第86章 MAMMA QUEEN.(1)

"Every thing passes over, every thing has an end; one must only have courage and think of that," said Marie Antoinette, with a gentle smile, as on the morning after her arrival in Paris, she had risen from her bed and drunk her chocolate in the improvised sitting-room.

"Here we are installed in the Tuileries, and have slept, while we yesterday were thinking we were lost, and that only death could give us rest and peace again."

"It was a fearful day," said Madame de Campan, with a sigh, "but your majesty went through it like a heroine."

"Ah, Campan," said the queen, sadly, "I have not the ambition to want to be a heroine, and I should be very thankful if it were allowed me from this time on to be a wife and mother, if it is no longer allowed me to be a queen."

At this instant the door opened; the little dauphin, followed by his teacher, the Abbe Davout, ran in and flew with extended arms to Marie Antoinette.

"Oh, mamma queen!" cried he, with winning voice, "let us go back again to our beautiful palace; it is dreadful here in this great, dark house."

"Hush, my child, hush!" said the queen, pressing the boy close to her. "You must not say so; you must accustom yourself to be contented everywhere."

"Mamma queen," whispered the child, tenderly nestling close to his mother, "it is true it is dreadful here, but I will always say it so low that nobody except you can hear. But tell me, who owns this hateful house? And why do we want to stay here, when we have such a fine palace and a beautiful garden in Versailles?"

"My son," answered the queen with a sigh, "this house belongs to us, and it is a beautiful and famous palace. You ought not to say that it does not please you, for your renowned great-grandfather, the great Louis XIV., lived here, and made this palace celebrated all over Europe."

"Yet I wish that we were away from here," whispered the dauphin, casting his large blue eyes with a prolonged and timid glance through the wide, desolate room, which was decorated sparingly with old-fashioned, faded furniture.

"I wish so, too," sighed Marie Antoinette, to herself; but softly as she had spoken the words, the sensitive ear of the child had caught them.

"You, too, want to go?" asked Louis Charles, in amazement. "Are you not queen now, and can you not do what you want to?"

The queen, pierced to the very heart by the innocent question of the child, burst into tears.

"My prince," said the Abbe Davout, turning to the dauphin, "you see that you trouble the queen, and her majesty needs rest. Come, we will take a walk."

But Marie Antoinette put both her arms around the child and pressed its head with its light locks to her breast.

"No," she said, "no, he does not trouble me. Let me weep. Tears do me good. One is only unfortunate when she can no longer weep; when--but what is that?" she eagerly asked, rising from her easy-chair.

"What does that noise mean?"

And in very fact in the street there were loud shouting and crying, and intermingled curses and threats.

"Mamma," cried the dauphin, nestling close up to the queen, "is to-day going to be just like yesterday?" [Footnote: The very words of the dauphin.--See Beauchesne, vol. i.]

The door was hastily opened, and the king entered.

"Sire," asked Marie, eagerly advancing toward him, "are they going to renew the dreadful scenes of yesterday?"

"On the contrary, Marie, they are going to bring to their reckoning those who occasioned the scenes of yesterday," answered the king. "A deputation from the Court of Chatelet have come to the Tuileries, and desire of me an authorization to bring to trial those who are guilty, and of you any information which you can give about what has taken place. The mob have accompanied the deputation hither, and hence arise these cries. I am come to ask you, Marie, to receive the deputation of Chatelet."

"As if there were any choice left us to refuse to see them," answered Marie Antoinette, sighing. "The populace who are howling and crying without are now the master of the men who come to us with a sneer, and ask us whether we will grant them an audience. We must submit!"

The king did not answer, but shrugged his shoulders, and opened the door of the antechamber. "Let them enter," he said to the chamberlains there.

The two folding doors were now thrown open, and the loud voice of an officer announced, "The honorable judges of Chatelet!"

Slowly, with respectful mien and bowed head, the gentlemen, arrayed in their long black robes, entered the room, and remained humbly standing near the door.

Marie Antoinette had advanced a few steps. Not a trace of grief and disquiet was longer to be seen in her face. Her figure was erect, her glance was proud and full of fire, and the expression of her countenance noble and majestic. She was still the queen, though not surrounded by the solemn pomp which attended the public audiences at Versailles. She did not stand on the purple-carpeted step of the throne, no gold-embroidered canopy arched over her, no crowd of brilliant courtiers surrounded her, only her husband stood near her; her son clung to her side, and his teacher, the Abbe Davout, timidly withdrew into the background. These formed all her suite. But Marie Antoinette did not need external pomp to be a queen; she was so in her bearing, in every look, in every gesture. With commanding dignity she allowed the deputation to approach her, and to speak with her. She listened with calm attention to the words of the speaker, who, in the name of the court, gave utterance to the deep horror with which the treasonable actions of the day before had filled him. He then humbly begged the queen to give such names of the rioters as might be known to her, that they might be arrested, but Marie Antoinette interrupted him in his address.

"No, sir," she cried, "no, never will I be an informer against the subjects of the king." [Footnote: Marie Antoinette's own words.--See Goncourt, "Marie Antoinette," pp. 196, 197.]