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

Mirabeau’s face was convulsed with rage as he roared in a dull voice:

“We are flouted, deceived, betrayed! the court will not have me and you have been taken for a dupe as I for a fool. On my moving in the House that the Cabinet Ministers should be invited to be present at the Assembly sessions, three friends of the King proposed that no member of the House should be a minister. This laboriously managed combination dissolves at a breath from the King; But,” concluded Mirabeau, like Ajax, shaking his mighty fist at the sky, “by my name, I will pay them for this, and if their breath can shake a minister, mine shall overthrow the throne. I shall go to the Assembly and fight to the uttermost; I am one of those who blow up the fort and perish under the ruins.”

He rushed away, more terrible and handsomer for the divine streak which lightning had impressed on his brow.

Gilbert did not go to the House to witness his companion’s defeat – one very like a victory. He was musing at home over Cagliostro’s strange predictions. How could this man foresee what would be Robespierre and Napoleon? I ask those who put this question to me how they explain Mdlle. Lenormand’s prediction to the Empress Josephine? One often meets inexplicable things; doubt was invented to comfort those who cannot explain them but will not believe them.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SMILE AND THE NOD

AS Cagliostro had said and Mirabeau surmised, the King had upset the scheme.

Without much regret the Queen saw the constitutional platform fall which had wounded her pride. The King’s policy was to gain time and profit by circumstances; besides he had two chances of getting away into some stronghold, which was his favorite plan. These two plans, we know, were his brother Provence’s, managed by Favras; the other his own, managed by Charny.

The latter reached Metz in a couple of days where the faithful royalist Bouille did not doubt him, but resolved to send his son Louis to Paris to be more exactly informed on the matter. Charny remained as a kind of hostage.

Count Louis Bouille arrived about the middle of November. At this period the King was guarded closely by Lafayette whose cousin the young count was.

To keep him in ignorance of Charny’s negociations, the latter worked to be presented to the King by his kinsman.

Providence answered the envoy’s prayer for Lafayette, who had been informed of his coming but swallowed his excuse that it was on a visit to a sweetheart in Paris, offered to take him with him on his morning call on the monarch.

All the palace doors opened to the general. The sentinels presented arms and the footmen bowed, so that Count Louis could see that his relative was the real King of Paris.

The King was in his forge so that the visitors had to see the Queen first.

Bouille had not seen her for three years. The sight of her at thirty-four, a prisoner, slandered, threatened, and hated, made a deep impression on the chivalric heart of the young noble.

She remembered him at a glance and with the same was sure this was a friendly face. Without busying about General Lafayette she gave her hand for the young man to kiss, which was a fault such as she plentifully committed; without this favor she had won Louis Bouille, and by doing him it before the general she slighted the latter who had never been so gratified; she wounded the very man she most wanted as a friend.

Hence with a faltering in the voice but with the courtesy never leaving him, Lafayette said:

“Faith, my dear cousin, you want me to present you to the Queen: but it seems to me that you were better fitted to present me.”

The Queen was so enraptured at meeting a friend on whom she could rely, and as a woman so proud of the effect produced on the young nobleman, that she turned round on the general with one of the beams of youth which she had feared forever extinct.

“General,” she said with one of the smiles of her sunnier days, “Count Bouille is not a severe republican like you: he comes from Metz, not from America; he does not come to bother about Constitutions but to present his homage. Do not be astonished at the favor shown him by a nearly dethroned Queen, which this country squire may esteem a boon – “

She completed her sentence by a playful smile as much as to say: “You are a Scipio and think nothing of such nonsense.”

“It is a pity for me, and a great misfortune for your Majesty,” returned Lafayette, “that I pass without my respect and devotion being noticed.”

The Queen looked at him with her clear, searching eye. This was not the first time that he had spoken in this strain and set her thinking: but unfortunately, as he had said, she entertained an instinctive repugnance for him.

“Come, general, be generous and pardon me, my outburst of kindness towards this excellent Bouille family, which loves me with a whole heart and of which this youth is the chain of contact. I see his whole family in him, coming to kiss my hand. Let us shake hands, as the American and English do, and be good friends.”

The marquis touched the hand coldly.

“I regret that you do not bear in mind that I am French. The night of the attack on the Royal Family at Versailles ought to remind you.”

“You are right, general,” responded the lady, making an effort and shaking his hand. “I am ungrateful. Any news?”

Lafayette had a little revenge to take.

“No; merely an incident in the House. An old man of one hundred and twenty was brought to the bar by five generations of descendants to thank the Representatives for having made him free. Think of one who was born a serf under Louis XIV. and eighty years after.”

“Very touching,” retorted the Queen; “but I could not well be there as I was succoring the widow and child of the baker murdered for supplying bread to the Assembly.”

“Madam, we could not foresee that atrocity but we have punished the offenders.”

“That will do her no good, as she is maddened and may give birth to a still-born babe; if it should live, do you see any inconvenience to standing godmother to it at the Cathedral of Notre Dame?”

“None: and I take this opportunity of meeting your allusion, before my kinsman, to your pretended captivity. Nothing prevents your going to church or elsewhere, and the King may go hunting and out riding, as much as he likes.”

The Queen smiled, for this permission might be useful as far as it went.

“Good-bye, count,” she said to Bouille; “the Princess of Lamballe receives for me and you will be welcome any evening with your illustrious kinsman.”

“I shall profit by the invitation,” said Lafayette, “sure that I should be oftener seen there and elsewhere by your Majesty if the request had not been heretofore omitted.”

The Queen dismissed them with a smile and a nod, and they went out, the one with more bitterness because of the nod, the other with more adherence because of the smile.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE ROYAL LOCKSMITH

AS the King had undertaken a very important piece of locksmith work, he sent his valet Hue to beg General Lafayette to come into his smithy.

It was on the second floor above his bedroom, with inner and outer stairs.

Since morning he had been hammering away at the work for which Master Gamain gave him praise and so much regret that the politicians should take him away from it to trouble about foreign countries.

Perhaps he wanted to show the Commander of the National Guard that however weak as a monarch, he was mighty as a Tubal Cain.

On the road Count Louis had time to meditate; and he concluded that the Queen knew nothing of his errand. He would have to study the King’s reception and see if he did not give some sign of better understanding what brought him to Paris than his cousin the marquis.

The valet did not know Bouille so that he only announced the general.

“Ah, it is you, marquis,” said the King, turning. “I must ask pardon for calling you up here, but the smith assures you that you are welcome in his forge. A charcoal-burner once said to my ancestor Henry IV.: ‘Jack is king in his own castle.’ But you are master in the smithy as in the palace.”

Louis spoke much in the same way as Marie Antoinette.

“Sire, under whatever circumstances I present myself to your Majesty,” said Lafayette, “and whatever costume your Majesty is in, the King will be ever the sovereign and I the faithful subject and devoted servant.”

“I do not doubt that, my lord; but you are not alone. Have you changed your aid-de-camp?”

“This young officer, Sire, whom I ask leave to introduce, is my cousin, Count Louis Bouille, captain in the Provence Dragoons.”