The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty

“I will talk this over with the Queen, sir,” said the monarch, having turned pale and hesitatingly glanced at the royal portrait. “She may decide on speaking with Mirabeau: but I will not. I like to be able to shake hands with those I confer with, and I could never take the hand of a Mirabeau, though my life, my liberty, and my throne were at stake – After she shall have seen him, we will see – “

“I pray God that it will not be too late.”

“Do you believe the peril so imminent?”

“Sire, do not let the portrait of Charles First be removed from your room,” said Gilbert; “it is a good adviser.”

Bowing, he went forth as another visitor appeared on the sill. He could not restrain from a cry of surprise. This gentleman was Marquis Favras, whom he had met at Cagliostro’s a week or so before and to whom the magician had predicted a near and shameful death.

CHAPTER XVII

THE KING ATTENDS TO PRIVATE MATTERS

LOUIS the King displayed the usual irresolution in dealing with Favras’ proposition, approved by the Queen, to make a rush out of the kingdom. He reflected all the night and at breakfast called for Count Charny.

He was still at table when the officer walked in.

“Won’t you take breakfast with me, count?”

Charny was obliged to excuse himself from the honor as he had broken his fast.

“I must ask you to wait a while as I never care to speak of important matters while at meals and I have something to talk over with your lordship. Let us speak of other matters for the moment. Of yourself, for instance. I hear that you are badly lodged here; somewhere in the garret, my lord, while the countess is lodging in Paris.”

“Sire, I am in a room of my own choice: the countess is dwelling in her own house in Coq-Heron Street.”

“I must confess my ignorance; is it near the palace?”

“Tolerably, Sire.”

“What does this mean that after only three years of married life, you have separate establishments?”

“Sire, I have no answer to make than that my lady wishes to live alone. I have not had the pleasure of seeing her since your Majesty sent me for news. That is, better than a week ago.”

The King understood grief more readily than melancholy and noticed the difference in the tone.

“Count, there is some of your fault in this estrangement,” said the monarch, with the familiarity of the family man, as he called himself.

“The man must be to blame when so charming a woman keeps aloof from him. Do not tell me that this is none of my business: for a king can do a great deal by speaking a word. You must treat the lady ungratefully, for she loves you dearly – or did when Lady Taverney.”

“Sire, you know that one must not dispute with a king.”

“I do not know that the signs were visible to me alone; but this I know very well that on that dreadful October night, when she came to join us, she did not lose sight of you throughout, and her eyes expressed all her soul’s anguish, so much so that I saw her make a movement to fling herself between you and danger when the Bullseye Saloon door was beaten down.”

Count Charny was not softened; he believed he had seen something of this sort: but the details of his recent interview with his wife were too distinct for him to have his opinion shaken.

“I was paying all the more attention to her,” went on Louis, “from the Queen having said when you were sent to the City Hall while I was on my journey to Paris, that she almost died of distress in your absence and of joy at your return.”

“Sire,” replied Charny with a sad smile, “God had allowed those who are born above us to receive in birth as a privilege of their rank, the gift of seeing deeper into one’s heart than oneself can do; the King and the Queen have perceived secrets unrevealed to me: but my limited vision prevents me seeing the same. Therefore I beg to be employed on any dangerous errand or one that would take me to a distance without considering the great love of the Countess of Charny. Absence or danger will be equally welcome, coming at least for my part.”

“Nevertheless, a week ago, you appeared wishful to stay in town when the Queen desired to despatch you to Italy.”

“I deemed my brother adequate for the position and reserved myself for a mission more difficult or dangerous.”

“Then count, this is the very time when I have a difficult task to entrust to you, that with danger to you in the future, that I spoke of the countess’s isolation and wished her to have a lady friend’s company while I took away her husband.”

“I will write to the countess, yes, write: for from the way she last received me, I ought in that manner acquaint her with my movements.”

“Say no more on this head; I will talk it over with the Queen during your absence,” said Louis, rising. “Faith, the medical lights are right to say that things look differently as you handle them before or after a hearty meal. Come into my study, count; I feel in a mood to talk straight out to you.”

Charny followed, thinking how much Majesty lost by this material side, for which the proud Marie Antoinette was always carping at him.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE KING ATTENDS TO PUBLIC MATTERS

THOUGH the King had been only a fortnight in the Tuileries he had two places fitted out completely for him. The forge was one, the study the other.

Charny walked up to the desk at which his royal master seated himself without looking round at the papers with which he was familiar.

“Count Charny,” began the King at last, yet seeming to halt, “I noticed one thing, on the night of the attack by the rioters, you stood by me while you set your brother on guard over the Queen.”

“Sire, it was my right as head of my family, as you are chief of the realm, to die for you.”

“That made me think, that if ever I had a secret errand, difficult and dangerous, I could rely on your loyalty as a Frenchman, and on your heart as a friend’s.”

“Oh, Sire, however the King may raise me, I have no pretension to believe that I shall be more than a faithful and thankful subject.”

“My lord, you are a grave man though but thirty-six; you have not passed through recent events without drawing some conclusion from them. What do you think of the situation and what would be your means to relieve me, if you were my Premier?”

“Sire, I am a soldier and a seaman,” returned Charny, with more hesitation than embarrassment, “these high social questions fly over my head.”

“Nay, you are a man,” said the sovereign with a dignity in holding out his hand which sprang from the quandary; “another man, who believes you to be his friend, asks you, purely and simply, what you, with your upright heart and healthy mind, would do in his place.”

“Sire, in a no less serious position, the Queen asked my opinion: the day after the Taking of the Bastile, when she wanted to fling the foreign legions upon the mobs. My reply would have embroiled me with her Majesty had I been less known to her and my respect and devotion less plain. I said that your Majesty must not enter these walls as a conqueror if he could not as a father of his people.”

“Well, my lord, is not that the counsel I followed? The question is was I right? am I here as a King or a captive?”

“Speaking in full frankness, I disapproved of the banquet at Versailles, supplicating the Queen not to go there; I was in despair when she threw down the tricolor and set up the black cockade of Austria.”

“Do you believe that led really to the attack on the palace?”

“No, Sire; but it was the cover for it. You are not unjust for the lower orders; they are kindly and love you – they are royalist. But they are in pain from cold and hunger; beneath and around them are evil advisers, who urge them on, and they know not their own strength. Once started they become flood or fire, for they overwhelm or they consume.”

“Well, what am I to do? supposing, as is natural enough, I do not want to be drowned or burned.”

“We must not open the sluices to the flood or windows to the flame. But pardon me forgetting that I should not speak thus, even on a royal order – “

“But you will on a royal entreaty. Count Charny, the King entreats you – to continue.”