The Royal Life Guard; or, the flight of the royal family.
Marie Antoinette understood this; but in her heart rumbled Billet's words about Charny's wife, like a storm brewing.
Charny, whom she had expected to take away from France, to live abroad with her, was now returning to Paris to see his wife Andrea again!
He was ignorant of this ferment in her heart, from not supposing she had heard the words; besides, he was busy over some freshly conceived hopes. Having been sent in advance to study the route he had conscientiously fulfilled his errand. He knew the political tone of even each village. Chalons had a royalist bias from it being an old town, without trade, work or activity, peopled by nobles, retired business men and contented citizens.
Scarcely were the royal party at table than the County Lieutenant, whose house they were in, came to bow to the Queen, who looked at him uneasily from having ceased to expect anything good, and said:
"May it please your Majesty to let the maids of Chalons offer flowers?"
"Flowers?" repeated she, looking with astonishment from him to Lady Elizabeth. "Pray, let them come."
Shortly after, twelve young ladies, the prettiest they could find in the town, tripped up to the threshold where the Queen held out her arms to them. One of them who had been taught a formal speech, was so effected by this warm greeting that she forgot it all and stammered the general opinion:
"Oh, your Majesty, what a dreadful misfortune!"
The Queen took the bunch of flowers and kissed the girl.
"Sire," whispered Charny to the King meanwhile, "something good may be done here; if your Majesty will spare me for an hour, I will go out and inquire how the wind turns."
"Do so, but be prudent," was the reply: "I shall never console myself if harm befalls you. Alas, two deaths are enough in one family."
"Sire, my life is as much the King's as my brothers'."
In the presence of the monarch his stoicism could be worn but he felt his grief when by himself.
"Poor Isidore," he muttered, while pressing his hand to his breast to see if he still had in the pocket the papers of the dead handed him by Count Choiseul, which he had promised himself to read as he would the last will of his loved one.
Behind the girls came their parents, almost all nobles or members of the upper middle class; they came timidly and humbly to crave permission to offer their respect to their unfortunate sovereigns. They could hardly believe that they had seen the unfortunate Dampierre hewn to pieces under their eyes a while before.
Charny came back in half an hour. It was impossible for the keenest eye to read the effect of his reconnoitre on his countenance.
"All is for the best, Sire," replied he to the King's inquiry. "The National Guard offer to conduct your Majesty to-morrow to Montmedy."
"So you have arranged some course?"
"With the principal citizens. It is a church feast to-morrow so that they cannot refuse your request to go to hear service. At the church door a carriage will be waiting which will receive your Majesties; amid the cheering you will give the order to be driven to Montmedy and you will be obeyed."
"That is well," said Louis: "thank you, count, and we will do this if nothing comes between. But you and your companions must take some rest; you must need it more than we."
The reception was not prolonged far into the night so that the Royal Family retired about nine. A sentinel at their door let them see that they were still regarded as prisoners. But he presented arms to them. By his precise movement the King recognized an old soldier.
"Where have you served, my friend?" he inquired.
"In the French Guards, Sire," answered the veteran.
"Then I am not surprised to see you here," returned the monarch; for he had not forgotten that the French Guards had gone over to the people on the 13th July, 1789.
This sentinel was posted at their sleeping room door. An hour afterwards, he asked to speak with the leader of the escort, who was Billet, on his being relieved of guard-mounting. The farmer was taking supper with the rustics who flocked in from all sides and endeavoring to persuade them to stay in town all night. But most of them had seen the King, which was mainly what led them, and they wanted to celebrate the holiday at home. He tried to detain them because the aristocratic tendency of the old town alarmed him.
It was in the midst of this discussion that the sentinel came to talk with him. They conversed in a low voice most lively.
Next, Billet sent for Drouet, and they held a similar conference. After this they went to the postmaster, who was Drouet's friend, and the same line of business made them friendlier still.
He saddled two horses and in ten minutes Billet was galloping on the road to Rheims and Drouet to Vitry.
Day dawned. Hardly six hundred men remained of the numerous escort, and they were fagged out, having passed the night on straw they had brought along, in the street. As they shook themselves awake in the dawn they might have seen a dozen men in uniform enter the Lieutenancy Office and come out hastily shortly after.
Chalons was headquarters for the Villeroy Company of Lifeguards, and ten or twelve of the officers came to take orders from Charny. He told them to don full dress and be on their horses by the church door for the King's exit. These were the uniformed men whom we have seen.
Some of the peasants reckoned their distance from home in the morning and to the number of two hundred more or less they departed, in spite of their comrades' pleadings. This reduced the faithful to a little over four hundred only.
To the same number might be reckoned the National Guards devoted to the King, without the Royal Guards officers and those recruited, a forlorn hope which would set the lead in case of emergency.
Besides, as hinted, the town was aristocratic.
When the word was sent to Billet and Drouet to hear what they said about the King and the Queen going to hear mass, they could not be found and nothing therefore opposed the desire.
The King was delighted to hear of the absence but Charny shook his head: he did not know Drouet's character but he knew Billet's.
Nevertheless all the augury was favorable, and indeed the King not only came out of church amid cheers but the royalist gathering had assumed colossal proportions.
Still it was not without apprehension that Charny encouraged the King to make up his mind.
He put his head out of the carriage window and said:
"Gentlemen, yesterday at Varennes, violence was used against me; I gave the order to be driven to Montmedy but I was constrained to go towards a revolted capital. Then I was among rebels, but now I am among honest subjects, to whom I repeat, 'To Montmedy!'"
"To Montmedy!" echoed Charny and the others shouted the same, and to the chorus of "Long live the King!" the carriage was turned round and retook the road it had yesterday travelled.
In the absence of Billet and Drouet the rustics seemed commanded by the French Guardsman who had stood sentry at the royal door. Charny watched and saw that he made his men wheel and mutely follow the movement though the scowls showed that they did not approve of it. They let the National Guards pass them, and massed in their rear as a rearguard. In the foremost ranks marched the pike and spear-men: then fifty who carried muskets and fowling pieces manœuvring so neatly that Charny was disquieted: but he could not oppose it and he was unable to understand it.
He was soon to have the explanation.
As they approached the town gates, spite of the cheering, they heard another sound like the dull rolling of a storm. Suddenly Charny turned pale and laid his hand on the Lifeguard next him.
"All is lost," he gasped: "do you not hear that drum?"
They turned the corner into a square where two streets entered. One came from Rheims the other from Vitry, and up each was marching a column of National Guards; one numbered eighteen hundred, the other more than two thousand. Each was led by a man on horseback. One was Billet, the other Drouet.
Charny saw why they had disappeared during the night. Fore-warned no doubt, of the counteraction in preparation, they had gone off for reinforcements. They had concerted their movements so as to arrive simultaneously. They halted their men in the square, completely blocking the road. Without any cries, they began to load their firearms. The procession had to stop.
"What is the matter?" asked the King, putting his head out of the window, of Charny, pale and gritting his teeth.
"Why, my lord, the enemy has gone for reinforcements and they stand yonder, loading their guns, while behind the Chalons National Guards the peasants are ready with their guns."
"What do you think of all this?"
"That we are caught between two fires, which will not prevent us passing, but what will happen to your Majesty I cannot tell."
"Very well, let us turn back. Enough blood has been shed for my sake and I weep bitter tears for it. I do not wish one drop more to flow. Let us return."
"Gentlemen," said Charny, jumping down and taking the leader horse by the bridle, "the King bids us turn back."
At the Paris Gate the Chalons National Guards, become useless, gave place to those from Rheims and Vitry.
"Do you not think I behaved properly, madam?" inquired Louis of his wife.
"Yes – but I think Count Charny obeyed you very easily," was her comment.
She fell into one of those gloomy reveries which was not entirely due to the terrible situation in which she was hedged in.
CHAPTER XX.
MIRABEAU'S SUCCESSOR
The royal carriage sadly travelled the Paris Road, watched by the two moody men who had forced it to alter its direction. Between Epernay and Dormans, Charny, from his stature and his high seat, could distinguish a four-in-hand coach approaching from the way of Paris.
He guessed that it brought grave news of some important character.
Indeed, it was hailed with cheers for the National Assembly, and contained three officials. One was Hatour Maubourg, Lafayette's right hand man, Petion and Barnave, members of the House.
Of the three the oldest stepped up to the royal carriage, leaving his own, and roughly opening the door, he said:
"I am Petion, and these Barnave and Latour, members of the Assembly, sent by it to serve you as escort and see that the wrath of the populace does not anticipate justice with its own hand. Close up there to make room for me."
The Queen darted on all three one of those disdainful glances which the haughty daughter of Maria Theresa deigned to let fall from her pride. Latour was a gentleman of the old school, like Lafayette, and he could not support the glance. He declined to enter the carriage on the ground that the occupants were too closely packed.
"I will get into the following one," he said.
"Get in where you like," said Petion; "my place is with the King and the Queen, and in I go."
He stepped in at the same time. He looked one after another at the King, the Queen and Lady Elizabeth, who occupied the back seat.
"Excuse me, madam," he said to the last, "but the place of honor belongs to me as representative of the Assembly. Be obliging enough to rise and take the front seat."
"Whoever heard of such a thing?" muttered the Queen.
"Sir!" began the King.
"That is the way of it; so, rise, madam, and give your place to me."
Lady Elizabeth obeyed, with a sign of resignation to her brother and sister.
Latour had gone to the cab to ask the ladies to let him travel with them. Member Barnave stood without, wavering about entering the conveyance where seven persons were.
"Are you not coming, Barnave?" asked Petion.
"Where am I to put myself?" inquired the somewhat embarrassed man.
"Would you like my place?" demanded the Queen tartly.
"I thank you, madam," rejoined Barnave, stung; "a seat in the front will do for me."
It was made by Lady Elizabeth drawing the Princess Royal to her side while the Queen took the Dauphin on her knee. Barnave was thus placed opposite the Queen.
"All ready," cried Petion, without asking the King, "on you go!"
The vehicle resumed the journey, to cheers for the National Assembly.
It was the people who stepped into the royal carriage with their representatives.
There was silence during which each studied the others except Petion who seemed in his roughness to be indifferent to everything.
Jerome Petion, alias Villeneuve, was about thirty-two; his features were sharply defined; his merit lay in the exaltation, clearness and straightforwardness of his political opinions. Born at Chartres, he was a lawyer when sent to Paris in 1789, as member of the Assembly. He was fated to be Mayor of Paris, enjoy popularity effacing that of Bailly and Lafayette and die on the Bordeaux salt meadow wastes, devoured by wolves. His friends called him the Virtuous Petion. He and Camille Desmoulins were republicans when nobody else in France knew the word.
Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave was born at Grenoble; he was hardly thirty; in the Assembly he had acquired both his reputation and great popularity, by struggling with Mirabeau as the latter waned. All the great orator's enemies were necessarily friends of Barnave and had sustained him. He appeared but five-and-twenty, with bright blue eyes, a largish mouth, turned-up nose and sharp voice. But his form was elegant; a duelist and aggressive, he looked like a young military captain in citizen's dress. He was worth more than he seemed.
He belonged to the Constitutional Royalist party.
"Gentlemen," said the King as he took his seat, "I declare to you that it never was my intention to quit the kingdom."
"That being so, the words will save France," replied Barnave, looking at him ere he sat down.
Thereupon something strange transpired between this scion of the country middle class and the woman descended from the greatest throne of Europe. Each tried to read the other's heart, not like two political foes, hiding state secrets, but like a man and a woman seeking mysteries of love.
Barnave aimed in all things to be the heir and successor of Mirabeau. In everybody's eyes Mirabeau passed for having enjoyed the King's confidence and the Queen's affection. We know what the truth was. It was not only the fashion then to spread libels but to believe in them.
Barnave's desire to be Mirabeau in all respects is what led him to be appointed one of the three Commissioners to bring back the Royal Family.
He came with the assurance of the man who knows that he has the power to make himself hated if he cannot make himself loved.
The Queen divined this with her woman's eye if she did not perceive it.
She also observed Barnave's moodiness.
Half a dozen times in a quarter of an hour, Barnave turned to look at the three Lifeguards on the box, examining them with scrupulous attention, and dropping his glance to the Queen more hard and hostile than before.
Barnave knew that one of the trio was Charny, but which he was ignorant of: and public rumor accredited Charny as the Queen's paramour. He was jealous, though it is hard to explain such a feeling in him; but the Queen guessed that, too.
From that moment she was stronger; she knew the flaw in the adversary's breastplate and she could strike true.
"Did you hear what that man who was conducting the carriage said about the Count of Charny?" she asked of Louis XVI.
Barnave gave a start which did not escape the Queen, whose knees was touching his.
"He declared, did he not, that he was responsible for the count's life?" rejoined the sovereign.
"Exactly, and that he answered for his life to his wife."
Barnave half closed his eyes but he did not lose a syllable.
"Now the countess is my old friend Andrea Taverney. Do you think, on our return to Paris, that it will be handsome to give him leave to go and cheer his wife. He has run great risks, and his brother has been killed on our behalf. I think that to claim his continued service beside us would be to act cruelly to the happy couple."
Barnave breathed again and opened his eyes fully.
"You are right, though I doubt that the count will accept it," returned the King.
"In that case we shall both have done our duty – we in proposing it and the count in refusing."
By magnetic sympathy she felt that Barnave's irritation was softening. At the same time that his generous heart understood that he had been unfair to her his shame sprang up.
He had borne himself with a high head like a judge, and now she suddenly spoke the very words which determined her innocence of the charge which she could not have foreseen, or her repentance. Why not innocence?
"We would stand in the better position," continued the Queen, "from our not having taken Count Charny with us, and from my thinking, on my part, that he was in Paris when he suddenly appeared by the side of our carriage."
"It is so," proceeded the monarch; "but it only proves that the count has no need of stimulant when his duty is in question."
There was no longer any doubt that she was guiltless.
How was Barnave to obtain the Queen's forgiveness for having wronged her as a woman? He did not dare address her, and was he to wait till she spoke the first? She said nothing at all as she was satisfied with the effect she had produced.
He had become gentle, almost humble; he implored her with a look, but she did not appear to pay him any heed.
He was in one of those moods when to rouse a woman from inattention he would have undertaken the twelve labors of Hercules, at the risk of the first being too much for him.
He was beseeching "the Supreme Being," which was the fashionable God in 1789, when they had ceased to believe in heaven, for some chance to bring attention upon him, when all at once, as though the Ruler, under whatever title addressed, had heard the prayer, a poor priest who waited for the King to go by, approached from the roadside to see the august prisoner the nearer, and said as he raised his supplicating hands and tear-wet eyes:
"God bless your Majesty!"
It was a long time since the crowd had a chance of flying into anger. Nothing had presented itself since the hapless Knight of St. Louis, whose head was still following on the pike-point. This occasion was eagerly embraced.
The mob replied to the reverence with a roar: they threw themselves on the priest in a twinkling, and he was flung down and would have been flayed alive before Barnave broke from his abstraction had not the frightened Queen appealed to him.
"Oh, sir, do you not see what is going on?"
He raised his head, plunged a rapid look into the ocean which submerged the priest, and rolled in growling and tumultuous waves up to the carriage; he burst the door with such violence that he would have fallen out if the Princess Elizabeth had not caught him by the coat.
"You villains!" he shouted. "Tigers, who cannot be French men! or France, the home of the brave, has become a den of assassins!"
This apostrophe may appear bombastic to us but it was in the style of the period. Besides, the denunciator belonged to the National Assembly and supreme power spoke by his voice. The crowd recoiled and the old man was saved.
He rose and said:
"You did well to save an old man, young sir – he will ever pray for you."
He made the sign of the cross, and went his way, the throng opening to him, dominated by the voice and attitude of Barnave, who seemed the statue of Command. When the victim was gone from sight, the young deputy simply and naturally retook his seat, as if he were not aware he had saved a human life.
"I thank you, sir," said the Queen.
These few words set him quivering over all his frame. In all the long period during which we have accompanied Marie Antoinette, though she had been more lovely, never had she been more touching.
He was contemplating so much motherly grace when the prince uttered a cry of pain at the moment when Barnave was inclined to fall at the knees of dying Majesty. The boy had played some roguish trick on the virtuous Petion, who had deemed it proper to pull his ears. The King reddened with anger, the Queen turned pale with shame. She held out her arms and pulled the boy from between Petion's knees, so that Barnave received him between his. She still wished to draw him to her but he resisted, saying:
"I am comfortable here."
Through motherly playfulness or womanly seductiveness, she allowed the boy to stay. It is impossible to tell what passed in Barnave's heart: he was both proud and happy. The prince set to playing with the buttons of the member's coat, which bore the motto: "Live Free or Die."
"What does that mean?" he wanted to know.
As Barnave was silent, Petion interpreted.
"My little man, that means that the French have sworn never to know masters more, if you can understand that? Explain it otherwise, Barnave, if you can."
The other was hushed: the motto, which he had thought sublime, seemed almost cruel at present. But he took the boy's hand and respectfully kissed it. The Queen wiped away a tear, risen from her heart.
The carriage, moving theatre of this little episode, continued to roll forward through the hooting of the mob, bearing to death six of the eight passengers.
CHAPTER XXI.
ANOTHER DUPE
On arriving at Dormans, the party had to get out at an inn as nothing was prepared for them. Either from Petion's orders or from the Royal Family's snubbing him on the journey having vexed him, or because the place was really full, only three garret rooms were available.
Charny got down the first to have the Queen's orders but she gave him a look to imply that he was to keep in the background. He hastened to obey without knowing the cause.
It was Petion who entered the hotel, and acted as quarter-master; he did not give himself the trouble to come out again and it was a waiter who told the Royals that their rooms were ready.
Barnave was embarrassed as he wanted to offer his arm to the Queen, but he feared that she who had been wont to rail at exaggerated etiquette, would nevertheless invoke it now. So he waited.
The King stepped out, followed by the Queen, who held out her arms for her son, but he said as if he knew his part to please his mother:
"No, I want to stay with my friend Barnave."
Marie Antoinette submitted with a sweet smile. Barnave let lady Elizabeth pass out with the Princess Royal before he alighted, carrying the boy in his arms.
Lady Tourzel closed the march, eager to snatch the royal child from these plebeian arms but the Queen made her a sign which cooled the ardor of the aristocratic governess. Barnave did not say anything on finding that the Virtuous Petion had taken the best part of the house, as he set down the prince on the second landing.
"Mamma, here is my friend Barnave going away," cried he.
"Very right, too," observed the Queen on seeing the attics reserved for her and her family.
The King was so tired that he wished to lie down, but the bed was so short that he had to get up in a minute and called for a chair. With the cane-bottomed one eking out a wooden one he lengthened the couch.
"Oh, Sire," said Malden, who brought the chair, "can you pass the night thus?"
"Certainly: besides, if what the ministers say be true, many of my subjects would be only too glad to have this loft, these chairs and this pallet."
He laid on this wretched bed, a prelude to his miserable nights in the Temple Prison.
When he came in to supper, he found the table set for six: Petion had added himself to the Royal Family.
"Why not eight, then, for Messieurs Latour Maubourg and Barnave?" jeered the King.
"M. Barnave excused himself, but M. Petion persisted," replied the waiter.
The grave, austere face of the deputy appeared in the doorway.
The King bore himself as if alone and said to the waiter:
"I sit at table with my own family solely: or without guests. If not, we do not eat at all."
Petion went away furious, and heard the door bolted after him.
The Queen looked for Charny during the meal, wishing that he had disobeyed her.
Her husband was rising after finishing supper when the waiter came to state that the first floor parlors were ready for them. They had been decked out with flowers, by the forethought of Barnave.
