POOR CATHERINE.
The scene was slightly changed in aspect.
The little princess could not resist the weariness and she was put abed beside her brother, where both slumbered.
Lady Elizabeth stood by, leaning her head against the wall.
Shivering with anger the Queen stood near the fireplace, looking alternatively at the King, seated on a bale of goods, and on the four officers deliberating near the door.
An old woman knelt by the children and prayed; it was the attorney's grandmother who was struck by the beauty of the children and the Queen's imposing air.
Sausse and his colleagues had gone out, promising that the horses should be harnessed to the carriage.
But the Queen's bearing showed that she attached little faith to the pledge, which caused Choiseul to say to his party:
"Gentlemen, do not trust to the feigned tranquility of our masters; the position is not hopeless and we must look it in the face. The probability is that at present, Marquis Bouille has been informed, and will be arriving here about six, as he ought to be at hand with some of the royal Germans. His vanguard may be only half an hour before him; for in such a scrape all that is possible ought to be performed. But we must not deceive ourselves about the four or five thousand men surrounding us, and that the moment they see the troops, there will be dreadful excitement and imminent danger.
"They will try to drag the King back from Varennes, put him on a horse and carry him to Clermont, threaten and have a try at his life perhaps—but this will only be a temporary danger," added Choiseul, "and as soon as the barricades are stormed and our cavalry inside the town, the route will be complete. Therefore we ten men must hold out as many minutes; as the land lays we may hope to lose but a man a minute, so that we have time enough."
The audience nodded; this devotion to the death's point, thus plainly set down, was accepted with the same simplicity.
"This is what we must do," continued the count, "at the first shot we hear and shout without, we rush into the outer room, where we kill everybody in it, and take possession of the outlets: three windows, where three of us defend. The seven others stand on the stairs which the winding will facilitate our defending as one may face a score. The bodies of the slain will serve as rampart; it is a hundred to one that the troops will be masters of the town, before we are killed to the last man, and though that happens, we will fill a glorious page in history, as recompense for our sacrifice."
The chosen ones shook hands on this pledge like Spartans, and selected their stations during the action: the two Lifeguards, and Isidore, whose place was kept though he was absent, at the three casements on the street; Choiseul at the staircase foot; next him, Damas, and the rest of the soldiers.
As they settled their arrangements, bustle was heard in the street.
In came a second deputation headed by Sausse, the National Guards commander Hannonet, and three or four town officers. Thinking they came to say the horses were put to the coach, the King ordered their admittance.
The officers who were trying to read every token, believed that Sausse betrayed hesitation but that Hannonet had a settled will which was of evil omen.
At the same time, Isidore ran up and whispered a few words to the Queen before he went out again. She went to the children, pale, and leaned on the bed.
As the deputation bowed without speaking, the King pretended to infer what they came upon, and said:
"Gentlemen, the French have merely gone astray, and their attachment to their monarch is genuine. Weary of the excesses daily felt in my capital, I have decided to go down into the country where the sacred flame of devotion ever burns; I am assured of finding the ancient devotion of the people here, I am ready to give my loyal subjects the proof of my trust. So, I will form an escort, part troops of the line and part National Guards, to accompany me to Montmedy where I have determined to retire. Consequently, commander, I ask you to select the men to escort me from your own force, and to have my carriage ready."
During the silence, Sausse and Hannonet looked at each other for one to speak. At last the latter bowed and said,
"Sire, I should feel great pleasure in obeying your Majesty, but an article of the Constitution forbids the King leaving the kingdom and good Frenchmen from aiding a flight."
This made the hearer start.
"Consequently," proceeded the volunteer soldier, lifting his hand to hush the King, "the Varennes Council decide that a courier must take the word to Paris and return with the advice of the Assembly before allowing the departure."
The King felt the perspiration damp his brow, while the Queen bit her pale lips fretfully, and Lady Elizabeth raised her eyes and hands to heaven.
"Soho, gentlemen," exclaimed the sovereign with the dignity returning to him when driven to the wall. "Am I no longer the master to go my own way? In that case I am more of a slave than the meanest of my subjects."
"Sire," replied the National Guardsman, "you are always the ruler; but all men, King or citizens, are bound by their oath; you swore to obey the law, and ought to set the example—it is also a noble duty to fulfill."
Meanwhile Choiseul had consulted with the Queen by glances and on her mute assent he had gone downstairs.
The King was aware that he was lost if he yielded without resistance to this rebellion of the villages, for it was rebellion from his point of view.
"Gentlemen," he said, "this is violence; but I am not so lonely as you imagine. At the door are forty determined men and ten thousand soldiers are around Varennes. I order you to have my horses harnessed to the coach—do you hear, I order!"
"Well said, Sire," whispered the Queen, stepping up; "let us risk life but not injure our honor and dignity."
"What will result if we refuse your Majesty?" asked the National Guards officer.
"I shall appeal to force, and you will be responsible for the blood spilt, which will be shed by you."
"Have it so then," replied Hannonet, "call in your hussars—I will let my men loose on them!"
He left the room.
The King and the Queen looked at one another, daunted; they would perhaps have given way had it not been for an incident.
Pushing aside her grandmother, who continued to pray by the bedside, Madam Sausse walked up to the Queen and said with the bluntness and plain speech of the common people:
"So, so, you are the Queen, it appears?"
Marie Antoinette turned, stung at being accosted thus.
"At least I thought so an hour ago," she replied.
"Well, if you are the Queen, and get twenty odd millions to keep your place, why do you not hold to it, being so well paid?"
The Queen uttered an outcry of pain and said to the King:
"Oh, anything, everything but such insults!"
She took up the sleeping prince off the couch in her arms, and running to open the window, she cried:
"My lord, let us show ourselves to the people, and learn whether they are entirely corrupted. In that case, appeal to the soldiers, and encourage them with voice and gesture. It is little enough for those who are going to die for us!"
The King mechanically followed her and appeared on the balcony. The whole square on which fell their gaze presented a scene of lively agitation.
Half Choiseul's hussars were on horseback; the others, separated from their chargers, were carried away by the mob, having been won over; the mounted men seemed submissive yet to Choiseul, who was talking to them in German but they seemed to point to their lost comrades.
Isidore Charny, with his knife in hand, seemed to be waylaying for some prey like a hunter.
"The King!" was the shout from five hundred voices.
Had the Sixteenth Louis been regally arrayed, or even militarily, with sword or sceptre in his hand, and spoken in the strong, imposing voice seeming still to the masses that of God, he might have swayed the concourse.
But in the grey dawn, that wan light which spoils beauty itself, he was not the personage his friends—or even his enemies, expected to behold. He was clad like a waiting-gentleman, in plain attire, with a powderless curly wig; he was pale and flabby and his beard had bristled out; his thick lip and dull eye expressed no idea of tyranny or the family man; he stammered over and over again: "Gentlemen, my children!"
However, the Count of Choiseul cried "Long live the King!" Isidore Charny imitated him, and such was the magic of royalty that spite of his not looking to be head of the great realm, a few voices uttered a feeble "God save the King!"
But one cheer responded, set up by the National Guards commander, and most generally repeated, with a mighty echo—it was:
"The Nation forever!" It was rebellion at such a time, and the King and the Queen could see that part of their German hussars had joined in with it.
She uttered a scream of rage, and hugging her son to her, ignorant of the grandeur of passing events, she hung over the rail, muttering between her teeth and finally hurling at the multitude these words:
"You beasts!"
Some heard this and replied by similar language, the whole place being in immense uproar.
Choiseul, in despair, was only wishful to get killed.
"Hussars," he shouted, "in the name of honor, save the King!"
But at the head of twenty men, well armed, a fresh actor came on the stage. It was Drouet, come from the council which he had constrained to stay the King from going.
"Ha," he cried, stepping up to the count, "you want to take away the King, do ye? I tell you it will not be unless dead."
Choiseul started towards him with his sword up.
"Stand, or I will have you shot," interrupted the National Guards commander.
Just then a man leaped out of the crowd, who could not stop him. It was Isidore Charny who was watching for Drouet.
"Back, back," he yelled to the bystanders, crushing them away from before the breast of his horse, "this wretch belongs to me."
But as he was striking at Drouet with his short sword, two shots went off together: a pistol and a gun—the bullet of the first flattened on his collarbone, the other went through his chest. They were fired so close to him that the unfortunate young noble was literally wrapt in flame and smoke.
Through the fiery cloud he was seen to throw up his arms as he gasped:
"Poor Catherine!"
Letting his weapon drop, he bent back in the saddle, and slipped from the crupper to the ground.
The Queen uttered a terrible shriek. She nearly let the prince fall, and in her own falling back she did not see a horseman riding at the top of his pace from Dun, and plunging into the wake Isidore had furrowed in the crowd.
The King closed the window behind the Queen.
It was no longer almost but all voices that roared "The Nation forever!" The twenty hussars who had been the last reliance of royalty in distress, added their voices to the cheer.
The Queen sank upon an armchair, hiding her face in her hands, for she still saw Isidore falling in her defense as his brother had been slain at her door at Versailles.
Suddenly there was loud disturbance at the door which forced her to lift her eyes. We renounce describing what passed in an instant in her heart of Queen and loving woman—it was George Charny, pale and bloody from the last embrace of his brother, who stood on the threshold!
The King seemed confounded.