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

“Yes, gentlemen,” said the King; “but they were three corpses furnished by the hospitals. What is your opinion of the instrument?”

“An improvement on such machines; but the accident at the third experiment proves that it stands in need of improvement still.”

“What is it like?” asked the royal locksmith who had a bias for machines.

Gilbert helped his explanation out by drawing a sketch on a sheet of paper at a table. The King saw how curious the bystanders were and allowed them to come near.

“Who knows,” said Suleau obeying, “but that one of us may make the acquaintance of Lady Guillotine?”

Laughing, they pressed round the board where the King, taking the pen from Dr. Gilbert, said:

“No wonder the experience failed, particularly after awhile. The cutting blade is crescent-shaped whereas it ought to be triangular to sever a resisting substance. See here: shape your knife thus, and I wager that you would cut me off twenty-four heads one after another without the edge turning up.”

He had scarcely finished the words before a heart-rending scream was heard. The Queen had been attracted to the group of which the King and his corrected sketch were the centre. She beheld the same instrument which had been presented her in its likeness in a glass of water by Balsamo the Magician twenty years before!

At the view she had no strength to do more than scream, and life abandoning her as though she were under the blade, she swooned in the arms of Dr. Gilbert.

It is easily understood that this incident broke up the party.

Gilbert attended to the royal patient who was given the bed of the princess. When the crisis was over, which he rightly attributed to a mental cause, he was going out but she bade him stay.

“Therese,” she added to Lady Lamballe, “tell the King that I have come to: and do not let us be interrupted: I must speak with the doctor. Doctor,” she pursued when they were alone, “are you not astonished that chance seems to place us face to face in all the crises moral or physical of my life?”

“As I do not know whether to be sorry or to be glad for it, since I read in your mind that the contact is not through your wish or your will.”

“That is why I said chance. I like to be frank. But the last time we were in contiguity, you showed true devotion and I thank you and shall never forget it.”

He bowed.

“I am also a physiognomist. Do you know that you have said without speaking: ‘That is over; let us change the subject.'”

“At least I felt the desire to be put to the test.”

“Doctor, what do you think of the recent event?” inquired Marie Antoinette as though this was interlinked with what she had spoken.

“Madam, the daughter of Maria Theresa is not one of the women who faint at trifles.”

“Do you believe in forewarnings?”

“Science repels all phenomena tending to upset the prevailing order of things; still, facts offtimes give the lie to science.”

“I ought to have said; do you believe in predictions?”

“I believe that the Supreme Being has benevolently covered the future with an impenetrable veil. Still,” he went on as if making an effort over himself to meet questions which he wished relegated into doubt, “I know a man who sometimes confounds all the arguments of my intelligence by irrefutable facts. I dare not name him before your Majesty.”

“It is your master, the immortal, the all-powerful, the divine Cagliostro, is it not, Dr. Gilbert?”

“Madam, my only master is Nature. Cagliostro is but my saver. Pierced by a bullet in the chest, losing all my blood by a wound which I, a physician, after twenty years study, must pronounce incurable, he cured me in a few days by a salve of which I know not the composition: hence my gratitude to him, I will almost say my admiration.”

“And this man makes predictions which are accomplished?”

“Strange and incredible ones; he moves in the present with a certainty which makes one believe in his knowledge of the future.”

“So that you would believe if he forecast to you?”

“I should at least act as though it might happen.”

“Would you prepare to meet a shameful, terrible and untimely death if he foreshowed it?”

“After having tried to escape it by all manner of means,” rejoined Gilbert, looking steadily at her.

“Escape? No, doctor, no! I see that I am doomed,” said the Queen. “This revolution is a gulf in which will be swallowed up the throne: this people is a lion to devour me.”

“Yet it depends on you to have it couch at your feet like a lamb.”

“Doctor, all is broken between the people and me; I am hated and scorned.”

“Because you do not really know each other. Cease to be a queen and become a mother to them; forget you are daughter of Maria Theresa, our ancient enemy, the sister of Joseph our false friend. Be French, and you will hear the voices rise to bless you, and see arms held out to fondle you.”

“I know all this,” she replied contemptuously; “fawning one day, they tear the next.”

“Because aware of resistance to their will, and hatred opposed to their love.”

“Does this destructive element know whether it loves or hates? it destroys like the wind, the sea and fire, and has womanly caprices.”

“Because you see it from on high, like the man in the lighthouse views the ocean. Did you go down in the depths you would see how steady it is. What more obedient than the vast mass to the movement of the tides. You are Queen over the French, madam, and yet you know not what passes in France. Raise your veil instead of keeping it down, and you will admire instead of dreading.”

“What would I see so very splendid?”

“The New World blooming over the wreck of the Old; the cradle of Free France floating on a sea wider than the Mediterranean – than the ocean. O God protect you, little bark – O God shield you, babe of promise, France!”

Little of an enthusiast as Gilbert was he raised his eyes and hands heavenward.

The Queen eyed him with astonishment for she did not understand.

“Fine words,” she sneered. “I thought you philosophers had run them down to dust.”

“No, great deeds have killed them,” returned Gilbert. “Whither tends old France? to the unity of the country. There are no longer provinces, but all French.”

“What are you driving at? that your united thirty millions of rebels should form a universal federation against their King and Queen?”

“Do not deceive yourself: it is not the people who are rebels but the rulers who have rebelled against them. If you go to one of the feasts which the people hold, you will see that they hail a little child on an altar – emblem of the new birth of liberty. Italy, Spain, Ireland, Poland, all the down-trodden look towards this child and hold out their enchained hands, saying: ‘France, we shall be free because of you.’ Madam, if it be still time, take this child and make yourself its mother.”

“You forget that I am the mother of others, and I ought not do as you suggest – disinherit them in favor of a stranger.”

“If thus it be,” replied Gilbert with profound sorrow, “wrap your children up in your royal robe, in the war-cloak of Maria Theresa, and carry them with you far from France; for you spoke the truth in saying that the people will devour you and your offspring with you. But there is no time to lose – make haste!”

“You will not oppose?”