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

When an usher announced the King, and another the Queen, of course all the merriment and chatter ceased.

The more the revolutionary spirit stripped majesty of its eternals the more the true royalists vied with each other to pour evidences of respect upon the august chiefs. 1789 saw great ingratitude, but 1793 great devotion.

To talk over the Favras scheme in secret a whist party was made up of the two rulers, Provence and Charny for the fourth hand. Respect isolated the table.

“Brother,” said the Queen, “Lord Charny, who comes from Turin, says that our kinsfolk there are begging us to join them.”

The King gave a stamp with impatience.

“I entreat you to listen,” whispered Lady Elizabeth, who sat on a stool.

“Listen to what?”

“That Lord Charny has also seen the Marquis Favras since he came home, a gentleman whose lealty we know, and he says that the King has but to say a word,” went on the Queen, “or make a sign, and this very night, you will be at Peronne.”

The King kept still. His brother twisted a jack of hearts all to rags.

“Repeat this as the marquis put it,” said he to Isidore.

“Your Majesty, thanks to measures taken by Marquis Favras, he declares that the King has but the cue to give to be in safety in Peronne this blessed night.”

Turning sharply on his brother, the King said as he fixed his eyes on him:

“Are you coming if I go?”

“I” said the other, turning pale and trembling. “I have not been notified, and I have made no preparations.”

“You know nothing about it, and yet you found the money for Favras?” exclaimed the monarch. “You not notified, and the moves in the game have been reported to you hour by hour?”

“The game?” faltered the prince.

“The plot; for it is one of those plots for which, if discovered, Favras will be tried and doomed to death – unless by money and other means we save him as we did Bezenval.”

“Then you will save Favras.”

“No; for I might not be able to do as much for him. Besides, Bezenval was my liege as Favras is yours. Let each save his own man, and both of us shall have done our duty.”

He rose, but the Queen retained him by the skirt of the coat.

“Sire, whether you accept or refuse, you owe the marquis an answer. What is Viscount Charny to answer for the King?”

“That the King does not allow himself to be spirited away like a slave for the Louisiana plantations.” He disengaged his coat.

“This means,” said Provence, “that the King will not allow of the abduction but if it be executed in spite of his permission, it will be welcome. In politics success condones the crime and blunderers deserve double punishment.”

“Viscount,” said the Queen, “tell the marquis what you heard and let him act as he thinks it points. Go.”

The King had gone over to where the younger men were so hilariously chatting; but the deepest silence fell at his approach.

“Is the King so unhappy that he casts melancholy around him?” he demanded.

“Sire!” muttered the gentlemen.

“You were very merry when the Queen and I came in. It is a bad thing for kings when no one dares laugh before them. I may say the converse: ‘Happy are the kings before whom laughter resounds.'”

“Sire,” returned one, “the subject is not one for a comic opera.”

“Of what were you talking?”

“Sire, I yield the guilty one to your Majesty,” said another, stepping forward.

“Oh, it is you, Editor Suleau,” said the King. “I have read the last number of your journal the Acts of the Apostles. Take care that you do not offend Master Populus.”

“I only said that our Revolution is going so slowly that it has to help on that in Brabant. We are lamenting the dulness of the session of the Assembly where they had to take up the motion of Dr. Guillotin upon – of all things – a new machine for public executions.”

“Are you making fun of Dr. Guillotin – a philanthropist? remember that I am one myself.”

“There are various kinds; the sort I approve of has a representative at the head of the French Nation – the one who abolished torture before trial: we venerate, nay, we love him.”

The hearers bowed with the same impulse.

“But,” proceeded Suleau, “there are others who try to find means to kill the hale while they had a thousand to send the ailing out of this life. I beg your Majesty to let me deal with them?”

“What would you do? decapitate them painlessly, or at least merely give a slight coolness round the neck?” inquired the King, quoting Dr. Guillotin’s recommendation of his invention.

“Sire, I should like all of these inventors to have the first experiment tried on themselves. I do not complain that Marigny was hanged on the Gibbet of Montfaucon which he built. I am not asking, I am not even a judge; the probability is that I shall have to take my revenge on Dr. Guillotin in the columns of my paper. I will give him a whole number and propose that the machine shall bear his name for eternity, the Guillotine!”

“Ha, ha, the Guillotine!” exclaimed the men, without waiting for express permission to laugh.

“I shall assert, also, that life is divided not extinguished by this process,” continued Suleau; “why may not the sufferer feel pain in the head and the trunk after being cut in two?”

“This is a question for medical men. Did none of us here witness the experiment this very morning at Bicetre madhouse?” asked the King.

“No, no, no!” cried many voices.

“Sire, I was there,” said one grave voice.

“Oh; it is you? Dr. Gilbert,” said the sovereign, turning.

“Yes, Sire.”

“And how did the experiment succeed?”

“Perfectly in two instances; but at the third the instrument, though it severed the spine, did not detach the head. They had to finish with a knife.”

The young gentlemen listened with frightened eyes and parted lips.

“Three executions this morning?” exclaimed Charles Lameth, who with his brother had not yet turned against the Queen.