above that of any monarch.
+Tell me, Louison, how will France be served best, by destroying all
+fixed laws, or by placing a man who has a genius for government in
+control of a weak and yielding king? The time may come, girl, when Marie
+Antoinette will find the woman who aids Mirabeau in carrying out the
+broad designs which fill his mind, lifted above herself in power, while
+she has only the name of queen, another——”
+
+“But that woman?”
+
+“Need I name her?” cried the count, taking Louison’s hand in his, and
+lifting his face to hers with an expression that made her heart swell.
+
+“Still, Mirabeau, it is useless to say that of late you have ceased to
+regard me.”
+
+“Because I have had momentous plans in my mind; because it seemed to me
+needful that the world should think with you, that there is neither love
+nor confidence between us. It is important that I should have one firm
+and trusting friend among my enemies. I had designed you for the
+position, Louison. What human being is there who can so readily win
+admiration and confidence? In their clubs, and in their private
+committees, I wish you to be the soul. It was this desire that made me
+seem less cordial than of old. I was willing my foes should think that
+we had quarreled. In order that you might get your part well it was
+necessary that you should feel it a reality. When the idea was once
+established, I should have taught you how false it was by deeper
+devotion, more perfect confidence. But you felt these preliminaries too
+keenly and became dangerous.”
+
+“Because I loved you. Oh, Mirabeau! it was from my great love which you
+seemed to outrage.”
+
+Louison threw herself upon her knees, and reached up her arms to
+Mirabeau with a great longing for some return of tenderness, which she
+had thought lost to her forever. This gesture disturbed the letter which
+she had thrust deep down in her bosom, and the edge came up through the
+loose folds of her dress. Mirabeau saw it, and his eyes flashed fire.
+She caught their light, and grew gentle and yielding as a child under
+it. Surely the man loved her, or his face would never have brightened
+like that! How childish and wayward she had been! It was magnanimous in
+Mirabeau to forgive her so readily; but then his nature was so grand—no
+wonder the people adored him. Surely, if he could control the monarch of
+France, all must be well with the masses.
+
+“How could I distrust you so?” she murmured, resting her head against
+him. “Look on me, beloved, and say that I am forgiven.”
+
+He did look upon her with an expression that had made many a heart beat
+faster to their peril.
+
+“But you have not told me all?” he said, gently. “There was another
+letter. How did you reach it?”
+
+“Another letter? The queen’s answer. I waited for it, hoped for it; but
+the little wretch would not give it up.”
+
+“What wretch? Nay, nay! do not turn your head from me, Louison.
+Confidence, to be perfect, must be mutual. Tell me what more you have
+been doing.”
+
+Louison told him how she had put Zamara on the track of his enterprise,
+and confessed, with burning shame, the defeat that wary dwarf had
+brought upon her.
+
+“So he has the document!” said Mirabeau, carelessly. “No matter; we will
+soon get it from him. I will force him to give it into your possession
+before you leave the house, late as it is. Henceforth there shall be no
+half confidence between us.”
+
+Louison smiled, and her eyes shone triumphantly—some generous impulses
+always exist in a woman who loves. Mirabeau’s forbearance brought all
+that was good in that hard nature to the surface. She remembered, with a
+pang of remorse, that the most dangerous action that had sprung out of
+her jealousy was still untold—her interview with Robespierre. While
+Mirabeau wrote a few brief lines and folded them, she thought of this,
+and hesitated how to tell him that which would not fail to stir his
+anger. The count was occupied with other things, and left her, for a
+time, unnoticed at his feet, while he touched a bell on the table, and
+gave some orders to a servant.
+
+Louison started when she heard them.
+
+“Take this to Madame Du Berry, she will send her attendant, the dwarf,
+back with you. See that the imp speaks to no one. If he attempts to
+evade you, bring him in your arms; but do not quite strangle him.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XCV.
+ ZAMARA IS MASTER OF THE SITUATION.
+
+
+THE man went out somewhat astonished, but resolute to obey the orders he
+had received. Then Mirabeau leaned back in his chair and drew a deep
+breath. He was a perfect dissembler, or that keen woman would have
+detected something in his face that she did not like.
+
+“Mirabeau,” she said, almost humbly, “I have not told you all. When I
+went out from here to-night, my heart was full of rage and fire—I hated
+you.”
+
+“Foolish girl; weak, weak woman! How little you understand the man who
+loves you. Well, go on. What further mischief has been done?”
+
+“Mirabeau, I took that letter to Robespierre.”
+
+The count started up and almost hurled her to the floor.
+
+“To Robespierre! Fiend! fool! woman!”
+
+He spoke the last word with concentrated scorn, as if it were the
+hardest and most offensive he could apply to her.
+
+“I took it to Robespierre because of his enmity to you. At that moment,
+you know, I hated you, and longed for revenge.”
+
+“And you gave him the letter? It is no longer in your possession?”
+
+“He read it, and wanted to keep it, but I would not let him.”
+
+“Ah! Well, what did he say to it?”
+
+“That he would denounce you in the Assembly to-morrow.”
+
+“Then he was to be my accuser, and you were to be ready with the
+evidence. Was that the understanding?”
+
+How quietly he spoke, scarcely above a whisper, yet there was something
+in the sound that thrilled her like the hiss of a snake.
+
+“This you cannot forgive,” she said. “Still I warned you.”
+
+“Forgive? Oh, yes! We must not be hard on each other, Louison.”
+
+He spoke quietly, but with an unnatural tone in his voice. Still, if she
+had seen his face, the look of a fiend was there.
+
+“The mischief can be arrested. Late as it is, I will go to him.”
+
+Louison started up, and was preparing to go out; but the intellect of
+this singular man was more rapid than her movement. Quick as lightning
+he had discovered in her act a means of confounding his enemies.
+
+“Let it alone,” he said, with animation. “Is it likely that he will dare
+assail me?”
+
+“I am sure of it,” answered Louison, hesitating to sit down.
+
+“Your promise to give up the evidence was positive?”
+
+“Yes,” faltered the woman, shrinking from his eager glances.
+
+“There, let the whole thing rest. Here comes my man with the dwarf.”
+
+The messenger came, bearing Zamara, like a child in his arms. The little
+wretch was ashen white as far as his dusky skin would permit, and his
+eyes gleamed like those of a viper when they fell on Louison.
+
+“Let the creature down,” said Mirabeau; “and come again when I call
+you.”
+
+The man placed Zamara on his feet, and disappeared. Before any one could
+speak, the dwarf came close to Mirabeau with one hand in his bosom.
+
+“Guard yourself! Guard yourself! He carries a poisoned dagger there,”
+cried Louison.
+
+Zamara gave her a quick glance—all his color had come back. In an
+instant his sharp wit mastered the situation. The hand was withdrawn
+from his bosom; it held a paper, which he placed before Mirabeau with
+low reverence, as if he had been a slave, and the count an Eastern
+satrap.
+
+“The woman who leans upon your chair tempted me to take this. When I
+found that she intended to make a bad use of it, I refused to give it
+up, being resolved to bring it back again. In the morning Count Mirabeau
+would have found it under this pretty deer with the golden hoofs. There
+was no need of sending a tall man after Zamara; he knows what is right,
+and is not afraid when it is to be done.”
+
+Mirabeau took the letter, glanced over it, then leaned forward and held
+it in the flame of an antique lamp that burned before him. As the blaze
+flashed up from his hand, it revealed the lines of that lowering face
+with a vividness that made the dwarf tremble; but as the light faded,
+this expression softened into carelessness, and brushing the black
+flakes from his sleeves, he said, addressing Zamara,
+
+“You can go now. I shall not kill you for this; but try it a second
+time, and there will be one sharp, little dwarf less in France. Go!”
+
+Zamara needed no second bidding, but left the room, muttering, “She
+loves that man—she is jealous—his death would kill her. Good!”
+
+After Zamara was gone, Mirabeau drew Louison toward him.
+
+“The little viper would have cheated us both,” he said, “but for once we
+have drawn his fangs. Now for the other letter. When that is in ashes,
+we shall know how to meet this more venomous creature, Robespierre, and
+his mates. So they had Mirabeau in a trap, had they! The letter,
+Louison—the letter! We will send it after the one that is gone!”
+
+“But it is not here,” answered Louison. “I went home first, and left it
+there.”
+
+Mirabeau started. Had she, indeed, left that letter with his enemies. He
+looked keenly in her face, searching it for the truth. As his eyes
+wandered downward, a corner of the folded paper he had seen before was
+visible above the short, full waist of her dress. A crafty smile crept
+over Mirabeau’s lips as he drew her downward and pressed them to hers.
+He was tempted to secure the paper then, but his inordinate vanity
+prevented it. Dangerous as she was, he would trust her, and thus test
+his own powers of persuasion.
+
+“Ah, you do love me!” murmured the woman, and tears rose to her eyes.
+
+“How weak, how foolish to doubt it, my friend, my queen!”
+
+This word brought back Louison’s distrust.
+
+“Ah, the queen!” she said; “but for her I might not have doubted you.
+You gave her what Louison never knew, reverence, homage.”
+
+“Because there was no other way of winning her to my purpose. Cannot you
+understand that we gain and rule people by their master passions? Now
+there is not in all France a woman so proud of her power, and so
+conscious of her loveliness, as Marie Antoinette. Would you have had me
+wound while I wished to win her?”
+
+“Win her, Mirabeau?”
+
+“Yes, to those purposes which shall make your friend the ruler of
+France, and yet give liberty to the people. In order to accomplish this
+we must not pull down the throne entirely. France loves her traditions,
+and in some form or another will keep them. The nation is now like a
+noble ship reeling and plunging through the blackness of a storm. There
+is but one man living who could guide the helm—that man is Mirabeau.”
+
+“And but one woman who has the wit and courage to stand by his side, let
+the storm rage as it will,” said Louison, kindling with enthusiasm. “Ah,
+yes! this is far better than being a queen!”
+
+Mirabeau took her hand and kissed it, as if she had, indeed, been a
+sovereign, thus mocking her vanity in his heart.
+
+“We understand each other thoroughly now,” he said. “There will be no
+more doubt between us.”
+
+“Never again!”
+
+“And now we must say good-night, my friend. See how late it is.”
+
+Louison lingered, not that she was afraid of going into the street
+alone; but the exquisite delusions of the moment were upon her, and she
+longed to continue them.
+
+“The day has been an exciting one, and, spite of your dear presence, I
+am weary,” said the count, reaching forth his hand to take leave.
+
+Louison lifted the hand to her lips and covered it with kisses.
+
+“Ah!” she said, “this is coming from purgatory into heaven.”
+
+“But even angels must part sometimes, my friend.”
+
+“Yes, yes! Good-night. Ah, Mirabeau! how pleasant it is to be your
+slave!”
+
+“Slave! No, no! My mate—my friend!”
+
+“Call it by any name you will; but the jealous love which would have
+destroyed you an hour ago, now crouches at your feet in full submission.
+Good-night!”
+
+Mirabeau walked to the door and held it open, an act of courtesy seldom
+vouchsafed to her before. So, with smiles on her lips, she went out into
+the darkness.
+
+The moment she was gone, Count Mirabeau went back to his room, wild with
+the excitement he had suppressed with so much effort. Approaching the
+table, he struck his clenched fist upon it with a blow that sounded
+through the room, and fell into his chair, wiping great drops of
+perspiration from his forehead.
+
+Great heavens! the gulf that yawned before me! I can hardly make sure
+that it is bridged over yet. Another outburst of her furious jealousy
+between this and to-morrow, is absolute ruin. Fool, fool that I was to
+feel safe in my contempt of this dangerous woman. Surely few people
+should know better than myself that there is no fury like a woman
+scorned; but the fiend within is always tempting me to turn my doves
+into vipers. Heavens! when I think of the danger, it chills me; but she
+is tamed now. Mirabeau’s spell is upon her. I was tempted to take the
+letter from her bosom, but better not, better not. She knows too much.
+One token of distrust, and she would hasten to deserve it. She will not
+speak—she will not. When Mirabeau seals a woman’s mouth with kisses it
+is mute, save to obey him. Yes, she is safe—but how the whole thing
+shakes me! I did not think there was a woman living who could strike
+Mirabeau with a panic like this. The coward drops lie cold on my
+forehead even when I know the danger is passed. Oh, yes! it was better
+that I seemed to trust her—now I can.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XCVII.
+ BAFFLED AND DEFEATED.
+
+
+“The treason of Mirabeau! The treason of Mirabeau!”
+
+Robespierre had made his first attack in a bitter article hawked that
+morning through the streets of Paris; and the cry rose loud and long,
+like the howl of wild beasts scenting blood afar off.
+
+“The treason of Mirabeau! The treason of Mirabeau!”
+
+Robespierre heard it while walking toward the Assembly, and his black
+heart beat with triumph under that olive-green coat.
+
+Marat heard it as he lay in his bath, writing a still more furious
+attack on the popular idol, and a spasm of delight shook all his
+restless limbs till the water stirred around them.
+
+At last they had him in a firm grip; this proud demagogue, this popular
+idol, who loomed over them like a god, was in their power. They had
+proofs of his treason—proofs written by his own hand; the proof of an
+eye witness, who had seen him at the very feet of the queen. All this
+the articles in the journal only hinted at; but when Mirabeau took his
+seat in the Assembly that day, the storm would burst upon him. Hitherto
+he had defied them, and trampled down accusations of which there was no
+evidence that the people would accept. But now, yes now——
+
+No wonder Marat laughed till the water shook and rippled around him as
+if a serpent were uncoiling in them, then plunged into the bitterness of
+his article again, storming on the foe that in his mind was already
+down. Nay, he could not write, the brutal joy within him was too great.
+Rather would he arise, dress himself, and witness the downfall of the
+rival he hated and feared.
+
+Mirabeau heard the cry, paused in his haughty progress, and bought a
+journal, which he read quietly passing along the street, and those who
+observed him, saw a keen smile shoot over his lips. Surely, whatever the
+charge was, that man would fight it to the bitter end, and with such
+weapons as his opponents could never wield. The people still believed in
+Mirabeau, and cheered him as he moved toward the Assembly, even with
+those virulent cries of “traitor” on the air. The power of that man was
+something marvelous.
+
+The Assembly was turbulent that day as the streets had been. Mirabeau’s
+enemies were triumphant, his friends doubtful and anxious. Never had his
+accusers seemed so assured of success. Even his composure could not
+abate their joy. That calm seemed to them like depression.
+
+At the very door of the Assembly, the cry of Mirabeau’s treason came up.
+The galleries were full of women who were more tumultuous and eager than
+the men. Some had brought their work, others carried parcels, in which
+were bread or fruit, for it was believed that the sitting would be long
+and violent. Mirabeau would not die easy; they had hedged him in like a
+lion in the toils, and like a lion he was sure to defend himself. So the
+women of France flocked to the Assembly, and crowded all its vacant
+spaces, as the matrons of old Rome went to see gladiators and wild
+beasts tear each other. In this mob, which called itself a deliberative
+body, there was neither decorum, nor an attempt at order. Where all the
+evil passions are let loose tumult and anarchy must follow.
+
+Mirabeau’s enemies were all in their places. Clubs known to oppose him
+had emptied themselves into the galleries. On the floor his foes
+gathered in groups consulting together. There the beautiful face of St.
+Just was contrasted with the austere features of Desmoulins and the
+hateful coarseness of Danton. Everywhere Mirabeau saw preparations for
+an attack that was to crush him; but this only shot fire to his eyes,
+and curled his lips with haughty disdain. Not that he felt himself quite
+safe, but he was sustained by the natural self-confidence of a spirit
+that had never quailed before man. At all times Mirabeau was
+self-sufficient, more so than ever when danger threatened him. There he
+sat in the midst of his enemies, like a lion waiting for the gladiators
+to appear, calm from inordinate self-poise.
+
+Of all his enemies, Mirabeau’s defiant eyes sought out Robespierre the
+most frequently. There was something amounting almost to a smirk on the
+countenance of this little man, which would have been a smile in
+another; but the dry, parchment-like countenance of Robespierre admitted
+only of sneers and smirks—a broad, honest smile was impossible to it.
+
+Robespierre, at this time, had scarcely developed the dreadful character
+for cruelty and fanatical malice which blisters every page of history on
+which his name is written. His movements had been sinister, and up to
+this time, were more suggestive of atrocities than active in their
+perpetration. While Mirabeau was in power, the reptile spirit of this
+man had not ventured to crest itself, but slowly and with crafty
+windings was creeping stealthily to the horrible power with which the
+madness of an insane people at last invested him. Hitherto he had kept
+in the background, and instigated others to attack the man whose
+popularity stood between him and the position he thirsted for; but now
+that disgrace and defeat were certain, he came forward on the great
+man’s track like a hyena prowling along the path of a kingly beast.
+
+Robespierre was ready to lead the onslaught. Mirabeau saw it in the
+glitter of those evil eyes, and knowing how relentless and unprincipled
+the man was, felt a thrill of doubt rush over him. Nothing but certainty
+could have impelled that coward nature to creep into the light. Had
+Louison failed him? Could she have broken through the thrall of his
+persuasions and gone over to the enemy? The night before he felt a sort
+of pride in trusting everything to the power of his own personal
+influence over a woman that nothing else could tame or terrify; but now,
+when he stood face to face with an awful danger, for the first time in
+his life Mirabeau distrusted himself. What but a dead certainty could
+give that assured air to Robespierre? Why had he trusted to those powers
+of persuasion which never yet had failed him with the sex, but might
+prove ineffectual, for the first time, when his honor and very life
+depended on them? The night before his hand was almost on that very
+paper; a movement of the fingers, and he might have drawn it from
+Louison’s bosom, and, had he so chosen, defied her afterward. But
+intolerable self-conceit had prevented this act of safety. How he cursed
+the vanity which had filled his mind with all these harrowing doubts.
+“Whom the gods destroy they first make mad,” he muttered to himself. “I
+was, indeed, mad when I permitted her to leave me with _that_ in her
+bosom.”
+
+The galleries were already overrun with women—for that cry in the street
+had sent crowds to the Assembly. Now they began to fill the floor, and
+force themselves among the members with a feeling of equality which no
+one had the courage to resist or rebuke.
+
+All at once Louison Brisot appeared making a passage through the throng,
+arrayed with a glow and flash of rich colors, and looking proudly
+beautiful. Her eyes roved around the Assembly, and settled on
+Robespierre, who was looking at her with the changeful glitter of a
+serpent in his eyes. Louison met this look with an almost imperceptible
+bend of the head. Mirabeau saw it, and the bold heart quailed within
+him.
+
+At last Louison’s eyes fell upon his face, which was turned anxiously
+upon her. She gave him no signal. She did not even smile, but turned her
+back, and began talking airily with one of his bitterest enemies. Now
+and then he caught her glance turned on him from under her long
+eyelashes, as if she enjoyed his anxiety. Then he cursed the woman in
+his heart, but more bitterly cursed his own folly for leaving the means
+of his destruction in her power.
+
+The business of the Assembly went on—dull routine business, which no one
+cared about, and was inexpressibly irksome to Mirabeau, whose bold
+spirit was always restive under delay, even when action might injure
+himself. Through all these details he could now and then hear the voice
+and bold, ringing laugh of Louison, bandying jests with his enemies. The
+sound made him desperate, but, for the first time he felt some respect
+for the woman who had so adroitly outwitted him—inordinate self-love
+would not permit him to despise her after this display of her ability.
+
+At last a voice was heard asking leave for a privileged question; and
+Robespierre stood up, speaking in low, hesitating accents, but growing
+stronger as a dead silence fell upon the Assembly after his first words.
+
+Mirabeau turned in his seat, and listened, smiling, while each point of
+the charges made against him came in terse, bitter words from the man he
+had, for a long time, despised and ridiculed. How sharply and with what
+telling simplicity they fell upon his ear.
+
+Count Mirabeau, a member of that Assembly, was charged with betraying
+the people’s trust, inasmuch as he had entered into a secret league with
+the court to throw the nation back into the power of the nobles. While
+he professed to seek the liberty of the people, he had all the time been
+working against their dearest wishes. He was in constant intercourse
+with the king, and more especially with the Austrian woman, who was
+known as Queen of France. It would be made clear before the people, that
+Count Mirabeau had held repeated interviews with the king, and no longer
+ago than in June, had met the queen privately, in her summer-house at
+St. Cloud, where he entered into a compact to place the nation in her
+power. More than this, Mirabeau had, from first to last, been a
+pensioner of the court, and was in the habit of receiving vast sums of
+money from the queen, which he expended in such aristocratic and riotous
+living as no true patriot would indulge in while the people were
+starving around him.
+
+When Robespierre had done reading the carefully prepared charges,
+Mirabeau leaned back in his chair and said loud enough to be heard by
+all around him,
+
+“Is that all? I thought they would have proven that I was plotting to
+blow up the Assembly, and undermine all France with a pound of
+gunpowder. The little viper yonder has not half done his work.”
+
+There was more of audacity than courage in this speech, and desperate
+anxiety gave a false ring to his voice as he uttered it. Then, with a
+slow, arrogant movement, Mirabeau arose to his feet, and asked for the
+proofs of these charges, which had been so often hinted or spoken that
+they had lost all claim to originality, and were hardly worth answering,
+even when brought seriously before that august body. Of course citizen
+Robespierre did not expect him to answer accusations so loosely made,
+when unsupported by proof. Even that must be from persons, and of a
+character beyond question, if he deigned to notice it, even by a verbal
+contradiction.
+
+“The proof!” exclaimed Robespierre, in his sharp, disagreeable voice.
+“Stand forth, citoyenne Brisot, and let the people know how grossly they
+have been deceived. Answer: Did you not, in June last, see this man,
+Count Mirabeau, in company with Marie Antoinette, in a temple hidden
+away in the romantic grounds of St. Cloud? Did you not hear them make a
+solemn compact together, which was to chain France once more to the
+throne. Citoyenne Brisot, show to the people and their representatives
+that letter addressed to the queen, in the handwriting, and bearing the
+signature of Count Mirabeau, which is now in your possession. Citoyens,
+there is no time for such forms of investigation as usually follow
+charges like these; extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary
+measures. I move that these proofs are laid before you now—and that
+citoyenne Brisot have permission to speak.”
+
+Mirabeau arose, smiling, and begged that it might be so.
+
+Then, amid some confusion, Louison was called. She came out from the
+group of women who had crowded around her, somewhat excited, and with a
+light laugh upon her lips.
+
+“What is it,” she said, demurely casting down her eyes, “that citoyen
+Robespierre desires of me?”
+
+“The letter, Louison—the letter!”
+
+The Assembly was hushed; no sound arose but a rustle in the galleries,
+as people in the crowd leaned eagerly over each other.
+
+Mirabeau turned white in his chair. Even his fierce bravery could not
+hold its own against the awful anxiety of the moment. His enemies saw
+this, and murmurs of irrepressible triumph began to arise.
+
+“The letter, citoyen Robespierre?” said Louison, lifting her eyebrows
+with a look of innocent astonishment, “there must be some mistake—I have
+no letter.”
+
+Robespierre fell into his seat, and sat staring at the girl in wild
+astonishment. Mirabeau leaned back in his chair, drew a deep breath, and
+laughed. A roar of applause swept down from the galleries. This was
+answered back by the women on the floor, and carried into the street,
+where it ran like wild-fire among the people who could find no room
+inside.
+
+Louison cast one brilliant glance at Mirabeau, allowed a glow of
+triumphant mischief to flash over her face, and, quick as lightning,
+veiled her eyes again. Robespierre saw the glance, and a hiss of rage
+came through his shut teeth. Louison caught his venomous eyes, and
+shuddered.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XCVIII.
+ A THANKLESS LOVER AND HOSTS OF ENEMIES.
+
+
+Once more Mirabeau was triumphant. The malice of his enemies had lifted
+him still higher in the estimation of the people who gloried more than
+ever in their idol. Louison shared in the popular favor. The fair maid
+of Liege had never been an object of more admiring attention. She
+gloried in the act which proved her devotion to Mirabeau, but had made
+her bitter enemies, whom she believed herself strong enough to scorn.
+She managed to draw near Mirabeau, who greeted her with a glowing smile.
+
+“Have I done well?” she asked, turning her head.
+
+“More than well,” he answered. “Count on something better than
+gratitude.”
+
+“There is but one thing better in the world,” she returned, in a low
+voice; “give me that and I am content.”
+
+Before Mirabeau could answer, Marat stood at Louison’s elbow.
+
+“Citoyenne,” he said, with loud coarseness, “you have at least had
+courage; but it needs a charmed life to play with vipers. Is yours thus
+protected?”
+
+Louison laughed in the man’s face. Was not Mirabeau more powerful than
+ever. Had not she made him so?
+
+“I understand,” said Marat, nodding his rough head; “but one life does
+not hold all France. Mad love has made you blind. Citoyenne, for one
+false man you have cut down an army of friends. Wait, and see.”
+
+Louison turned upon this uncouth man, who seemed to have come fresh from
+a stable, with disdain in her eyes. Just then renewed shouts went up for
+Mirabeau.
+
+“Hear that, citoyen, and tell me if there is one among you the people
+love so. When there is, let that man threaten me. Bah! How mean and
+small you are beside him!”
+
+Marat turned his coarse, evil face upon her. There was something more
+than a threat in that look; but Louison was too haughty in her triumph
+even to regard it. She saw Mirabeau walking toward his seat, firm,
+erect, and carrying himself like a monarch. Her eyes followed him
+eagerly, and her heart swelled as his enemies shrunk away into their
+places, beaten down by the storm of popular rejoicing that they had
+failed in bringing anything but baseless charges against the supreme
+idol of the hour. These men hated Mirabeau with bitter jealousy and
+unconquerable distrust; but this feeling was nothing to the burning rage
+and venomous repulsion with which Louison had inspired them. She had
+dared to lead them into a grave error, cover them with the ridicule of
+defeat, and scoff at their indignation. But a day of reckoning was sure
+to come.
+
+Louison cared nothing for this. Her idol was triumphant. By the act of
+that day she had chained him to her and placed him more firmly than ever
+in the hearts of the people. In his triumph hers was complete.
+
+That night Mirabeau sought Louison at her lodgings. The peril he had
+escaped brought a feeling of gratitude even into his selfish heart. In
+her jealous rage she had thrust him into danger; but a gentle word of
+affection had brought him out of it triumphantly, honored with double
+strength, and a victor over the most relentless enemies that ever
+pursued a man to ruin.
+
+Louison came to meet him, radiant, with both hands extended, and wild
+triumph in her eyes.
+
+“Now tell me—could the queen have done so much for you?”
+
+“The queen? Nay; she would rather see Mirabeau dead, save that he may be
+useful. Why speak of her, Louison? I came only to talk of yourself—you
+have made many enemies to-day.”
+
+“Enemies? Yes, I know it. What then—are you not stronger than ever? And
+I—have I not Mirabeau?”
+
+The count reached out his hand and wrung hers.
+
+“Who will defend you with his last breath.”
+
+“And love me till then?”
+
+A soft, pleading light came into her eyes; for the moment this brave,
+bad woman was humble and tender as a child.
+
+Mirabeau gave an impatient movement of the head. This talk of love from
+her lips was like a proffer of dead flowers. Anything else he would give
+her—but not that. Even in his supreme danger, the night before, a
+semblance of the passion had been irksome—now it seemed impossible.
+
+“Ask Mirabeau how he will act, and he can tell you; but feeling is
+another thing, my friend.”
+
+Louison’s eyes filled with questioning disappointment. Was he failing
+her so soon?
+
+“There, there! I meant nothing that should drive all that light from
+your face. No woman has ever stood by me as you have done. Mirabeau may
+be faithless to his loves—people say that he is. But who ever charged
+him with desertion of a friend, much less one who has served him as you
+have done?”
+
+Louison heard him, and her great eyes filled with tearful reproach.
+
+“Ah, Mirabeau! you never loved me!”
+
+“On my soul I did, but that was when——”
+
+Now her eyes were raised to his with wistful questioning, which made him
+break off in the cruel thing he was saying.
+
+“When?”
+
+“When I looked upon you only as a woman.”
+
+“Only as a woman! When I have done so much for France—so much for you.
+This is hard, it is ungrateful.”
+
+“Yes, I think it is; but not the less true. Men have strong sympathies,
+firm friendships, sometimes high reverence, for each other, but no love;
+that we give to women.”
+
+Louison’s lip curved an instant, but a quiver of pain took all the scorn
+from it.
+
+“And that you can never give to me? What have I done?”
+
+“Too much, my friend. The pride of manhood revolts at a false position.
+Had you craved care, Mirabeau would have protected you.”
+
+“Ah! I understand. You aspire to protect the queen. She is ready to be
+cared for, and, perhaps, loved.”
+
+“I hardly think she would amuse herself with an execution.”
+
+“And you blame me for rejoicing when an enemy of France falls. You call
+upon us women for help, and then despise us that we listen.”
+
+“No, no! Only I do not usually betake myself to the scaffold when I have
+love to bestow. Cannot you see a difference?”
+
+“These are dainty distinctions, which a woman of the people is not
+expected to know. One cannot be a patriot and helpless,” answered
+Louison, whose hot temper was beginning to kindle fiercely under the
+keen disappointment that man had brought upon her. “As for me, I give
+love for love, and hate for hate.”
+
+“Ah! but you and I will have nothing to do with either, for both are
+dangerous. I did not come here to talk of such bitter and frail things;
+but to announce danger.”
+
+“A new one—to you or to me?”
+
+“For myself, I have so many enemies, that half a dozen, more or less, is
+of little consequence—that would not have moved me in the least.”
+
+“Then it is for me?”
+
+“This was a grand but dangerous day for you, Louison—for it made my
+enemies yours, and they are counted by hundreds.”
+
+“This morning I did not fear them, having you; but now I stand alone.”
+
+“Not while Mirabeau lives. This is what I came to say—let us have done
+with all meaner things. We are fellow patriots, given to one
+purpose—comrades in a glorious cause. A great future lies before
+France—you will stand by me while I work it out?”
+
+Louison was pale and drooping, all the womanliness in her nature was
+wounded unto death. He left nothing before her now but a man’s ambition.
+Well, that was better than nothing.
+
+“Nay, I will not stand by and watch your struggles, but help you as I
+did yesterday,” she answered, proudly.
+
+“That was bravely done; but such occasions do not repeat themselves
+often. The strongest woman that ever lived is but a weak man when she
+unsexes herself.”
+
+Louison turned upon him with a burst of her own fierce rage.
+
+“You leave me nothing,” she said.
+
+“Yes, liberty!”
+
+“But equality is the great war cry here. Is that to be denied because I
+am a woman?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Mirabeau, thoughtfully. “There is no equality between
+men and women—nature forbids it. They are better and worse than each
+other. The woman who seeks it loses all the delicacy of her own nature,
+but never attains a man’s strength. No, Louison, there is no equality.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER XCIX.
+ FETE IN THE CHAMP DE MARS.
+
+
+On the fourteenth of July, 1790, the city of Paris resolved to
+commemorate the taking of the Bastille, and all France was invited to
+rejoice with those who had laid this mighty fortress in ruins.
+
+From a surface of two hundred thousand square miles came thousands on
+thousands of dusty and tired travelers, moving toward the capital,
+singly and in delegations, shouting hymns to liberty under the burning
+rays of a July sun.
+
+These men came from the foot of the Alps, crowned with eternal snows;
+from the deep valleys of the Pyrenees, and the rugged regions of
+Cevinnes and Auvergne; from the low dreary lands washed by the waters of
+the Atlantic, and from the iron-bound coast of Bretagne. They came from
+the valley of the Rhone, where ancient Rome has left its imperishable
+monuments, and the vine-clad hills of Garonne; from the broad bosom of
+the Loire, and the banks of the Seine; from the forests of Ardennes;
+from the plains of Picardy and Artois; from every corner in France the
+people came forth rejoicing to join the grand jubilee at Paris.
+
+The people of the city were making noble preparations for their
+patriotic guests. The grand ovation was to be given in the Champ de
+Mars, a large, open space lying between the military school and the
+Seine. The ground was turned into an amphitheatre by removing the earth
+from the center, and piling it around the circumference, forming it into
+seats of turf, tier above tier, until a space was secured larger by many
+times than the arenas old Rome ever gave to her gladiators.
+
+Twelve thousand men worked day and night in this arena, but the
+impatience of the people was greater than their efforts. So the
+Parisians fell to work themselves. Men and women, rich and poor, priests
+and soldiers, came in sections, with banners and music, spades and
+barrows, to work while the day lasted. When the signal was given, they
+returned home singing and dancing by the light of their torches.
+
+Before the day appointed the great amphitheatre was complete. In front
+of the military school was stretched a noble awning of purple cloth,
+ornamented with golden _fleur de lis_, and under this glittered the
+royal throne, with seats for the president of the Assembly and the
+deputies. In the center of the amphitheatre the people had built an
+altar ascended by broad steps, from which a great cross rose toward
+heaven with solemn significance.
+
+At six o’clock on the fourteenth two grand spectacles were witnessed in
+Paris. The morning was cloudy, and the rain came down in torrents, but
+this had no power to check the enthusiasm of the people. They filled the
+streets by thousands on thousands, and the sun, had it shone that day,
+would have poured its light on more than three hundred thousand citizens
+seated patiently in the Champ de Mars, waiting for the ceremonies which
+were to commemorate their first great step toward the freedom they never
+learned how to use or keep. In the vast space on which they looked,
+fifty thousand soldiers were gathered, while three hundred priests, in
+white surplices and broad, tri-colored sashes, slowly surrounded the
+altar.
+
+Beyond all this arose a second and more noble amphitheatre, of which the
+Champ de Mars was the center, Montmartre, St. Cloud, Mudon, and Sevres,
+swept in grand panorama around the basin in which Paris stands. Nearer
+yet, the quay of Chailet and the heights of Passy were crowded with
+eager spectators.
+
+But at the sight of the Bastille a still more exciting scene presented
+itself. There, federates from eighty-three districts of France, each
+with the banner of its department, had assembled, prepared to march
+forth and meet their brethren of Paris, who waited for them at the Champ
+de Mars. Deputations from troops of the line, and sailors from the royal
+navy, were ready with drums, trumpets, and banners, to escort them
+through the city, in all the pomp of a grand military display.
+
+Lafayette, mounted on a superb war steed and surrounded by a brilliant
+staff, took the lead, and the deputations defiled out from the Place de
+Bastille, amid the roar of cannon and the clash of military music which
+thrilled all Paris with expectation. From the ruined stronghold these
+guests of the nation poured into the streets and met a wild, riotous
+welcome as they passed. Black clouds gathered over them like the smoke
+of a hostile army, the rain came down in torrents, and the streets were
+ankle deep in mud; but all this was overborne by the unconquerable
+enthusiasm of a people who would read no evil omen in a lowering sky,
+and scarcely felt the torrents of rain that beat upon their heads as
+they crowded the pavement, the windows, and the house tops, to cheer
+their guests as they moved through the city.
+
+At the Place Louis Quinze, the Assembly joined the procession which
+swept on with this vast stream of riotous human life, and merged itself,
+as great rivers seek the ocean, in the crowds already assembled at the
+Camp de Mars. Here thousands on thousands greeted them with a roar of
+welcome to which the boom of the cannon was but a hoarse accompaniment.
+
+The king of France, with the queen, the dauphin, and such members of the
+court as still remained in Paris, entered the tent erected for them, and
+seated themselves under the purple canopy. They were greeted with a roar
+of artillery and wild shouts of welcome which must have, indeed, seemed
+a cruel mockery to a monarch who had been forced there to witness his
+own humiliation.
+
+It was pitiful to see that forced smile on the proud lip of the queen,
+more pitiful even than the grave, sad face of her royal husband, who
+looked around at this vast concourse of people, guided, as he keenly
+felt, by his enemies, with a thrill of unutterable anguish. There was no
+sympathy with the scene among the courtiers, who regarded with grave
+anxiety, or scarcely suppressed scorn, the insane joy of a people whom
+they had been taught to despise, and were beginning to fear. The scene
+filled them with mingled apprehension and contempt.
+
+Then three hundred priests in snow-white surplices and broad tri-colored
+sashes gathered close around the altar.
+
+All was still now, for the Bishop of Autun was performing mass, and the
+people of France had not yet learned to scoff at all religion; so the
+voices of prayer, and the smoke of censors, rose up from the midst of
+that vast multitude in holy union, and for a little time, half a million
+of tumultuous revelers bowed before the cross of Christ, which arose
+sublimely in their midst.
+
+When the mass was ended, the bishop lifted the oriflame of France on
+high, and blessed it with a solemnity that awoke a throb of hope in the
+heart of the queen; after this he blessed the banners of eighty-three
+departments, and laid them down amid a glorious burst of music from
+twelve hundred musicians, who ended the solemn service with the Te Deum.
+
+Now the military crowded up to the altar; both land and sea forces
+flooding the sacred structure with superb coloring and rich flashes of
+gold. Lafayette led the staff of the Paris militia, and upon the crowded
+altar swore, in behalf of the troops and the federations, to be faithful
+to the nation, the laws, and the king. The murmur of this sacred oath
+ran from lip to lip till it had been echoed and re-echoed by the great
+multitude.
+
+Then King Louis arose, pale and firm, with the dignity of a monarch, and
+the feelings of a martyr. Standing in front of his throne, he swore to
+maintain the constitution and laws which had already been accepted. As
+he finished, the queen came to his side, with the dauphin, a fair,
+smiling boy, in her arms. With a gleam of maternal pride she presented
+him to the people, and said with touching pathos, appealing to them
+through her motherhood,
+
+“See, my son, he joins with myself in the oath his father has taken.”
+
+These words were drowned by a burst of enthusiasm, loyal at least for
+the moment; and almost for the last time in her life, Marie Antoinette
+heard voices from every part of France shouting, “_Vive le Roi! Vive la
+reine! Vive le dauphin!_” Her heart throbbed, her beautiful eyes filled
+with tears, her face brightened into youth again. She turned her look
+upon the king and smiled—the dear old music of popular praise had never
+touched her so keenly as now. She had taken Mirabeau’s advice, and in
+good faith made an effort to assimilate with the people, who once loved
+her so well. She wore no jewels, her dress was simple and matronly, but,
+with that beautiful boy in her arms, she looked more royal than ever.
+
+Then commenced a scene of indescribable hilarity. The crowd broke up,
+marching and dancing to wild bursts of music. Men and women defiled
+before the royal balcony, tossing words of endearment to the queen with
+airs of intense patronage. They called that beautiful woman by a hundred
+coarse and caressing names, and hurled advice to her with the gestures
+of women feeding poultry. Fishwomen from the market crowded to the
+throne, and called her mother, while they insisted upon shaking hands
+with the little Dauphin.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER C.
+ THE QUEEN GIVES UP HER RING.
+
+
+Marie Antoinette bore this tumultuous scene with the spirit of a martyr;
+nay, her own waning hopes had been exhilarated even by this rude homage,
+and she was willing to deceive herself into a belief that the people of
+France might yet be won to do her justice. So she smiled on the gay
+throng that danced and shouted before her, took the child in her lap,
+and told him to kiss his little hand to the people who loved him so, and
+laughed outright at some of the quaint compliments paid to her beauty.
+
+While she was thus occupied, a group of young girls came into the broken
+procession, carrying garlands in their hands, and loose flowers in their
+aprons. They were led by a fair and gentle young creature whom the queen
+regarded with a glance of pleasant recognition. This girl stepped out
+from her companions, approached the throne, and laid her flowers at the
+feet of the queen, to whom her great blue eyes were lifted with a look
+of touching affection.
+
+Marie Antoinette gathered up the flowers and held them in her lap with
+seeming carelessness, but her fingers had searched out the letter they
+concealed, and while apparently admiring the blossoms, she read,
+
+
+“Have I performed my promise? Is the monarchy saved?
+
+ MIRABEAU.”
+
+
+For answer the queen gathered up some of the flowers, and fastened them
+in the lace that shaded her bosom. A flash of light came into the young
+girl’s face. She arose, and her sweet lips joined in the song of her
+sister flower-girls, who broke into a regular dance, flinging up their
+long garlands as they waited for her.
+
+“Long live the king! Long live the queen!”
+
+With this shout ringing sweetly from their fresh lips, the flower-girls
+whirled away, waving their garlands, and tossing back loose blossoms to
+the steps of the throne.
+
+There was no etiquette in these proceedings; all was wild, and brilliant
+confusion. The anarchy which followed was already foreshadowed in the
+shouts, dances, and songs, that turned what should have been an august
+assembly, into a revel.
+
+After the flower-girls came the federates, full of enthusiasm, and after
+them the legislative assembly, in which Mirabeau walked with a step more
+haughty than any king of France ever assumed. His bold eyes fell upon
+the flushed face of the queen with a look of proud triumph, and the
+wonderful smile that made his strong face more than beautiful, swept it
+as he saw the flowers on her bosom. These flowers had a language of
+thanks that he read at a glance, and felt more keenly than words, for
+there was a touch of romance in them that fired his imagination.
+
+The deputations and the assembly passed on; then came a change in the
+music, a hush, as if something of unusual interest were approaching.
+This dead silence was broken by low murmurs, more thrilling than shouts,
+while the thousands that still remained in the Champ de Mars surged
+around the altar and crowded toward the throne.
+
+It was only seven men, bowed, thin, white-haired, and broken, who came
+slowly forward from a seat they had occupied, and with faltering steps,
+were about to pass before the throne.
+
+The color fled from Marie Antoinette’s face when she saw this pitiful
+band of men, some old without years to make them so, all with a look of
+broken-hearted apathy in their eyes, ready to pass before the throne
+like ghosts calling for judgment. The king turned white, and a spasm of
+pain shot athwart his face. The nobles, who stood behind the throne,
+shrunk back, casting glances of sudden apprehension on each other. They
+need not have dreaded those poor broken men, for grief and privation had
+made them weak as little children. If any expression appeared upon their
+wan faces, it was that of vague, wondering gratitude toward the king,
+who saw them free, and made no protest.
+
+The court of France was gathered, like ghosts, about the throne, upon
+which a shrinking king and queen sat, while the live shadows of an
+ancient despotism crept toward them with downcast faces, and steps that
+faltered in their walking.
+
+Then a look of infinite pity came into the king’s face, and clasping his
+hands, like one who inwardly asks forgiveness of God for sins not
+altogether his own, he bowed his head upon his breast, and waited for
+these ghostly reproaches to pass on. But the queen sat upright, clasping
+her child firmly, as if to shield him from the indignant murmurs of the
+people, which came fearfully to her ear.
+
+The seven prisoners—for these were all the Bastille contained when it
+was torn down—paused an instant before the throne, and one of them
+called out, in a broken voice,
+
+“Thanks, sire, that you have made us free!”
+
+The king lifted his head, and these wronged men saw that his eyes were
+full of tears. The people who stood nearest saw it, and the vindictive
+spirit which had forced this trying scene on their monarch, gave way to
+bursts of generous sympathy.
+
+“Down with the Bastille! Long live the king!” burst from a thousand lips
+that had been bitter with curses a moment before.
+
+“Down with the Bastille! Long live the king!” rolled back among the
+thousands already defiling toward Paris; and that which the extremists
+had intended as an insult, was rolled into the most glorious events of
+the day.
+
+“Thank God that you are free!” said Louis, in a low voice, that scarcely
+reached any one but the queen. She spoke louder, and with generous
+enthusiasm.
+
+“There are none among all these thousands who grieve for your
+sufferings, or desire their redress more than the king and his wife,”
+she said.
+
+A quivering shout broke from those feeble old men; some of them tried to
+smile, others began to cry, and one came forward, tottering feebly in
+his walk, and with his thin hand outstretched,
+
+“Give it me! If you have pity, give it me! For your own sake, for mine;
+for the sake of those who come after us, give me the ring upon your
+finger!”
+
+His eyes shone as he spoke; the white beard upon his bosom quivered with
+the eager intensity of his words.
+
+The queen hastily took a ring from the starlike jewels that flashed on
+her hand, and leaning forward, held it toward the old man.
+
+“Ah! if a ring could atone!” she said, with the brightness of great
+sympathy in her eyes, “there is enough for you all!”
+
+“Not that!” said the old man, impatiently shaking his head. “Give me
+that other—the golden serpent—the green beetle that has slept in the
+tombs of Egypt thousands on thousands of years! Give me that!”
+
+“What, this?” said the queen, looking with a thrill of awe on the tiny,
+golden serpent strangling a beetle, which was coiled around one of her
+fingers, looking old and weird among her other shining jewels. “It came
+to me in a strange way, and I have worn it long. Will no other do? This
+is of less worth than any.”
+
+“Give me that!” persisted the old man. “I want no other! Take it from
+your finger, lady; the hand is cursed around which that serpent coils!”
+
+How eager he was; how his faded eyes shone and sparkled. He clutched one
+thin hand in the silver of his beard, and twisted it in an agony of
+impatience.
+
+“Grief has touched his mind,” thought the queen, drawing the ring from
+her finger. “After all, why should I care for this more than another,
+only because I found it on my toilet years ago, and could never learn
+how it came there?”
+
+Still she hesitated and held the ring irresolute. There seemed to be a
+fascination about the antique gem that troubled every one who touched
+it. The prisoner’s hands began to quiver, and his eyes grew keen as a
+serpent’s. Inch by inch he crept nearer to the throne, with the look of
+a man who meant to seize upon his prize if it were not readily given up.
+
+“Give it to me! Give it to me! Your mother would not have withheld it a
+moment!”
+
+“My mother! You speak——”
+
+“Of Maria Theresa—the empress! The great and good empress—my august
+sovereign!”
+
+The queen reached forth her hand and gave him the ring.
+
+He grasped it; he pressed it to his bosom and lifted it to his lips in a
+wild passion of delight. It seemed to fire both heart and brain with new
+life—to lift a weight from his shoulders, and give vigor to his limbs.
+He fell upon his knees before the queen, and pressed the hem of her robe
+to his lips, murmuring thanks and blessings in her native language.
+
+“It may be averted! This was a soul, a life to me, but the most venomous
+serpent on your hand. It has filled your life with hate and tumult. Be
+at rest now, the evil has departed from your house, from you and from
+yours.”
+
+The old man arose and stood upright, as if he had been aroused from a
+long, dim dream. The unutterable sadness had gone out from his face; he
+turned toward his astonished companions smiling.
+
+“The old man is mad,” said Marie Antoinette, leaning toward the king.
+“Why should he care for that ring more than another?”
+
+Louis smiled. How could he answer? This scene had made but little
+impression on him; and those around only knew that the queen had given a
+ring from her own hand to the oldest and most picturesque of the seven
+prisoners; but this was enough for a new excitement, and a shout of
+“Long live the queen!” broke through the noise of their revelry.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CI.
+ ZAMARA IS TEMPTED TO EARN MORE GOLD.
+
+
+One person in that vast crowd had marked the scene well, and crept close
+enough to hear much that was said when Marie Antoinette gave her
+scarabee ring to the old prisoner. This was the Indian dwarf Zamara. He
+had come to the Champ de Mars in attendance on his mistress who sent him
+into that portion of the crowd that he might bring her intelligence of
+all that passed near the royal family. He went back to her now with a
+gleam in his eyes that she had learned to understand.
+
+“What is it, marmouset? I see that something has happened,” she said,
+stooping toward him, as he pulled at the folds of her dress to enforce
+attention.
+
+“That ring.”
+
+“What ring?”
+
+“That which you took from the German doctor before he was sent to the
+Bastille, and which I laid on the toilet of the queen, that she might
+wear it and curse herself forever.”
+
+“Hush! Hush! You speak too loud!” exclaimed the countess, turning pale
+with affright.
+
+“The German doctor is one of the seven prisoners.”
+
+“Great heavens, no!”
+
+“I saw him myself, and knew him. One does not forget such eyes.”
+
+“Are you sure, Zamara?”
+
+“Am I ever mistaken? The man has changed, but I knew him at once.”
+
+“But the ring—you said something about the ring?”
+
+“The ring you sent to the queen. Ah! I remember well, madame gave me one
+hundred Louis d’ors for that; but she would not take my word, she waited
+to see it on the hand of her majesty—that wounded Zamara to the heart.”
+
+“I would give that sum over again to know it had left the queen’s hand,”
+said Du Berry.
+
+“Then it is mine, for I saw her take it from her finger and give it to
+the prisoner.”
+
+Zamara spoke eagerly, and his black eyes shone with sudden greed. The
+one strong passion of his life gleamed up fiercely; deprived of much
+else that men crave, the thirst of gain had grown to fearful strength in
+him.
+
+The countess shook her head. She had no great trust in the word of her
+little slave.
+
+“Ah! the greedy little monster,” she said, with a contemptuous laugh;
+“he expects me to believe him, and pay him, too, as if Louis d’ors were
+as plenty with me now as he found them when we lived at the Trianon.”
+
+“But I saw the ring in his hand.”
+
+“Perhaps! But I did not.”
+
+“But you believe me?”
+
+“Believe you! Ah, marmouset! you and I know each other too well.”
+
+The countess touched her slave upon the head with her fan, and laughed
+provokingly, for she still loved to torment the little creature, it
+brought back a flavor of her old life.
+
+The Indian ground his teeth and looked down, that she might not see the
+gladiator-fire in his eyes. She laughed and gave him a smart rap over
+the ear with her fan.
+
+“Take that, for daring to grind your teeth at me!”
+
+The dwarf gave her one glance, sharp and venomous, that would have
+terrified a stranger; but madame only laughed the louder, and gave him
+another blow across the forehead, leaving a mark of dusky scarlet there,
+which girdled it like a ribbon.
+
+Then, in his impotent rage, the little creature stamped his foot upon
+the ground, and stooping suddenly, tore her silken robe with his teeth,
+at which she laughed again, beating him off with vigorous blows, as if
+he had been an unruly dog. It was not till she saw great tears in his
+black eyes that she ceased to torment him. Then she held out her hand,
+still laughing.
+
+But the dwarf drew back in sullen wrath.
+
+“Come, come! I will have no sulking!” cried the woman, half angry
+herself, for she had no dignity of character to lift her above the
+creature she so loved to torment. “Tell me more about the ring. If what
+you say is true, I shall not mind giving you a handful of gold.”
+
+“But how can I prove it? You will not believe me.”
+
+“Ah, yes! there is a difficulty! Cannot you persuade the old man to lend
+it to you for any hour. I should know the ring in an instant.”
+
+A gleam of light shot into Zamara’s eyes.
+
+“You would like to have it again?” he said, quickly.
+
+“Heaven forbid! Why, marmouset, it was because the ring was said to
+carry ruin with it to any but the hand of its owner that I had it placed
+in the way of the queen. She was Dauphiness then, you know, and I had
+not learned how forgiving and generous she could be. That act has given
+me many an hour of pain since; and I would gladly give twice the gold
+you crave to be certain that she is well rid of it.”
+
+“And you will yet pay as much?”
+
+“Yes; but I must see the ring with my own eyes.”
+
+The dwarf began to rub his small hands slowly together.
+
+“One hundred Louis d’ors. You said a hundred?”
+
+“Why, what a greedy wretch it is. One would think he eats gold.”
+
+“One cannot eat without gold,” answered the dwarf, with a grim attempt
+at wit, which came awkwardly through his old anger. “Besides, what would
+Zamara be without gold if he lost his mistress?”
+
+Du Berry grew red in the face; to her the very mention of death was
+worse than an insult.
+
+“But your mistress is well. She is not old, but strong, and bright, and
+young as ever,” she said, sharply. “She will outlive you, minion, a
+hundred years. Hoard gold, if it makes you happy, little wretch, but
+never tell me again, that it is because you expect to be alone. I could
+brain you with my fan for the idea.”
+
+Zamara laughed; the thoughts of so much gold had restored his
+good-humor.
+
+“Wait till I have brought you the ring, mistress; but tell me first what
+it is which makes this twisted gold of so much importance?”
+
+“Why ask me? Have you no memory? You heard this Dr. Gosner say that it
+was endowed with strange mystic powers, bringing happiness and
+prosperity to all and any of his blood, but continued misfortune to the
+stranger that ventured to wear it. From his account it must be a
+talisman of wonderful power. But you remember it all, for it was not
+often that any conversation passed at the Trianon which you did not
+manage to hear.”
+
+“I remember what this Dr. Gosner said, and I had the ring in my hand,”
+answered the dwarf; “but there is time enough to find out what it
+means.”
+
+“One thing is certain,” said Du Berry, thoughtfully; “the poor queen has
+had little but misfortune since it touched her finger. I wish we had let
+it alone.”
+
+The woman arose from the turf seat she had occupied and prepared to move
+after the crowd which had by this time swarmed into the streets, leaving
+the great altar, with its incense, and the throne, with its rich
+draperies, desolate and empty.
+
+As the countess and her strange attendant passed out of the Champ de
+Mars, they came suddenly upon the prisoner of the Bastille, who turned
+his eyes upon them at first with listless indifference, but directly a
+quick fire of intelligence shot into them, and he moved forward,
+evidently intending to address the woman who had so ruthlessly torn the
+very heart of his life out. But, with the vigilance of fear, Madame Du
+Berry darted behind a group of revelers passing that moment, and thus
+evaded the person she most dreaded on earth.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CII.
+ A LOVERS’ QUARREL.
+
+
+Still many persons lingered, singly and in groups, around the vast
+amphitheatre, from which the green turf was half trodden away. Among
+them were two old women and the young girl, who had lavished all her
+flowers at the feet of the queen. The girl was sitting quietly in her
+seat, looking depressed and rather sad; something, or, perhaps, some
+person whom she expected to see, had evidently disappointed her, and she
+was still reluctant to go, probably from the fact that some little hope
+still lay unquenched in her innocent bosom.
+
+The two women, Dame Tillery, of Versailles, and Dame Doudel, were
+discussing some point with great earnestness.
+
+“If you must go, why, of course, I will walk with you as far as the
+donkey cart—it were unsisterly to let you set forth alone. But
+Marguerite is tired, you can see that by her face, poor thing! Let her
+rest here till I come back.”
+
+Dame Tillery, whose generous proportions had spread and bloomed into
+more pompous splendor since the reader first made her acquaintance,
+consented to this arrangement, and taking that fair young face between
+both her hands, kissed it with unctuous tenderness.
+
+“Be a good child, my dear, and never forget what has been done for you.
+Thousands of people saw her majesty smile upon you from her throne this
+day, and put the flowers you gave into her own bosom; but they did not
+know that it was because the person understood to be your friend, once
+had the honor of saving her majesty from a terrible death, and has since
+been honored by a place in the royal household. No doubt, child, when
+her majesty took your flowers, she remembered the golden butter these
+hands have prepared for her table. But I am talking here when every hour
+is precious, if I expect to reach home before nightfall. Come, sister
+Doudel, I would gladly wait longer, but some of these deputations will
+be making their way through Versailles; and since the court came to
+Paris, The Swan has lost so much of its custom that one must look
+sharply lest strangers pass its door. Do not be afraid, little one, my
+sister will soon return.”
+
+Dame Doudel had been waiting some minutes for this harangue to be
+completed, and the moment her pompous sister paused for breath, she
+moved away, leaving Marguerite quite alone.
+
+The moment this young girl felt herself safe from observation, she gave
+way to the sad disappointment that had been slowly settling around her
+during the last half-hour. One sweet hope had haunted her ever since she
+left home that day. She might see that being who had become all the
+world to her. For weeks on weeks he seemed to have disappeared out of
+her life. She had haunted the ruins of the Bastille, persuading herself,
+poor child, that it was only to comfort that old man who still clung to
+his ruined cell there, but all the time of her sweet ministrations, she
+had listened for that footstep among the stones, and listened in vain.
+Then she would go home sadly, with tears in her eyes, creep up to her
+little room, and think herself grieving over the forlorn condition of
+that good man to whom liberty had been given when it was only a burden.
+
+If Marguerite went out in the morning with her sweet merchandise of
+flowers, for an hour or so, her step would be elastic, and her eyes
+bright with hope. When a stranger spoke to her quickly, she would start
+and catch her breath, thinking for an instant that it was his voice, for
+in that unexpected way he had often addressed her. But when the hours
+wore on, a gentle sadness crept over her childlike features, and she
+would turn homeward with a weight upon her heart, wondering if any one
+on this earth was ever so unhappy before.
+
+Marguerite had seen Mirabeau once or twice, and trusted him entirely,
+because he was a friend of the royal family which it was a part of her
+religion to reverence, and he was the foster-brother of Monsieur
+Jacques. Besides, his age compared to her youth, seemed that of an old
+man, and he had never shocked her by any attempt to lessen the distance
+between them.
+
+At this time Mirabeau was occupied both in his imagination and his
+ambition by the influence he had gained, with so much trouble, over the
+queen. His indomitable vanity had writhed under her haughty disregard of
+himself and his power so long, that to win a conquest over her dislike,
+inspired all his hopes, and rekindled his waning genius. To him
+Marguerite was only a pretty messenger, whose sweetness and beauty
+seemed a fitting link between himself and the only woman who had ever
+presumed to scorn him.
+
+Marguerite delivered Mirabeau’s note to the queen, and after that broke
+away from her companions, for she had no heart for those graceful dances
+and gay songs. In all that bright assembly he had not appeared. Was he
+angry? Had he forgotten her? Would they never, never meet again?
+
+As she asked herself these questions her head drooped, her hands clasped
+themselves in her lap, and tears dropped slowly from her eyes. She did
+not restrain them; her protectors were gone, and there was no one else
+who cared to regard her; at least the freedom of grief was hers.
+
+“Marguerite!”
+
+The young creature started with a faint shriek—that voice came so
+suddenly upon her. Then her face sparkled with smiles, and lifting her
+eyes she said, with girlish emotion,
+
+“Oh, monsieur! how you frightened me!”
+
+That man had seen the girl before him leave the house of Count Mirabeau,
+the most profligate man in Paris, alone, and after nightfall. He knew
+that some mysterious link drew those two people together, yet, looking
+in that face so fair, dimpling with smiles, bright with sudden joy, how
+could he think ill of her. The suspicions that had haunted him for
+weeks, now seemed like poisonous reptiles which it was a relief to
+trample under foot.
+
+“Marguerite, are you glad to see your friend again?”
+
+A grave, sweet sadness chased the smiles from that sensitive mouth.
+Those eyes, in all their innocent blue, were turned upon him
+reproachfully.
+
+“Ah, monsieur! why have you never asked before?”
+
+“I have been very, very busy.”
+
+“It is not I so much,” answered the girl, with an innocent attempt to
+screen the secret throbbing, like a pulse, in her heart, “but my father,
+who loves you so. Night after night you have left him alone—and it is so
+desolate there; besides, you never come to the house now, and mamma is
+away so much.”
+
+The young man smiled; like a bird which betrays the nest it would
+protect by its fluttering, Marguerite revealed the fact that she still
+kept true to the old haunt, and waited for him there, perhaps,
+unconscious that she was doing so.
+
+“I will not leave him so long again—you must beg him to pardon me. But
+first, Marguerite, can you forgive me yourself?”
+
+Marguerite shook her head, and her lips began to quiver.
+
+“It was very, very wrong to leave the poor man so many weeks; the
+thought of it makes me sad.”
+
+“But you went to see him every day,” said the young man, thirsting to
+hear the fact from her own lips;—“sometimes he was with you at home.”
+
+“Yes; but then I am only a girl, you know—he is old and feeble. To lead
+him is the work of a strong, brave man. Ah! he missed you, monsieur! You
+and I are the only persons who have his secret. We must be very, very
+good to him.”
+
+The young man sat down on the turf seat close by the girl, and looking
+earnestly in her face, asked a question he almost scorned himself for
+framing.
+
+“Marguerite, will you answer me one thing?”
+
+“Anything—that is, almost anything.”
+
+“What took you to the house of Count Mirabeau on the thirteenth of last
+month?”
+
+Marguerite looked at him surprised; then a slow, earnest expression came
+over her face, and she answered calmly,
+
+“That is one of the things I must tell no one.”
+
+“You confess to having secrets, then.”
+
+“Yes, I confess it; just one or two, which I am to keep sacred.”
+
+“Not from Count Mirabeau?”
+
+“There is no need—he knows it himself.”
+
+“Marguerite.”
+
+The girl started. That voice had never spoken her name so sharply
+before.
+
+“Monsieur, are you angry with me?”
+
+“Will you tell me what this secret is?”
+
+“Why do you ask?”
+
+“Why, girl, because I love you myself wildly, like a fool and madman.”
+
+“Love me, me—love me yet; can this be true? Then why did you keep away
+so long?”
+
+“I love you, child, and have, since the day we first met. Even then,
+Marguerite, I hoped that you might return my love with a feeling beyond
+gratitude, which I had not earned, by a simple act of humanity.”
+
+“I—I told you that it was love more than gratitude; but you doubted me
+after I had said that.”
+
+“How could I help doubting? With my own eyes, I saw you enter that man’s
+dwelling.”
+
+“Yes, I went in. I saw him.”
+
+“And you will not tell me why you went?”
+
+Marguerite shook her head with a faint smile.
+
+“That would be impossible.”
+
+“Why impossible? You can have no interests in common with that
+unprincipled man?”
+
+“Unprincipled!”
+
+“A man stained with every social crime.”
+
+Marguerite’s eyes opened wide. A look of profound astonishment swept
+over her features.
+
+“I did not know this—how should I? The people adore this man.”
+
+“The people? What do they care for those qualities which make a good
+man?”
+
+“But the people are great. The people are France, and France is
+everything.”
+
+“You have learned his language.”
+
+“No; I learned it from you. That is why it sounds so sweet to me.”
+
+“Marguerite, tell me what this secret is. You thrill me with delight,
+and kindle suspicion at the same moment. Trust me.”
+
+“Indeed—indeed, I can trust no one.”
+
+Marguerite shrunk back from him, and held out both hands, with the palms
+outward, as if to protect herself from severe questioning.
+
+He seized her hands and held them firmly.
+
+“One thing—one word. Has Count Mirabeau ever spoken of love to you?”
+
+“To me. No! No, a thousand times no!”
+
+“But you visit him?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“With the consent of dame Doudel? of your mother perhaps?”
+
+“They know nothing of it.”
+
+“And this is all you will tell me?”
+
+“Yes, it is all. Monsieur, a moment ago you said, ‘Trust me.’ I now say,
+trust _me_.”
+
+“I will—I do!” exclaimed the young man, pressing her hands to his lips;
+“only say to me one word that my heart is thirsting to hear again, that
+one word, ‘I love you! I love you—and no one else!’”
+
+“Marguerite laid her hands together, and holding them toward him, said,
+with that seriousness which springs from exquisite truth,
+
+“I love you, and no one else!”
+
+This scene had been passing in that grand amphitheatre, amid the dying
+music and the tread of departing feet. Still it was a solitude, for no
+one, so far as they could see, was near the seats they occupied, and the
+whole world was a blank to them.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CIII.
+ PERFECT RECONCILIATION.
+
+
+St. Just and Marguerite were so completely absorbed in each other, that
+they did not observe a group of gayly-dressed women, with bright ribbons
+streaming from their garments, who came laughing and dancing into the
+arena, chasing each other up the steps of the abandoned altar, and
+whirling off into the open space, while snatches of patriotic songs
+broke from their lips, now in chorus, and again full of riotous discord.
+
+Scenes like this had been too frequent that day for any especial
+interest to be granted them, and the lovers scarcely heeded this one in
+the ecstasy of their renewed happiness. Marguerite, unmindful that she
+was seen, held out her hands in childlike earnestness, the young man
+seized them, and covered them with kisses.
+
+One of the dancers separated from the rest, and leaping from one turf
+seat to another, came softly down behind the lovers, laughing quietly,
+and with a finger to her lips, as a sign that her companions should keep
+up their revel, and leave her to the mischief in hand.
+
+The young man, feeling her shadow upon him, looked up suddenly. A frown
+crept over his face, and he motioned the woman away with his hand. But
+Louison Brisot was not a person who could be intimidated by a look or an
+imperious gesture. She gave a leap, and sat down at the feet of
+Marguerite, laughing.
+
+Marguerite recognized her face, and uttering a cry of dread, clung to
+the young man, trembling violently.
+
+There was a touch of malice in Louison’s laugh now, for she hated the
+poor girl, whom her voice alone had the power to terrify.
+
+“Ho! ho! citoyen St. Just. Are you here with this white-faced cheat?
+What if I tell of this at the Jacobins to-night?”
+
+“Tell it where and how you please,” answered the young man, starting up,
+and half lifting the frightened girl from the turf. “I answer to no man
+or woman for the way in which I spend my time.”
+
+“Do you know how she spends her time, and where? Ask Count Mirabeau.
+Watch his door in the Chausee d’Antin, and see who creeps in and out
+like a cat.”
+
+Marguerite cast a wild, piteous look at St. Just. She knew this woman,
+and her terror was complete.
+
+“Ask her if she, born of the people, is not an aristocrat at heart; a
+traitoress, a——”
+
+“Hush!” commanded St. Just; and his beautiful face became fierce and
+stormy with indignation. “With those foul lips dare you revile the
+angels? Come away, Marguerite, the atmosphere is poisoned around us.”
+
+Louison Brisot started up pale and fierce with the sting of his words.
+She cast a withering glance, first upon St. Just, then upon the
+trembling young creature by his side. The laugh was gone from her face,
+bitter envy made her look fierce and old. She turned from them in
+silence, more threatening than her most boisterous words, and stepping
+cautiously from seat to seat, left them.
+
+St. Just turned to the young girl, who saw her enemy disappear with
+strained eyes and aching heart.
+
+“Marguerite! Marguerite!” he cried, gently disturbed, “how is this?
+Surely, you are not afraid of that brazen amazon?”
+
+“Afraid? No, no, it is not that,” faltered the girl. “It is her words
+that still tremble in my heart.”
+
+“Her words! What harm can they do you or me? They were only insolent
+bravado.”
+
+“She called you by a name. She seemed to threaten you with harm?”
+
+“Yes. What then?”
+
+“Ah, monsieur! you are a member of the Assembly, and she boasts of her
+power there.”
+
+“Yes, the youngest man in that august body, but not young enough to be
+afraid of this woman.”
+
+“She is the friend of Robespierre?”
+
+“Robespierre is an honest man, frugal, moral, a true patriot.”
+
+“And of Marat?”
+
+“That brutal man is useful to France, and will not become my enemy.”
+
+“Let me go home,” pleaded the girl; “my heart aches, I am faint.”
+
+“Marguerite, my poor child, do not look so miserably pale. Has that
+accursed woman driven the smile from your face forever?”
+
+“Forever! Oh, my God! this is hard! You are the queen’s enemy if these
+men are your friends!”
+
+“Marguerite, you drive me wild. What does this mean? I have said with my
+whole heart that I love you.”
+
+“Notwithstanding the secret in my heart?”
+
+“Foolish child, you have no secret. I guess it all now. You love the
+queen?”
+
+“With all my life—all my soul!”
+
+“And the king?”
+
+“The king also; but you, monsieur, are the enemy of both.”
+
+“This is not all your secret. Count Mirabeau has sold himself to the
+court.”
+
+Marguerite was silent.
+
+“He has held communication with the queen, and a little girl that I know
+of was his messenger.”
+
+“Who has dared to say this?”
+
+“I will tell you. Dame Doudel is my friend.”
+
+“Ah, yes!”
+
+“Dame Tillery is her sister. Think you she could visit St. Cloud and not
+tell all the particulars?”
+
+Marguerite almost smiled.
+
+“Besides, this woman Brisot was a spy upon you, and brought her news to
+Robespierre, who told it to his friends. She denied it all afterward,
+but that did not change our belief.”
+
+Marguerite looked bewildered. St. Just smiled.
+
+“Now where is the secret? Have I not known it and kept silence even when
+I suspected more?”
+
+“But you are still a Jacobin—still an enemy to the royal family.”
+
+“What is the meaning of all you have seen here to-day? Have not the
+people and their king taken an oath of amity before God and the nation?
+Even now you can hear the thunder of the cannon scattering this good
+news to the four winds of heaven.”
+
+Marguerite’s face brightened.
+
+“Ah! it is so; in my terror I forget that. The people and the king are
+one. I have not committed the sin of loving her enemy.”
+
+Her little hand crept into his, the soft lovelight came into her eyes
+again.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CIV.
+ A THEFT AND AN INSULT.
+
+
+That night there was a wild, riotous ball at the site of the Bastille.
+The Cour de Government had been cleared and garnished by a thousand busy
+hands. Temporary draw-bridges, arched with lighted garlands, were thrown
+over the half-drained ditch, dimly reflected in its sluggish waters.
+Around the court nine pyramids of light represented the nine awful
+towers, which had frowned on Paris more than four hundred years. These
+pyramids shed their radiance on a circle of tri-colored tents, each
+surmounted by a streaming banner, all chained together by great garlands
+of flowers, gorgeous flags, and lights that kindled them like stars. On
+each side the draw-bridge two noble pyramids rose forty feet from the
+ground, from which thousands of colored lamps ran downward in rivers of
+light, quivering, glowing, flinging more than the radiance of noonday on
+the gorgeous arena, and kindling up the broken ruins beyond, till their
+shadows grew darker than midnight. Between these noble pillars rose an
+arch, on which eighty-three flags of the departments of France fluttered
+to the night wind, and from the centre fell a mat of flowers, on which
+was written in characters of glowing fire, “Here we dance!”
+
+The tents were full; groups stood on the draw-bridges, looking upon the
+brilliant scene, with the ruins of the old prison lying blackly behind
+them. The arena was thronged with merry dancers; men and women of all
+grades and every possible costume mingled in that strange scene. From a
+great central tent came bursts of music, wild, riotous, and
+revolutionary as the people who danced to it. Rude, half-clothed men,
+crowned with laurel and oak-leaves, reeled through the dancers; women,
+whose very presence there was odious, crowned each other with laurel,
+and wheeled in bacchanalian groups around the blazing pillars of fire.
+
+Late at night, when the revel was at its highest, an old man came
+through that radiant arch of flowers and flame, and stood for a moment
+dazzled by the scene that eddied around him. The crowd outside had
+seized him in its current, and breaking at the entrance, left him
+stranded there, with the light pouring down upon his broad forehead and
+silvery beard with the force of an August sun.
+
+Some women, who were chanting the Marseillaise in the nearest tent,
+flocked out at the sight of this august head, shouting, “The prisoner!
+The prisoner of the Bastille!” surrounded him in triple rows, and hedged
+him in with a chain of wreathing arms.
+
+“Bring us flowers! Bring us wine, laurel, and oak-leaves! Let us crown
+the martyr of the Bastille, and pour a libation to liberty. Liberty and
+fraternity!”
+
+They forced this old man into the center of the arena, arresting the
+dancers with their shouts, and crowding them back with remorseless
+enthusiasm. Some leaped up and tore flowers from the swinging festoons;
+others snatched laurel from the bacchanalian crowns of their companions.
+Almost instantaneously a garland was fastened on the old man’s head, and
+a goblet of wine was held to his lips, while the crowd whirled, a human
+maelstrom, around him, shouting, singing, and tossing their arms upward
+in a tempest of insane delight.
+
+The prisoner stood a moment bewildered. He put aside the wine-cup, which
+one of the women held to his lips, but so unsteadily that it reddened
+his beard, and taking the laurel wreath from his head, flung it from
+him.
+
+“Let me go,” he said, with gentle impatience; “I do not like this.”
+
+They would have kept him by force, but some among the crowd saw that he
+was feeble and grew deadly pale; so they forced a passage for him out of
+that ring of unsexed women, and allowed the old man to make his own way
+through the crowd, across one of the draw-bridges, and into the black
+ruins beyond.
+
+After the first impulse no one cared to follow the old man, and,
+thinking himself quite unobserved, he crept down into the darkness of
+his cell, and called in a soft, broken voice for his little companion,
+to which he began whispering something in rapturous haste, as if he
+really thought the tiny creature could understand him.
+
+Notwithstanding the old man thought himself alone, there was something
+hidden there among the shadows, far more crafty and keen of wit than the
+poor little mouse, faithful as it had been.
+
+Close down by the cell, hidden behind a fragment of rock, crouched
+Zamara, the dwarf. Hour after hour he had followed the old man with the
+vigilance of a hound and the cunning of a fox. At last he had tracked
+him to his lair, and heard the low, pathetic words with which he told
+his happiness to the little companion, whose sympathy always seemed
+ready for him.
+
+“Ah, my little friend! I have such news to tell you; that is right,
+creep close into my bosom. It is a warm heart, you will sleep against
+to-night. Did I tell you, little one, a great work has been done since
+morning? Feel the ring on my finger; do not be afraid, it will not hurt
+you. To you and me it is a blessing always. Years and years ago it was
+taken from me and put on the hand of a beautiful, good woman, born to
+great misfortunes without deserving them. But for this, they could not
+have kept me here till the old towers were torn down over our heads; but
+for this her bitter enemies would never have prevailed. But I have it
+once more, and am strong again—young and strong. See, my hand trembles
+no longer. You can sit firmly upon it and look into my face. Is it not
+that of a powerful man? Tell me if the blood does not mount into my
+cheek? I think so—I think so, for it feels like wine about my heart.
+To-morrow, sweetheart, we will set about the great work. It is for us to
+save the daughter of my dear old mistress, how I cannot yet see; but my
+strength lies here: with this on my finger, I feel it in me to heave
+mountains from their base. What, restless, sweetheart? Do you hear some
+one? Be quiet, none of those rude people will come here—with all their
+floods of light they cannot find us out. What, again? It may be that our
+Marguerite is coming—but then how could she get through the revel out
+yonder? Hush now: do not attempt to get away. Surely, you are not afraid
+of _her_? We must find all this out to-morrow. Now that God has given us
+back a great power, no one shall be unhappy. We will make sure of that!”
+
+The old man paused here and seemed to listen; then he spoke again, but
+with soft sleepiness, as if the great fatigue of the day were settling
+gently down upon his faculties.
+
+“It was nothing. She could not have come to-night, the crowd is so
+great. That is well; creep into my bosom—happiness makes me sleepy.”
+
+There was a faint, hushing whisper after this, followed by the regular
+breathing of a man in his first sleep.
+
+Full half an hour Zamara sat in the shadows, waiting for a certainty
+that the slumber of that old man was profound. Then he arose to his
+hands and knees, paused, listened, and crept forward stealthily, like a
+fox upon its prey.
+
+The old man was lying upon his back, with one hand folded over his
+bosom, the other lay supinely upon the stone floor, just where a gleam
+of moonlight cut across it, revealing the golden serpent coiled around
+one finger. Zamara touched the ring. It circled the delicate finger
+loosely—age and suffering had shrunken that hand almost to a shadow. The
+fingers were bent downward: another touch and the ring slipped to the
+floor, with a faint click that took away the dwarf’s breath; for an
+instant, it disturbed the sleeper, who moved a little, leaving the ring
+entirely exposed.
+
+Softly as a cat stretches out its claw, Zamara’s fingers crept toward
+his prize and fastened upon it. Then he groveled backward out of the
+cell, drew a sharp breath, leaped to his feet, and fled across the
+ruins.
+
+A woman sat in one of the tents drinking wine from a horn cup, which one
+of the _sans culottes_ had just filled for her from a cask which stood
+on one end in front of the tent. A hole had been torn in the top,
+through which he thrust the cup, and drew it forth dripping. Three times
+he had filled the cup, yet the woman was thirsty, and held it out for
+more, with a rollicking laugh, which the dwarf recognized and hated. But
+the tent was near the entrance and he was obliged to pass her. In his
+confusion he ran against Mirabeau, whose policy it was to show himself
+at such popular gatherings, where he usually made great capital by his
+familiarity with the lower classes. He was talking to a group of
+workmen, who gathered around him, with some earnestness, though his face
+bore an expression of intense fatigue, when Zamara was hustled violently
+against him by the crowd.
+
+Impatient and suffering from the absolute pain of a disease, which was
+making rapid inroads on him, he seized the dwarf with one hand, lifted
+him up, pitched him into the crowd, and, turning his back, went on with
+what he had been saying.
+
+It happened that the dwarf fell just within the tent where Louison
+Brisot sat, and his sudden advent shook the cup in her hand, spilling
+the wine upon her; the rest she dashed over him with a rude laugh. The
+dwarf struggled to his feet, livid with rage. A word, bitter with coarse
+insult, broke from him, and clenching his tiny fist, he shook it
+viciously.
+
+“He has not had enough,” cried Louison, addressing the _sans culottes_.
+“Do you know who he is, citoyen? Well, you have heard of Madame Du Berry
+and her _famillier_? This is her imp.”
+
+The man thus appealed to seized Zamara, without a word dashed his foot
+against the head of the wine-cask, and plunged the dwarf in, roaring
+with laughter as the red liquid surged over the edges, and crimsoned his
+own legs and feet.
+
+A storm of coarse merriment followed this act. The cask was not large
+enough to drown the poor wretch, but he was drawn out frenzied with
+rage, and dripping from head to foot with the wine some in the crowd
+coveted.
+
+Louison went up to him, laughing till she could hardly speak.
+
+“Go back to your mistress,” she said, “and tell her if she lets her imp
+loose again among the patriots of France, he will be found the next
+morning hung up at some lantern, like a spider caught in its own web.”
+
+Zamara only answered by a look that checked her laughter on the instant.
+
+“The venomous snake,” she muttered, “and I have trodden on him.”
+
+Yes, she had trodden on him, and so had the proud man whose ambition it
+was to rule France.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CV.
+ THE SECRET OF THE RING.
+
+
+Zamara left the site of the Bastille, burning with rage. Every step he
+took deepened his bitter humiliation. Keenly sensitive about his
+diminutive form, he felt the cruel sarcasm this woman had put upon him
+with double force. To half-drown him in a cask, scarcely large enough to
+hold a child, was a stinging insult, for which he would, some day, have
+vengeance—vengeance on her, and on the man who had found out his fraud,
+and made it of no avail. But he still held the ring, and the thought of
+the gold it would purchase was some consolation.
+
+Zamara went to his own room when he reached the residence of his
+mistress. His wine-stained garments were soon changed, and he sat down
+to examine the mysterious prize that had wrought such fatal
+consequences, at least to one life. It was an Egyptian scarabee,
+curiously carved, and of a dull green, around which a tiny serpent
+coiled itself, fold upon fold, shooting its head clear through the
+beetle, where it had been perforated for the string, upon which these
+antique gems were often gathered in a necklace for the monarch whose
+tomb they enriched. This serpent, Zamara truly guessed, had been
+attached to the scarabee after it was drawn from the tomb, after a sleep
+of some thousands of years. The head of the serpent was large in
+proportion to the body, and flattened, like that of an adder before it
+springs.
+
+The dwarf examined the mechanism of this ring. He began to comprehend
+that it might be made terrible without magic. He searched the scarabee
+cautiously with his finger, and at the extremity found a tiny spring,
+scarcely larger than a grain of mustard-seed. In breathless trepidation
+he touched this spring, when the head of the serpent curved downward,
+the jaws opened, and through them shot a ruby tongue, slender and sharp
+as the finest needles. One dart of this subtile tongue, and the head
+writhed itself back into place.
+
+The fire that shot over the dusky face of the dwarf was lurid. He
+understood the meaning of this delicate mechanism, and the sweetness of
+certain revenge was already in his bad heart. He went to a little
+cabinet, and took from a secret compartment a tiny earthenware jar,
+which contained a morsel of some apparently resinous substance. This he
+examined carefully, gloating over it with eager satisfaction. Opening a
+small knife, he was about to take some on its point, but a selfish
+after-thought seized upon him.
+
+“Not yet,” he said; “there must be no danger to _her_, for she alone
+stands between me and such brutes as nearly murdered me to-night. Ho,
+the ring shall first win me gold, and then, oh! such sweet revenge. That
+fierce count has twice laid his great, strong hands upon Zamara—thrice
+heaped insult on him. Bulk makes him brave; but wit is stronger than
+weight, and revenge sharper than either.”
+
+With these words, Zamara locked up the scarabee with the little jar, and
+crept into bed, muttering to himself, and lay in thoughtful wakefulness
+until the day dawned. Then he arose, and once more examined the beetle,
+to make sure that no secret of its mechanism had escaped him.
+
+As early as it was possible to see his mistress, the dwarf went to her
+room, a richly frescoed boudoir, crowded with the gorgeous, but
+tarnished furniture that had been saved out of her royal degradation.
+She lay upon a stiff backed, gilded couch, in a loose, morning robe of
+soiled brocade, and turned her head indolently as the dwarf came in.
+
+“Mistress, I have brought you the ring. You will believe now that Zamara
+speaks the truth.”
+
+Du Berry started up, fully aroused.
+
+“Let me look at it. No, no, no! I will not touch it. That strange man
+said it was fatal to every one but himself. The poor queen has found it
+so. Give it back to the old man. He shall not be despoiled a second
+time.”
+
+The Countess Du Berry spoke hastily, and with shuddering emphasis. She
+had a nervous terror of the ring, which was, indeed, a proof of her own
+great crime.
+
+“Take it back! Take it back! I have no wish for it!”
+
+“But, madame would not believe me when I said the queen had given it up.
+She promised gold if I would let her have a sight of it. Has madame
+forgotten?”
+
+“No, no! I never forget! But take the thing away! There is the
+money—count it for yourself. My heart is lighter, now that I am sure
+that thing can no longer harm the queen. Take your money there.”
+
+Madame flung her purse, heavy with clinking gold, at the dwarf’s feet,
+and turning upon her couch, hid her face among its silken cushions,
+almost as much afraid as if a real serpent had been threatening her;
+for, with all her reckless audacity, the woman was a miserable coward at
+heart; and in this case superstition made her abject.
+
+Zamara went out from her presence, weighing the purse of gold in his
+palm, and gloating over it.
+
+“Ah, ha!” he muttered. “The ring frightens her. It is enough that this
+poor, harmless beetle has slept so long in a tomb; to her it is
+saturated with death, but I know how to make it harmless as a dove, or
+venomous as an asp. It shall be one to my friends, the other to my foes.
+After that the old prisoner may get it if he can.”
+
+Again the dwarf opened his cabinet and took the earthen jar from its
+hiding-place. This time he opened the jaws of that serpent ring, and
+filled them with the soft, resinous paste, which he took from the jar
+with the sharp point of a penknife. Having thus charged the serpent with
+venom, he laid it carefully away in one of the most secret drawers of
+his cabinet.
+
+“We must wait,” he said, muttering to himself, as was his habit. “They
+will not let me approach near enough until last night is forgotten. My
+looks frightened her, I could see that. It needs time and infinite
+craft—but that is nothing. ‘Revenge is a dish that can be eaten cold.’
+It is locked up there, and I can wait.”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CVI.
+ THE OLD MAN FALLS ASLEEP.
+
+
+That morning the prisoner of the Bastille awoke and felt for the ring,
+which was like a promise of immortality to him. It was gone. He started
+up in wild amaze, refusing to believe the evidence of his own senses. He
+shook his garments, removed them one by one, examining every fold. He
+threaded the thick silver of his beard with both trembling hands, and
+interrogated the keen-eyed mouse, which stood looking at him with almost
+human intelligence from a corner of the cell, where it had fled on being
+ejected from the bosom of its old friend.
+
+It was gone. When the old man was sure of this he went wild in his
+passionate despair, and rushed out among the bleak ruins, calling on God
+to take vengeance on the wretch who had despoiled him.
+
+His cries brought no echo of sympathy from any human voice: for even
+then the ruins of the Bastille were like the heaped up lava of a burnt
+district. Across the moat a few workmen were busy striking the tents,
+and taking down the blackened lamps which had been stars of flame the
+night before; but they only paused long enough to laugh at the old man’s
+wild gestures, and went off to another part of the grounds.
+
+Then the poor prisoner, half demented by his loss, began the most
+patient search that ever absorbed a human life. Day after day, hour
+after hour, he wandered over those ruins, peering behind the stones,
+fathoming crevices, searching the clefts of each broken wall, and
+questioning every person he met, if anything strange had been seen, but
+in all cases, refusing with meek cunning, to disclose the thing he
+searched for.
+
+Thus for weeks and months the old man spent half his time in the ruins
+searching, searching, searching for the ring, which never came back to
+him. And so he grew weaker and weaker as hope died out in him; sometimes
+sitting whole days in the solitude of his cell, but always with his eyes
+roving over the floor and walls, as if he still expected them to give up
+his treasure.
+
+When her father did not come as usual to the house, which seldom
+happened now, Marguerite always sought him in his cell, with a basket on
+her arm, and fed him with bread soaked in wine, or gave him delicate
+meats cooked by her own hand; for she saw that the old prisoner did not
+care for anything, and shrunk more and more into his hiding-place, as if
+he longed to evade everything but herself and his little dungeon
+companion.
+
+One day, when she came upon her gentle mission, the old man looked
+earnestly in her face a long time, then he shook his head with a sad,
+wavering movement, and dropped his eyes.
+
+“Change, change—everywhere change,” he murmured. “The same face, yet not
+the same. What is it that fills her with such holy light. Tell me little
+one, what it means?”
+
+“It means,” answered Marguerite, with the rich quietness of supreme
+content, “that I am beloved—that I love.”
+
+“Beloved? Love? Ah! I heard of such things once. Then, I think, some one
+loved me; but that was a long, long time ago.”
+
+“But you are still loved,” said Marguerite, laying her hand on his.
+
+“I should be, if I could find _that_!” answered the old man; “but it is
+too late, I am feeble, and cannot search further—very, very feeble!”
+
+“Take more of the wine,” pleaded Marguerite. “If you would only go home
+with me.”
+
+“No, no; this is my home. I need no other.”
+
+Marguerite pressed the shadowy hand clasped in hers.
+
+“But some day, when I have a home of my own, you will bring little
+marmousette and live with me.”
+
+“A home of your own?” questioned the old man. “When will you have that?”
+
+“When France is quiet again. It is a sweet, sweet secret, which you
+shall know when you care to listen, father.”
+
+“Ah, if I could find _that_, you should be very happy, Therese.”
+
+“But I am happy, wonderfully happy, father. You understand when a girl
+is loved, the wealth of the whole world is hers.”
+
+The old man shook his head; he was very weak and even this sweet talk
+wearied him. Marguerite saw it and her heart thrilled with apprehension.
+
+“Oh come with me, father,” she pleaded. “I cannot bear to see you
+sleeping on these damp stones while I have a bed. Come, and you shall
+know once more what love is.”
+
+“Not now. I like the stones; a bed makes me ache in all my limbs.
+Besides, my little friend likes no place as well as this.”
+
+“Poor little marmousette, it must be a small place which cannot make
+room for him,” said Marguerite. “I will make him a nest among my
+flowers. And you, my father, oh what can I do that will make you happy?”
+
+“_That_ would make me happy, if you could only find it.”
+
+“Alas, I cannot. Where could I search?”
+
+“It is here. It will be found by some poor stranger, and work more
+mischief; but I cannot help it; day and night I have searched among
+these stones.”
+
+“You have worn yourself out, my father.”
+
+“Yes, I think so,” answered the old man, faintly.
+
+“I cannot leave you here alone.”
+
+“Alone! He is here; he never leaves me.”
+
+“But you will come with me?”
+
+“Oh, yes! when I am stronger.”
+
+The old man’s face drooped on his breast after this, and he seemed to
+sleep.
+
+Marguerite arose to go.
+
+“Adieu,” she said. “You are weary, and I keep you from rest.”
+
+“From rest? No one can do that,” said the old man, gently. “Adieu!”
+
+Marguerite bowed her head; her father lifted his hands and blessed her
+as she bent before him.
+
+There was something mournful and pathetic in his gestures, which filled
+her heart with sad forebodings.
+
+The night was dark and cloudy. It was dangerous to be out so late; yet
+Marguerite lingered near the cell reluctant to leave the old man alone.
+Twice she went back and listened. All was silent, and, at last she moved
+homeward through the ruins.
+
+As Marguerite reached the draw-bridge, the shadow of a man fell across
+it. Her heart leaped.
+
+“Is it you St. Just? Is it you? Ah, I never needed you so much.”
+
+“No Marguerite, it is only Jacques. Do not be hurt because it is not
+that other. He is not always near to watch you as I am.”
+
+Jacques spoke with humility. In all his bitter trouble he had never once
+swerved from the most perfect kindness to the girl who scarcely thought
+that he suffered.
+
+“I thought that you did not care to watch me now, monsieur Jacques,” she
+said. “You never come to see us.”
+
+There was pain, subdued with infinite patience, in Jacques’ eyes as he
+answered this light reproach. Did the girl know how much it had cost him
+to keep away from her? Had she absolutely forgotten her
+promise—forgotten that he loved her?
+
+“Marguerite,” he said, with mournful firmness, “you remember a promise
+made that day before the Bastille was taken?”
+
+Marguerite uttered a faint cry and recoiled backwards as if the man had
+aimed a blow at her.
+
+“No, no! I have not forgotten; but I thought—oh, Monsieur Jacques,
+forgive me!”
+
+The girl held out her hands to him now, and the anguish of a new
+enlightenment thrilled her voice.
+
+Jacques took her hands in his and clasped them firmly. With the struggle
+of a giant he held down the bitter agony in his heart.
+
+“Such words are not for you, Marguerite. Instead of forgiveness, I give
+you blessings. I am ready to serve you—die for you. But forgiveness we
+must not talk of that. There is nothing to forgive between you and me.”
+
+“Is a broken promise nothing—for mine is broken. I hardly made a
+struggle to keep it; yet you gave liberty to my poor father. Is selfish
+forgetfulness nothing? Am I worthy that you forgive me without asking?”
+cried Marguerite, stung with keen self-reproach.
+
+“Hush, Marguerite, hush! I cannot listen when you revile yourself. It
+was not for this I spoke; but I feared you might remember that promise
+and be troubled by it. Now you will understand that it is forgotten,
+utterly forgotten.”
+
+A heavy sigh broke from the strong man as these words left his lips, and
+his limbs shook as if the soul had been wrenched from his body.
+
+“Ah, Monsieur Jacques, can such things be forgotten?”
+
+Jacques knew that she was thinking of St. Just, and wondering in her
+heart if _he_ ever could forget. The idea was but one pang more, still
+it wounded him to the soul.
+
+Marguerite took consolation from her own absorbing love. “If he cared
+for me in that way,” she thought, “to forget would be impossible. It is
+because I was so helpless and so miserable. One gets over pity, but
+love, oh, never—never. That would be death with no Heaven afterward.”
+
+With that man standing before her, so brave, so noble in his
+self-abnegation, the girl could reason thus, and turn her thoughts on
+the being of her own worship.
+
+Perhaps Jacques felt something of this, for his voice shook when he
+addressed her again.
+
+“I would still have cared for your safety, and followed you in silence,
+Marguerite. But the streets are full of dangerous people to-night, and
+you staid so late I feared that you might need help.”
+
+These words turned Marguerite’s thoughts back to her father.
+
+“Monsieur Jacques, oh! my friend, I do, I do. My poor father is ill. I
+can keep his secret no longer. Come with me—together we may persuade him
+to leave this place.”
+
+Marguerite turned to lead the way back to her father’s cell. Jacques
+followed her in silence. The clouds broke and poured watery gleams of
+moonlight into that prison cell, as these two persons approached it. By
+this fitful radiance they saw the old man sleeping tranquilly on the
+stone floor—so tranquilly that their own hearts stopped beating.
+
+Monsieur Jacques bent over him.
+
+“Does he sleep,” said Marguerite, in a low voice, for her heart was
+chilled within her. “Does he sleep?”
+
+“So sweetly that the angels of Heaven alone can wake him,” was the
+solemn reply.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CVII.
+ THE SCARABEE DOES ITS DEADLY WORK.
+
+
+Months went by, for a little time the wheels of the Revolution revolved
+with a slow but steady force. The influence of Mirabeau had made itself
+felt; his powerful genius held the populace in check. Chosen president
+of the Assembly, he had inspired that body with some of his own
+conservative ideas. The queen began to trust him fully. The king saw in
+him a safe counsellor. For a time the fearful storm that afterward swept
+France like a simoon, seemed to have passed away. The nation took time
+to breathe. Mirabeau had triumphed over all his enemies but one, that
+one found him at the zenith of his power.
+
+On the twenty-seventh of March, 1791, Mirabeau spoke three times in the
+Assembly. Never had he been more impressive, never had his genius
+exhibited itself with greater effect. With words of living eloquence on
+his lips he stepped down from the tribune, passed between double ranks
+of admiring friends and defeated enemies, and was seen by the people of
+France no more.
+
+The next day it was known at the clubs, and heralded in the streets,
+that the great statesman of France was ill.
+
+All Paris sympathized with the sufferings of this strong and most gifted
+man. His house in the Chaussée d’Antin was besieged by people, who
+blocked up the street that no carriage might disturb the rest of their
+idol. The Jacobin club sent its President at the head of a deputation,
+to express the profound sympathy of that body. Robespierre, who allowed
+himself to drift with the current, was found in the sick-room. The king
+sent every day to inquire after Mirabeau’s health.
+
+The great man was ill, but fully conscious of all the homage that
+surrounded him. He yet believed himself invincible, and gloried in all
+these evidences of popularity. He was accused of giving stage effect to
+his sick bed. It may be that he did, for no man knew better how to
+appeal to the senses of an audience—and he did not believe himself to be
+dying.
+
+One day, when the street was choked up with anxious inquirers, a swarthy
+dwarf was seen among the crowd, striving to escape observation, but
+making constant progress toward the door of Mirabeau’s dwelling. He
+reached it at last, and finding a servant on the threshold patiently
+answering the anxious questions put to him regarding the state of his
+master, waited quietly till the man should recognize him.
+
+“Is it possible to see Mirabeau?”
+
+“What, you?”
+
+“Is he ill—very ill? I come from one who wishes to know the truth.”
+
+“I know; your mistress is his friend. There can be no harm in saying to
+her that he is ill, but not so hopeless as his worshippers think. Their
+terrors but increase his popularity. She will understand.”
+
+The dwarf did understand that his enemy was in no immediate danger, and
+probably would recover. This only made him the more resolute to gain
+access to the great man.
+
+“I have a message,” he said; “not from the lady you think of; but from
+one so high that I dare not speak her name.”
+
+“A message? But so many messages come, that I cannot even listen to
+them. Such adulation would drive a man mad, though he were in sound
+health. I can take no message.”
+
+Zamara motioned to the man to stoop, and whispered,
+
+“Not if it were from her majesty, the queen?”
+
+The man looked cautiously around. There was danger in the queen’s name,
+which he could appreciate.
+
+“Step in, step in! I will speak to you when the crowd grows less. Sit
+down and wait. From the Tuileries—did you say that? Speak low, there is
+danger in it.”
+
+The dwarf nodded his head, put a finger to his lip, and sat down in the
+entrance-hall, close by the bronze statue, which he remembered so well.
+The man had seen Zamara frequently at the house before, and had no
+hesitation in speaking freely to him.
+
+“The truth is,” he said, confidentially, “our count has overworked
+himself. Spoke five times in one day. Think of it! And this is a good
+time to learn how warmly the people regard him. Do not expect him to get
+well all at once—he is not fool enough for that; but, after a little,
+his enemies will find him thundering at them from his place again. We do
+not intend to die just yet; his friends comprehend it all. As for the
+rest, why, of course, for them he _is_ dying.”
+
+“Then he is well enough to be told that I have a message for him
+directly from the queen—I have brought such things before.”
+
+“I will take the message.”
+
+“No, I must give it into his own hands. Such were my orders. Ask if he
+will admit a messenger from her majesty—that is all I desire.”
+
+“I will go; but listen how they are swarming against the door again. Was
+ever a man so beloved?”
+
+Zamara saw the servant depart with a quiet countenance; but the moment
+he was gone, an evil expression broke into his eyes, and a smile crept
+across his lips.
+
+“So he would make fresh popularity for himself out of this. Well, he
+shall. This illness, which is half feigned, shall make him immortal.”
+
+The servant came back, and motioned Zamara to follow him. They mounted a
+broad stair-case, up which heavy balustrades of carved oak wound to the
+roof, and, opening a door at the first landing, led the way through an
+ante-room, in which several persons were waiting, into a state-chamber,
+hung with crimson silk, with a thick Persian carpet on the center of a
+polished oak floor. On this carpet a great, high-posted bedstead stood,
+curtained with red, like the windows, on which Mirabeau lay, as it were,
+bathed in the twilight of a warm sunset.
+
+A pile of snow-white pillows was under the sick man’s head, lifting him
+to a half-sitting posture. The linen that covered his bosom fell apart
+at the neck, leaving his throat free, and lending a picturesque effect
+to his chest and shoulders.
+
+Some loose papers lay upon the counterpane near his hand, as if he had
+been reading, and just laid them down.
+
+“What, is it manikin?” said the sick man, with a good-natured smile. “I
+thought wise people had done trusting you long ago. What is it—about the
+person who sent you? There must be some mistake, I think. Come close to
+the bed, and speak low.”
+
+The dwarf came up smiling, and with a strange glimmer in his eyes.
+
+“The queen, through the young person you know of, sent for me this
+morning, gave me this ring from her own finger, bade me bring it to you,
+and say that, for her sake, she insisted that you would wear it, and for
+the sake of France you must hasten to be well.”
+
+“Are these her very words?” demanded Mirabeau.
+
+“Her very words,” answered the dwarf, enjoying malicious pleasure in the
+sick man’s excitement.
+
+“And nothing more?”
+
+“She said you would recognize the ring!”
+
+“Give it me! Give it me!”
+
+That dusky hand trembled a little as it reached forth the ring. Mirabeau
+took it eagerly and examined the design.
+
+“Yes; my lips touched it once. I recognize it,” he said, with the
+exaltation of a man whose brain is already surcharged.
+
+“The design was emblematical, she said,” answered Zamara. “A serpent,
+strong and wise, enfolding this emblem of royalty, the green beetle, was
+buried with some monarch thousands of years ago.”
+
+Mirabeau laid the ring on the bed and closed his eyes. The excitement
+had been too much for him.
+
+Zamara drew back and waited. Until that ring was upon Mirabeau’s hand
+his errand was but half done.
+
+After an interval of some minutes, Mirabeau turned a little on his
+pillows and opened his eyes.
+
+“Ah, I remember!” he said. “You brought me a ring, and were telling me
+something about it. I am a little weary now, but in time her words will
+all come back, like old wine, and give me strength. Tell her this, and
+say that I only crave life that it may be devoted to her and hers. Ha! I
+have been wandering—this is no message to send. You have but to give her
+highness my thanks—understand that, Mirabeau’s thanks, and nothing
+more.”
+
+“Her majesty bade me bring her word that I had seen the ring on your
+finger, Count Mirabeau. Shall I say that you were too weak and had no
+strength to put it on?”
+
+“What, I so far gone that I cannot thrust a ring on my finger. Where is
+the serpent? Oh, here!”
+
+Even the little finger of that large, white hand, was too large for the
+ring, and it was forced over the joint with violence. The keen eyes of
+the dwarf were upon it. He saw the head crest itself, a single flash of
+the ruby tongue, and then the ring was twisted to its place: but just
+above the joint was a scarcely perceptible speck of blue.
+
+“It is small and pains me a little,” said Mirabeau; “take it off!
+To-morrow, I will try it on the other hand. Take it off, I say!”
+
+The dwarf took the hand in his, grasped the beetle by its sides, and
+drew away the ring with a slow, cautious movement. His hand did not
+tremble, but the locked firmness of his features betrayed the force he
+put upon his nerves.
+
+“Lay it in that casket on the console,” said Mirabeau faintly, “and call
+my doctor from the next room.”
+
+As he spoke, the sick man’s head fell back upon the pillow, his arms
+settled down, all feeling fled from his limbs, and his breathing became
+heavy and quick, as if the heart were struggling in mortal agony.
+
+A cry of real terror broke from the dwarf. Half a dozen persons, who
+waited in the ante-room, rushed into the chamber, but it was only to see
+a dead man lying under those crimson shadows.
+
+The woorara leaves no signs, Zamara knew that, and remained quiet, while
+the physician stood horror-stricken over all that remained of his
+patient. When the tumult subsided a little, he stole out with the ring
+grasped cautiously in his hand.
+
+“How did you find Mirabeau?” questioned a woman standing by the door, in
+a low voice, as Zamara went out. “The man told me you had been admitted.
+Is he better? Will he live?”
+
+The woman’s face was pale and locked; her voice shook with fear as she
+asked these questions. A flash of dusky red shot athwart the Indian’s
+face, her anguish was sweet to his ear. He opened his hand and displayed
+the ring.
+
+“He sent you this, and bade you wear it for his sake. Mirabeau is dead!”
+
+That wretched woman snatched at the ring, thrust it on her finger, and
+covered it with passionate kisses.
+
+“Woe to France! Woe to France!” she cried out in wild anguish, “Mirabeau
+is dead! Mirabeau is dead!”
+
+He waited to see her fall; but the poison had exhausted itself on one
+life, or she had failed to touch the spring.
+
+“Fool that I was,” he muttered, gliding out of the crowd, while the sad
+cry rose from lip to lip,
+
+“Mirabeau is dead!”
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CVIII.
+ THE STORMING OF THE TUILERIES.
+
+
+When Mirabeau died, constitutional monarchy in France lost its strongest
+support. Slowly, but with steady persistence, Robespierre assumed the
+place which he could only fill with the iron pertinacity of a fixed
+purpose. From the hour that his voice became potent in the National
+Assembly, commenced the fearful rush with which the nation hurled itself
+into anarchy, assassination, atheism, and such other fearful crimes as
+history shrinks from recording. Then legislation itself became anarchy,
+constitutions were made, rent to atoms, and made over again in solemn
+mockery. Everything grand, beautiful or good, was trampled under the
+feet of the multitude. Men who had ever worshipped God blasphemed him
+now. Women who had been devout, forgot even to respect themselves. As
+anarchy prevailed, morality, justice and religion disappeared. France
+was reeling like a drunken creature toward an abyss of blood from which
+an eternity of goodness can never lift her, unstained.
+
+Struggle as she will, explain and apologise as she has, the power of an
+awful truth is upon her. Time itself will only deepen the ensanguined
+pages she has given to universal history. Terrified by the danger that
+surrounded him, the king and his family attempted to flee from the
+country he had ruled. But the red hand of the people was laid upon him,
+and he was dragged back to Paris worse than a prisoner. For a time he
+was insulted, watched and forced to become the very tool of his own
+enemies. After a martyrdom of humiliation, he was besieged in his palace
+by a band of marauders still more ferocious than the _Sans Culottes_
+with whom they fraternized in hideous brotherhood. Privately sanctioned
+and organized by men who called themselves the government, this fearful
+riot, intended to drive the king into the arms of his worst foes, was
+commenced and carried out by a combination of the brigands of Paris with
+the Marsellaise, a herd of ferocious butchers, which had swarmed up from
+the lowest dregs of the country wherever a moral monster could be found.
+Surrounded by this army of fiends who broke into his presence,
+threatening death wherever they went, the king, to save his helpless
+family and faithful household from massacre, resolved to seek protection
+from the Assembly which was in session.
+
+Surrounded by a few friends, girded in by hosts of foes, this
+unfortunate monarch took his first deliberate step to the scaffold.
+Followed by his wife, his sister, and his children, he passed from the
+palace into the grounds that partly surrounded it, hoping to make his
+way unmolested through the crowd. But the gates had been broken, and
+even here the mob swarmed around him with cruel taunts and brutal
+threats.
+
+The fallen monarch walked through the withered leaves that rustled
+mournfully in his path, submitting to these scoffs and insults of the
+furious crowd with a look of infinite sorrow.
+
+Marie Antoinette followed him in dread silence, leading the unconscious
+Dauphin by the hand, her face pale as death, her eyes burning with the
+hot tears she would not permit to fall. Now and then, her figure shrank
+from its queenly bearing as the crowd rained curses and hurled brutal
+insults on her in the presence of her child. But she uttered neither
+protest or appeal, when those ruthless hands snatched the watch from her
+bosom and tore her garments to get at the purse she was supposed to
+carry.
+
+The innocent child, comprehending little of the horrors that surrounded
+him, amused himself by kicking the dead leaves about, laughing archly if
+they fluttered over the band of brigands, and looking up at his mother
+as if he had done something in her defence.
+
+Among the crowd were many women, keener in their spite and far more
+ferocious than their fellow butchers, as unsexed women are sure to be,
+in a scene like that. Among them were several on horseback, recognized
+Amazons of the crowd, Theroigne de Mericourt, Louison Brisot, and,
+deeper in the throng, Madame Gosner. These women wore red caps on their
+heads, tri-colored scarfs across their bosoms, while the gleam of
+unsheathed swords pointed the commands they gave to the crowd. One
+forced the horse she rode through the mob, pointing her sword at the
+queen.
+
+“Take the child from her, he belongs to the nation! Hurl him this way,
+my horse’s hoofs are impatient.”
+
+The queen had not complained, but a shriek of agony broke from the
+mother, and snatching the boy to her bosom, she made a wild appeal for
+help.
+
+“No, no, take me! trample _me_ down, but do not touch her or the child.”
+
+It was the voice of a young girl, who sprang out of the crowd and threw
+herself before the queen, where she stood like a virgin priestess
+defending the altar at which she prayed.
+
+“Ha, ha!” shouted the woman on horseback, “it is her protegée. I have
+seen her at St. Cloud, at the little Trianon. It is she who carries
+letters back and forth, between Dame Capet and the traitors. She dares
+to stand between the people of France and their vengeance. Fling the boy
+to me, and toss her to the Marsellaise.”
+
+Marguerite Gosner stretched out her arms in wild appeal; her face was
+inspired, her blue eyes turned black and bright as stars.
+
+“Will no one help me? Is all manhood left among the people of France!”
+
+A man pressed his way through the crowd; a strong man, full of
+indomitable courage.
+
+Marguerite flung up her clasped hands in an ecstasy of thanksgiving. It
+was monsieur Jacques.
+
+This brave man snatched the Dauphin from his mother and held him up
+before the crowd, crying out in a voice that rang out trumpet-toned,
+
+“Frenchmen do not war with children!”
+
+A shout followed this brave act, and the cry ran from lip to lip.
+
+“It is the foster-brother of Mirabeau. Let him have his way.”
+
+Monsieur Jacques did have his way. Firm as a rock he walked before the
+queen, protecting her with his person and bearing the child in his arms.
+Marie Antoinette recognised in this man the person who had once saved
+her life, and would have imprudently thanked him. He saw the expression
+in her face, and with rude kindness bade her be silent. So the mournful
+procession passed on, and the king disappeared into the blackness of an
+awful future. While Monsieur Jacques was thus bravely occupied, Louison
+Brisot stooped down from her horse and pointing her sword at Marguerite,
+gave this order to a group of her followers.
+
+“Seize her! Take her before the committee—you understand—I will be
+there; cautiously, cautiously! Neither this man, nor St. Just must know
+of it.”
+
+She was obeyed. A few minutes after, two stout men had seized upon
+Marguerite, and were dragging her through the tumult, the smoke, and the
+horrible massacre which followed the king’s transit from his palace into
+the very citadel of his enemies.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CIX.
+ THE PRISONS.
+
+
+Subjects exist from which the pen shrinks away shuddering. Of such is
+the Reign of Terror, now fully inaugurated. The royal family were close
+prisoners in the Temple. The few friends that remained faithful to the
+last, had been massacred or were fugitives.
+
+On the second of September, 1792, the Ablaye and Des Carmes were forced
+open by a mob, secretly instigated by the government, and the crowning
+massacre of those horrible times was perpetrated without check or
+hindrance. One of these prisons had been a cloistered convent, with a
+church on one side, surrounded with grassy courts and blooming gardens.
+
+At open noonday, when an unclouded sun looked down upon the horrors of
+the deed, this beautiful spot was turned into a slaughter-house, where
+priests were slain at their own altars, in the courts, in the gardens,
+and kneeling in their cells. All day long the carnage went on, all day
+long the shrieks and prayers of those struggling victim rent the air and
+set the howling mob gathered outside the convent mad with desire to join
+in the fearful work.
+
+From time to time the gates were thrown open, and carts drawn by noble
+horses, taken from the royal stables, carried out load after load of
+dead bodies, leaving a track of blood as they slowly moved along.
+Hideous men and women, with children in rags, crowded around the gates
+and followed the death carts howling the Marsellaise.
+
+Night came and this fearful work of death was but half accomplished. The
+prisoners who had concealed themselves in the thickets of the court or
+gardens, were driven into the chapel and murdered on the very altars.
+This was the prison of the priests.
+
+In the Ablaye, to the horrors of a general massacre was added the
+hideous farce of a court of justice. Here twelve assassins constituted
+themselves judges. Before these men, the wretched prisoners were
+brought, questioned, insulted and cast forth to the howling cruelty of
+the mob.
+
+Among these was a young girl, a stranger to every one utterly alone. The
+president of these mock judges asked her name.
+
+She answered in a low voice:
+
+“Marguerite Gosner.”
+
+“Ha, that is the name of our old prisoner of the Bastille!” cried one of
+the judges.
+
+“He was my father,” said the girl.
+
+The judges answered her with a laugh of derision.
+
+“It is the name of citoyenne Gosner, the bravest patriot among our
+women.”
+
+Marguerite cast down her eyes and clasped her trembling hands; her voice
+was scarcely audible as she said,
+
+“She is my mother!”
+
+“Her mother!” quoth an assassin, who stood near leaning on his dripping
+sword. “It is a trick to save her worthless life. I saw her fling
+herself at the feet of Capet’s wife; Louison Brisot was her accuser.”
+
+“To the prison of La Force!”
+
+This was a mocking sentence of death. The door opened. The poor girl was
+led through, and stood white and dumb with horror among a gang of
+executioners.
+
+For one moment the fiends were held in check by her youth, her beauty,
+and the utter stillness of her despair. Then they rushed upon her; but a
+man, pale, firm and bloodless as yet, pushed through their ranks and
+seized her by the arm.
+
+“She is mine!” he said. “You have had all the rest; am I to be deprived
+of everything?”
+
+The assassins gave way, crying out,
+
+“Yes, yes! he has waited till now. Let him have this pet lamb. Our
+sabres are too heavy for such dainty work. Here comes another. Fall in!
+fall in!”
+
+“What is this?” cried a woman’s voice in fierce wrath. “Who is it that
+dares to let my enemies free?”
+
+“Nay, nay, citoyenne Brisot, we have but given her up to death; nothing
+can save her.”
+
+“I tell you,” answered the demon, “that man is her lover; he but came
+here to save her.”
+
+Two or three ruffians broke from the rest and pursued Monsieur Jacques,
+who was moving swiftly through the crowd, carrying Marguerite in his
+arms. They followed him close; they came up with him. The crowd was
+densely packed; spears were thrust out at random; the assassins were in
+haste to get back to their awful work, and made awkward thrusts; a spear
+struck Jacques in the side. It was aimed at the girl, who uttered a
+piercing shriek. A young man broke his passage through the crowd and
+dashed the leveled weapons back.
+
+“Bloodhounds, have you no better work than this?”
+
+The ruffians looked at each other amazed.
+
+“It is St. Just! It is St. Just! What has he to do with our vengeance?”
+they muttered.
+
+“But St. Just is the friend of the people; we must not anger him;
+besides, there is plenty of work for us yonder.”
+
+The men turned their spears and went away.
+
+St. Just scarcely heeded them; he was bending over Monsieur Jacques, who
+had fallen upon the pavement. Marguerite knelt by him, pale with the
+horror she had passed through, trembling with sympathy for the wounded
+man.
+
+Wounded! He was dying. He made a faint motion with his hand that the
+girl should bend down to him. She read the yearning wish in his eyes and
+pressed her lips to his.
+
+That mournful kiss took the last breath from the great heart which had
+ceased to beat, loving her to the last.
+
+St. Just lifted Marguerite from the pavement and gave orders that the
+body of that brave man should be carried to his home.
+
+The crowd had recognised his face, and were ready to obey him.
+
+Through all the horrors of that night, St. Just bore the girl in safety.
+She was sensible, though silent from exhaustion that seemed like death
+itself; but with that came a sweet sense of rest and protection. In her
+prison she had been utterly alone—utterly helpless. A mission of
+importance had taken St. Just into the interior. Her arrest had been
+secret; her incarceration was only known to those who had planned it.
+Even her mother had searched for her in vain. St. Just had reached Paris
+scarcely an hour before, and rushed to the prison, hoping to check the
+carnage there.
+
+The cry that broke from Marguerite when that spear struck Jacques,
+brought him to her rescue. She was in his arms; he could feel the
+quivering beat of her heart against his own; her arms clung to him with
+faint spasms of strength, whenever a death cart rumbled by or a fiercer
+shout than usual rent the air. Still she was alive, and he had saved
+her.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CX.
+ BOUGHT BY BLOOD.
+
+
+Like a wild beast, France had tasted blood and clamored loudly for more.
+Her keepers, Robespierre, Danton, Marat and the rest, black-hearted and
+red-handed as they were, found even their brutal ingenuity taxed by the
+monsters whose growing appetite for murder they were compelled to feed.
+
+A new excitement was prepared for them. The mockery of a trial, at which
+the galleries presided; a tumultuous mob, hounding on its friends and
+intimidating those who wished to be just—the trial of a good king by the
+most depraved of his subjects.
+
+This infamous parody of justice—twenty-four hours for a last farewell of
+his family, for prayer, and a sacrament—grudgingly permitted, and the
+whole world was horrified by an execution at which humanity recoils with
+shudders of condemnation.
+
+But even this terrible crime failed to appease the thirst for murder
+which raged among the masses. Their leaders, urged on by the ignorance
+of fanaticism, began to wage war on themselves. Every member of the
+Assembly suspected of moderation or mercy was swept into prison, and the
+people applauded. They were ready for anything but a return to honest
+labor and thrifty habits. They revelled in the farce of being every man
+his own monarch.
+
+France had become ready for perfect anarchy; and plunged like a wild
+beast, maddened with the blood of its own kind, into the Reign of
+Terror, of which Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, were the high priests.
+
+But the hand of a young girl sent Marat to his black account, and the
+supremacy of chaos was left with Robespierre and Danton. At the summit
+of his awful power, Robespierre was seized with a coward’s fear. By what
+ultra crime could he appease the besotted cravings of his followers, and
+keep them from turning on himself. Danton had lost all his cruel
+invention. Denunciations and commonplace massacres had ceased to excite
+enthusiasm; the horrors of the guillotine, which thrilled the community
+at first, had degenerated into a popular amusement, at which the women
+held high carnival, and gossiped, joked, brought their knitting and
+worked, that no time might be lost while the axe was sharpening.
+
+If there was a moment’s silence, when some ghastly head fell into the
+basket, it was instantly atoned for by imprecations, or coarse laughter.
+The executioner had no longer power to keep their attention. He did not
+give keen variety enough; to them murder had lost its awful fascination.
+The nobility had perished, or fled, and plebeian executions had become
+grossly common. Robespierre, whose genius was sombre and cruel, sought
+to appease them with another royal head; this might sharpen the palled
+appetite of the crowd. The sight of a beautiful woman on the scaffold—a
+queen, and the daughter of an empress, awoke something of the old
+blood-thirsty enthusiasm. Robespierre saw the effect, and offered
+another noble princess to the populace, the angelic Elizabeth. These two
+martyred women went to the scaffold in a cart, with cords girding their
+white wrists, each with her beautiful hair shorn close by the hangman’s
+scissors.
+
+In this awful spectacle Robespierre had exhausted all inventions of
+cruelty, but the people demanded something more atrocious still; nothing
+could satisfy their insatiable thirst. Their clamor found Robespierre
+helpless. He had talked wildly of liberty till there was nothing more to
+be said. His ingenuity had exhausted itself in giving new horrors to
+death: and all he could offer was a repetition of the old crimes, which
+had ceased even to interest the crowd. Always frugal and austere in his
+habits, this man was the slave of no small vices, and looked with scorn
+upon those who yielded to them. In his weird patriotism he was sincere,
+but the people began to look upon his austerity as a rebuke. Weary of
+murder they turned to blasphemy, and there the genius of Robespierre and
+Danton gave way.
+
+Now sweeping across the lurid path of Robespierre comes the Herbertists,
+so fearfully depraved, that the Jacobins shrunk away from them, appalled
+by the mingled blasphemy and jest with which they excited the people to
+sacrilegious excesses.
+
+These men laid their ensanguined hands upon the very altar of God,
+upheaving it from their midst, and gave a zest to crime by adding
+sacrilege to murder. Under their sway the cross fell from the summits of
+the churches, crucifixes and chalices were melted into coin. Relics,
+hitherto held sacred, were trampled under foot in contempt, burnt,
+destroyed, and despised. Church bells no longer called the people to
+worship, but fed the musketry of the soldiers, and the cannon turned
+against the enemies of France. Holy crosses were taken down from the
+cemeteries, and statues of sleep, in the form of voluptuous women,
+rested in their place. Elegance, and even decency, were banished.
+Guillotines became an object of fashion and of jest; children played
+with them as toys, women wore them in their ears and on their bosoms.
+Atheism, coarseness, and immorality, were liberty and equality.
+
+This reign of reason was even more revolting than the reign of terror.
+It turned religion and death itself into a burlesque.
+
+At this time Louison Brisot, who had fled from Paris while her arch
+enemy Robespierre remained supreme, came back with renewed audacity and
+joined the Herbertists. She was young, fiercely beautiful, and in her
+soul embodied all the enormities of the Revolution. Now the great
+ambition of her life was accomplished, Theroigne de Mericourt was put
+aside, and she was chosen as the goddess of Liberty.
+
+The church of Notre Dame had been diverted of its sacred character, and
+was now known as the Temple of Reason, in which the people held a grand
+carnival, presided over by Louison Brisot, the most wicked of all the
+shameless women of Paris.
+
+On its high altar she was enthroned, clad in the scant robes of ancient
+Greece, with a red cap on her head and a tri-colored bright scarf around
+her waist, she sat on the holy altar of Christ and received the
+blasphemous homage of thrice ten thousand idolators.
+
+After this, the chair on which she sat was lifted by four men and
+carried to the Assembly, surrounded by a band of white-robed dancing
+girls, crowned with flowers. Here, seated by the president, this evil
+woman received the homage of a goddess. Bishops, vicars, and cures, laid
+crosses and rings at her feet, and, with the red cap on their heads,
+joined in a hymn chanted to the honor of the new divinity.
+
+During this ceremony a few stood aloof, filled with abhorrence and
+contempt. Among these were Robespierre, and the youthful St. Just, men
+whose very faults lifted them infinitely above any participation in a
+scene so degrading. They could be cruel; but with one, at least, it was
+under the honest conviction, that by cruelty alone the country could be
+saved. To these men, relentless in their patriotism, but pure in their
+lives, sacrilege and blasphemy had no charm.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER CXI.
+ THE GODDESS OF REASON.
+
+
+Robespierre and his friends had looked on the worship of reason with
+unflinching contempt, but in these blasphemies lay a power that crushed
+out the influence they had wielded. True, it had driven such women as
+Madame Gosner, whose ideas of liberty were unselfish and austere, back
+into privacy, but only concentrated greater influence on the few.
+
+When the hour of conflict came, and it was not of slow progress, the
+worshippers of reason triumphed.
+
+Louison Brisot, the embodiment of a sacrilegious idea, found herself
+more powerful than Robespierre. Herbert was her slave. She had but to
+lift her hand to set the guillotine at work—a glance of her eye was
+enough to select the victim. Among the first was Madame Du Berry, whose
+cries of distress reached the exultant goddess as the tumbrel bore that
+wretched woman to the place of execution. The poor creature had
+concealed herself; but one day Zamara was seen whispering to the Goddess
+of Reason in the gallery of the Assembly. The next day came those cries
+of distress from the street, where a woman was going to execution, among
+the laughter and jeers of the people.
+
+In vain Robespierre and his party stemmed the tide of atheism, which the
+nation received with avidity. In vain he had brought the queen to the
+scaffold; the gloom of his destiny was complete—not even a royal
+execution could interest the people now. In vain he got up a
+counter-festival, dedicated to the Supreme Being. The grounds of the
+Tuileries were crowded to hear his oration, the symphony and the ode;
+but none of these things were new to the people of France, and they
+turned with greater zest to the orgies, the songs, and dancing
+bacchantes, which gave eclat and novelty to the Festival of Reason.
+
+At last came a fearful struggle where the two parties fought like
+gladiators, hand to hand, each for its life. Robespierre fell. That
+night he was put under arrest, the next day the man so feared, so hated,
+lay wounded and helpless in the power of his enemies, almost dead, and
+yet condemned to die.
+
+With him were twenty-two others identified with his cruel policy, and
+who had partaken of his power, all arraigned before the tribunal, and
+certain of their doom.
+
+Among these was a man scarcely yet beyond his first youth whom even his
+enemies looked upon almost with compassion; for the strange, sad beauty
+of his face, the calm dignity of his manner, impressed even those
+murderous men with a wish to save him. They knew that intense love of
+country, a sublime thirst for liberty as it can never exist on earth,
+had possessed this man, till he deemed no act too cruel, or sacrifice
+too great for the freedom of his fellow men. But they knew also that the
+death St. Just had been so ready to indict he was prepared to endure.
+Those features, perfect as the inspirations of Grecian sculpture,
+scarcely changed from their grave, almost feminine expression, when
+sentence of death was passed upon him. His large, gray eyes gazed calmly
+out from the shadow of their long lashes, and around the perfect mouth
+came an expression of firm endurance; but with all this, it seemed
+impossible to believe that a man of such gentle presence would die with
+more courage than Danton or Robespierre.
+
+When asked if he had anything to say, a faint smile quivered around the
+young man’s mouth, and he answered,
+
+“Nothing! Why should I protest against an inevitable fate, or check the
+swift vengeance of my enemies. You are about to give me that for which I
+have striven so long in vain—Liberty!”
+
+With these words St. Just retired among those already condemned, and
+waited for his doom. But all at once his firmness was sorely shaken; for
+a fair, young maiden entered the tribunal, pale as death, and searching
+the faces around her with looks of wild, pathetic entreaty. The
+condemned prisoners stood in a group in one corner of the room. She saw
+St. Just among them, and made her way toward him; but the young man put
+out both hands to warn her away, and turned his face aside, that no one
+might see the anguish that convulsed it.
+
+Marguerite was struck dumb by this mute denial.
+
+“What is this? Who is the woman who dares to intrude on our
+deliberations,” cried the president, rising fiercely from his seat.
+
+Marguerite opened her white lips to speak. But a voice she had never
+disobeyed reached her in a firm, low undertone,
+
+“Keep silence! I am condemned!”
+
+She was silent, and stood there in the midst of the tribunal, white and
+cold as a statue.
+
+All at once there was a commotion in the gallery, where a female, in a
+light, Grecian dress, with the blood-red cap of liberty on her head,
+started up, and leaning over, that all the tribunal might see her,
+called out,
+
+“Behold the friend of St. Just, the servant of Widow Capet. I charge her
+with it. She is a Royalist, an enemy to the nation!”
+
+The speaker was Louison Brisot, the Goddess of Reason, who now exhibited
+herself every day at the tribunal.
+
+“If you ask proof, it is here. Patriot Zamara has already given one base
+aristocrat to this tribunal. It was he who pointed out the hiding-place
+of Du Berry. Now, his evidence will confound another. Let her go among
+the condemned. You have no woman in the batch to-day, which is an insult
+to the sex. Let her die with the rest.”
+
+Marguerite’s wild, white face was uplifted to the woman, while she
+hurled these cruel words at the tribunal. All at once she comprehended
+that St. Just was condemned to die, that her terrible enemy was
+demanding that she should go with him to the scaffold. A bright
+illumination swept over her face, the power of speech came back to her
+lips. She took a step or two forward, drawing nearer the tribunal.
+
+“It is true,” she said. “I did serve the Queen. I loved her. She trusted
+me, and I was faithful. It needs no witnesses—I confess it.”
+
+“She confesses! She confesses! Put her with the condemned!”
+
+Marguerite walked firmly across the room, and placed herself by the side
+of St. Just, who turned his eyes upon her in mournful reproach, but did
+not speak. Perhaps there was some gleam of comfort in the idea that she
+would go with him into eternity.
+
+Condemnation and death followed each other closely in those days. Less
+than twenty-four hours after the Jacobins were sent from the
+revolutionary tribunal, they were crowded into carts, surrounded by a
+triple guard, and dragged through multitudes that lined the streets from
+the Conciergerie to the Place de la Revolution. In this crowded tumbrel
+Robespierre was the most conspicuous and the most hated. Shouts and
+curses were hurled upon him by men, women, and even little children.
+Under this storm of detestation for one man the others passed on almost
+unnoticed.
+
+In that crowded cart was a gentle girl, seated next to St. Just. She
+leaned upon him for the support which his shackled hands had no power to
+give, and, with her soft eyes lifted to his, encouraged him with faint,
+wan smiles, inexpressibly pathetic.
+
+“We shall be together, my beloved. It is only a minute, and you will
+claim me,” she whispered, as the roar of the multitude passed over them
+unheeded.
+
+He strained at the cords that bound him with a wild desire to clasp her
+to his heart, and fight for her young life.
+
+“Be patient,” she said, grieved by the smothered fire in his eyes. “Is
+it for me you rebel? Ah! if you only knew how much worse life would be
+without you, this little minute of pain would be nothing.”
+
+“Oh, my God! I was prepared for everything but this, my poor lamb! That
+I should, myself, bring you to the slaughter!”
+
+“But for that I should have been a coward. Ah! the cart stops! Let me go
+first. I can bear anything but the—the widowhood of a moment.”
+
+“Yes, my beloved, you shall go first. I will follow you, and find an
+angel waiting.”
+
+“Hark! What is that?” she whispered, shuddering.
+
+“Do not look up; lean closer to me.”
+
+His words were drowned by a fierce howl of mingled delight and
+execration, that went thundering from the Place de la Revolution down
+the streets of Paris. The head of Robespierre had fallen.
+
+A fair young creature, robed in white, came next upon the scaffold, and
+disappeared amid the dead silence of the multitude. Those who looked
+upon St. Just, after she was lifted from the cart, saw that his head
+drooped low upon his breast, and that a shiver of terrible anguish shook
+his frame: then a sublime courage took possession of him, he mounted the
+scaffold with a firm step, bent his head unresistingly, that the
+executioner might cut away the dark waves of hair that fell down his
+neck, and laid himself under that awful machine of death calmly, as if a
+bed of roses awaited him, rather than the hideous saw-dust still wet
+with Marguerite’s blood.
+
+When the head of St. Just was exhibited, in all the marble beauty of its
+perfect features, no shout of triumph arose from the mob, for he was
+among the rare number of men, who, calling themselves patriots, still
+retained the respect of his countrymen.
+
+
+ THE END.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ Page Changed from Changed to
+
+ 28 You this Austrian, how You saw this Austrian, how
+ haughtily she turned away haughtily she turned away
+
+ unchanged protegée protegée
+
+ 570 the populace in cheek. Chosen the populace in check. Chosen
+ president of the Assembly president of the Assembly
+
+ ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76772 ***
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