The Royal Life Guard; or, the flight of the royal family.

The Queen looked at them both, and said to the count:

"Follow me, my lord."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HUSBAND'S PROMISE

The Queen sank upon a divan when she had arrived within her own apartments, making a sign for Charny to close the door.

Scarcely was she seated before her heart overflowed and she burst into sobs. They were so sincere and forcible that they went down into the depths of Charny's heart and sought for his former love. Such passions burning in a man never completely die out unless from one of those dreadful shocks which turn love to loathing.

He was in that strange dilemma which they will appreciate who have stood in the same: between old love and the new.

He loved his wife with all the pity in his bosom and he pitied the Queen with all his soul. He could not help feeling regret and giving words of consolation.

But he saw that reproach pierced through this sobbing; that recrimination came to light among the tears, reminding him of the exactions of this love, the absolute will, the regal despotism mingled with the expressions of tenderness and proofs of passion; he steeled himself against the exactions and took up arms against the despotism, entering into the strife against the will. He compared all this with Andrea's sweet, unalterable countenance, and preferred the statue, though he believed it to be of snow, to this glowing bronze, heated from the furnace, ever ready to dart from its eyes the lightnings of love, pride and jealousy.

This time the Queen wept without saying anything.

It was more than eight months since she had seen him. Before this, for two or three years she had believed that they could not separate without their hearts breaking. Her only consolation had been that he was working for her sake in doing some deed for the King.

But it was a weak consolation.

She wept for the sake of relief, for her pent-up tears would have choked her if she had not poured them forth. Was it joy or pain that held her silent? both, perhaps, for many mighty emotions dissolve in tears.

With more love even than respect, Charny went up to her, took one of her hands away from her face and said as he applied his lips to it:

"Madam, I am proud and happy to say that not an hour has been without toil for you since I went hence."

"Oh, Charny," retorted the Queen, "there was a time when you might have been less busy on my account but you would have thought the more of me."

"I was charged by the King with grave responsibility, which imposed the more strict silence until the business was accomplished. It is done at present. I can see and speak with you now, but I might not write a letter up to this period."

"It is a fine sample of loyalty, and I regret that it should be performed at the expense of another sentiment, George," she said with melancholy.

She pressed his hand tenderly, while eyeing him with that gaze for which once he would have flung away the life still at her service.

She noticed that he was not the courier dusty and bloody from spurring, but the courtier spic and span according to the rules of the Royal Household. This complete attire visibly fretted the woman while it must have satisfied the exacting Queen.

"Where do you come from?" she asked.

"Montmedy, in postchaise."

"Half across the kingdom, and you are spruce, brushed and dandified like one of Lafayette's aid-de-camps. Were the news you brought so unimportant as to let you dally at the toilet table?"

"Very important; but I feared that if I stepped out of the mud be-splattered postchaise in the palace yard, all disordered with travel, suspicion would be roused; the King had told me that you are closely guarded, and that made me congratulate myself on walking in, clad in my naval uniform like an officer coming to present his devoirs after a week or two on leave."

She squeezed his hand convulsively, having a question to put the harder to frame as it appeared so far from important.

"I forgot that you had a Paris house. Of course you dropped in at Coq-Heron Street, where the countess is keeping house?"

Charny was ready to spring away like a high-mettled steed spurred in the raw; but there was so much hesitation and pain in her words that he had to pity one so haughty for suffering so much and for showing her feelings though she was so strong-minded.

"Madam," he replied, with profound sadness not wholly caused by her pain, "I thought I had stated before my departure that the Countess of Charny's residence is not mine. I stopped at my brother Isidore's to change my dress."

The Queen uttered a cry of joy and slid down on her knees, carrying his hand to her lips, but he caught her up in both arms and exclaimed:

"Oh, what are you doing?"

"I thank you – ask me not for what! do you ask me for what? for the only moment of thorough delight I have felt since your departure. God knows this is folly, and foolish jealousy, but it is most worthy of pity. You were jealous once, though you forget it. Oh, you men are happy when you are jealous, because you can fight with your rivals and kill or be slain; but we women can only weep, though we perceive that our tears are useless if not dangerous. For our tears part us from our beloved rather than wash us nearer; our grief is the vertigo of love – it hurls us towards the abyss which we see without avail. I thank you again, George; you see that I am happy anew and weep no more."

She tried to laugh; but in her repining she had forgotten how to be merry, and the tone was so sad and doleful that the count shuddered.

"Be blessed, O God!" she said, "for he would not have the power to love me from the day when he pities me."

Charny felt he was dragged down a steep where in time he would be in the impossibility of checking himself. He made an effort to stop, like those skaters who lean back on their heels at the risk of breaking through the ice.

"Will you not permit me to offer the fruit of my long absence by explaining what I have been happy to do for your sake?" he said.

"Oh, Charny, I like better to have things as I said just now; but you are right: the woman must not too long forget she is a Queen. Speak, ambassador, the woman has obtained all she had a right to claim – the Queen listens."

The count related how he had surveyed the way for the flight of the Royal Family, and how all was ready. She listened with deep attention and fervent gratitude. It seemed to her that mere devotion could not go so far; that it must be ardent and unquiet love to foresee such obstacles and invent the means to cope with and overcome them.

"So you are quite happy to save me?" she asked at the end, regarding him with supreme affection.

"Oh, can you ask me that? it is the dream of my ambition, and it will be the glory of my life if I attain it."

"I would rather it were simply the reward of your love," replied Marie Antoinette with melancholy. "But let that pass! you ardently desire this great deed of the rescue of the Royal Family to be performed by you?"

"I await but your consent to set aside my life to it."

"I understand it, my dear one," said the sovereign: "your dedication ought to be free from all alien sentiment, and material affection. It is impossible that my husband and our children should be saved by a hand which would not dare to be stretched out towards them if they slipped on the road we are to travel in company. I place their lives and mine in your custody, as to a brother: but you will feel some pity for me?"

"Pity?"

"You cannot wish that in one of those crises when one needs all courage, patience and coolness, a mad idea of mine – for in the night one may see the specters which would not frighten in the day – you cannot wish that all should fail because I had not your promise that you loved me?"

"Lady," interrupted Charny, "above all I aim at your Majesty's bliss: that of France; the glory of achieving the task I have begun; and I confess that I am sorry the sacrifice I make is so slight; but I swear not to see the Countess of Charny without your Majesty's permission."

Coldly and respectfully saluting the monarch's consort, he retired without her trying to detain him, so chilled was she by his tone.

Hardly had he shut the door after him, than she wrung her hands and ruefully moaned:

"Oh, rather that he made the vow not to see me, but loved me as he loves her!"

CHAPTER IX.

OFF AND AWAY