CHAPTER CXX.
THE PARTING.
The visit of the emperor was drawing to a close. He had tasted to its utmost of the enjoyments of the peerless city. He had become acquainted with its great national institutions, its industrial resources, its treasures of art and of science. The Parisians were enthusiastic in his praise; from the nobleman to the artisan, every man had something to say in favor of the gracious and affable brother of the queen. Even the fish-wives, those formidable dames de la haile, had walked in procession to pay their respects, and present him a bouquet of gigantic proportions. [Footnote: On this occasion Madame Trigodin, one of the most prominent of the poissurdes, made an address on behalf of the sisterhood. Hubner, i., p. 151.]
The emperor was popular everywhere except at court. His candor was unacceptable, and his occasional sarcasms had stung the pride of the royal family. The king never pardoned him the unpalatable advice he had bestowed relative to the hospitals, the Invalides, and the military schools. The queen, too, was irritated to see that whereas her brother might have expressed his disapprobation of her acts in private, he never failed to do so in presence of the court. The consequence was, that, like the king and the rest of the royal family, Marie Antoinette was relieved when this long-wished-for visit of the emperor was over. This did not prevent her from clinging to his neck, and shedding abundant tears as she felt his warm and loving embrace.
The emperor drew her close to his heart, whispering meanwhile, "Remember that we must see each other in private. Send some one to me to conduct me to the room in the palace which you call your 'asylum.'"
"How!" said the queen with surprise, "you have heard of my asylum? Who told you of it?"
"Hush, Antoinette, you will awaken the king's suspicion, for all eyes are upon us! Will you admit me?"
"Yes, I will send Louis to conduct you this afternoon." And withdrawing herself from her brother's arms, the queen and the royal family took leave of Count Falkenstein.
His carriages and suite had all left Paris, and Joseph, too, was supposed to have gone long before the hour when he was conducted to the queen's "asylum" by her faithful servant Louis. This "asylum" was in an obscure corner of the Tuileries, and to reach it the emperor was introduced into the palace by a side door. He was led through dark passages and up narrow staircases until they reached a small door that Louis opened with a key which he took from his pocket. He clapped his hand three times, and the signal being answered, he made a profound inclination to the emperor.
"Your majesty can enter. The queen is there."
Joseph found himself in a small, simple apartment, of which the furniture was of white wood covered with chintz. On the wall was a hanging etagere with books; opposite, an open harpsichord, and in the recess of the window, a table covered with papers. The emperor hastily surveyed this room, and no one coming forward, he passed into another.
Here he found his sister, no longer the magnificent queen whose rich toilets were as proverbial as her beauty; but a lovely, unpretending woman, without rouge, without jewels, clad in a dress of India muslin, which was confined at the waist by a simple sash of pale lilac ribbon.
Marie Antoinette came forward with both hands outstretched. "I am dressed as is my custom," said she, "when the few friends I possess come to visit me here—here in my asylum, where sometimes I am able to forget that I am Queen of France."
"You have no right ever to forget it, Antoinette, and it was expressly to remind you of this that I asked for a private interview with my sister."
"You wished to see this asylum of which you had heard, did you not?" asked the queen with a shade of bitterness. "I have been calumniated to you, as I have been to the king and to the French people. I know how my enemies are trying to make my subjects hate me! I know that about these very rooms, lewd songs are sung on the Pont-Neuf which make the Count de Provence hold his sides with laughter."
"Yes, Antoinette, I have heard these things, and I came hither expressly to visit this 'asylum.'"
"Well, Joseph, it is before you. The room through which you passed, and this one, form my suite. The door yonder leads to the apartments of the Princess de Lamballe, and I have never opened it to enter my retreat except in her company."
"You had never the right to enter it at all. A retreat of this kind is improper for you; and woe to you, Antoinette, if ever another man beside myself should cross its threshold! It would give a coloring of truth to the evil reports of your powerful enemies."
"Gracious God of Heaven!" cried the queen, pale with horror, "what do they say of me?"
"It would avail you nothing to repeat their calumnies, poor child. I have come hither to warn you that some dark cloud hangs over the destiny of France. You must seek means to disperse it, or it will burst and destroy both you and your husband."
"I have already felt a presentiment of evil, dear brother, and for that very reason I come to these little simple rooms that I may for a few hours forget the destiny that awaits me, the court which hates and vilifies me, and in short—my supremest, my greatest sorrow—the indifference of my husband."
"Dear sister, you are wrong. You should never have sought to forget these things. You have too lightly broken down the barriers which etiquette, hundreds of years ago, had built around the Queens of France."
"This from YOU, Joseph, you who despise all etiquette!"
"Nay, Antoinette, I am a man, and that justifies me in many an indiscretion. I have a right to attend an opera-ball unmasked, but you have not."
"I had the king's permission, and was attended by my ladies of honor, and the princes of the royal family."
"An emperor may ride in a hackney-coach or walk, if the whim strike him, but not a queen, Antoinette. "
"That was an accident, Joseph. I was returning from a ball with the Duchess de Duras, when our carriage broke, and Louis was obliged to seek a hackney-coach or we would have returned to the palace on foot."
"Let it pass, then. An emperor or a king, were he very young, might indulge himself in a game of blind man's buff without impropriety; but when a queen ventures to do as much, she loses her dignity. Nevertheless, you have been known to romp with the other ladies of the court, when your husband had gone to his room and was sound asleep."
"But who ever went to bed as early as the king?" said Marie Antoinette deprecatingly.
"Does he go to bed too early, Antoinette? Then it is strange that on one evening when you were waiting for him to retire so that you and your ladies might visit the Duchess de Duras, you should have advanced the clock by half an hour, and sent your husband to bed at half-past ten, when of course he found no one in his apartments to wait upon him. [Footnote: Campan. 129.] All Paris has laughed at this mischievous prank of the queen. Can you deny this, my thoughtless sister?"
"I never tell an untruth, Joseph; but I confess that I am astounded to see with what police-like dexterity you have ferreted out every little occurrence of my private life;."
"A queen has no private life. She is doomed to live in public, and woe to her if she cannot account to the world for every hour of her existence! If she undertake to have secrets, her very lackeys misrepresent her innocence and make it crime."
"Good Heaven, Joseph!" cried the queen, "you talk as if I were a criminal before my accusers."
"You are a criminal, my poor young sister. Public opinion has accused you; and accusation there is synonymous with guilt. But I, who give you so much pain, come as your friend and brother, speaking hard truths to you, dearest, by virtue of the tie which binds us to our mother. In the name of that incomparable mother, I implore you to be discreet, and to give no cause to your enemies for misconstruction of your youthful follies. Take up the load of your royalty with fortitude; and, when it weighs heavily upon your poor young heart, remember that you were not made a queen to pursue your own happiness, but to strive for that of your subjects, whose hearts are still with you in spite of all that your enemies have done or said. Give up all egotism, Antoinette—set aside your personal hopes; live for the good of the French nation; and one of these days you will believe with me, that we may be happy without individual happiness."
The queen shook her head, and tears rolled down her cheeks. "No, no, dear Joseph, a woman cannot be happy when she is unloved. My heart is sick with solitude, brother. I love my husband and he does not return my love. If I am frivolous, it is because I am unhappy. Believe me when I tell you that all would be well if the king would but love me."
"Then, Antoinette, all shall be well," said a voice behind them; and, starting with a cry of surprise and shame, the queen beheld the king.
"I have heard all," said Louis, closing the door and advancing toward Joseph. With a bright, affectionate smile, he held out his hand, saying as he did, "Pardon me, my brother, if I am here without your consent, and let me have a share in this sacred and happy hour."
"Brother!" repeated Joseph, sternly. "You say that you have overheard us. If so, you know that my sister is solitary and unhappy. Since you have no love for her, you are no brother to me; for she, poor child, is the tie that unites us! Look at her, sire; look at her sweet, innocent, tear-stricken face! What has she done that you should thrust her from your heart, and doom her to confront, alone, the sneers and hatred of your cruel relatives? She is pure, and her heart is without a stain. I tell you so—I, who in unspeakable anxiety have watched her through hired spies. Had I found her guilty I would have been the first to condemn her; but Antoinette is good, pure, virtuous, and she has but one defect—want of thought. It was your duty to guide her, for you received her from her mother's hands a child—a young, harmless, unsuspecting child. What has she ever done that you should refuse her your love?"
"Ask, rather, what have I done, that my relatives should have kept us so far asunder?" replied Louis, with emotion. "Ask those who have poisoned my ears with calumnies of my wife, why they should have sought to deny me the only compensation which life can offer to my royal station—the inestimable blessing of loving and being loved. But away with gloomy retrospection! I shall say but one word more of the past. Your majesty has been watched, and your visit here discovered. I was told that you were seeking to identify the queen with her mother's empire—using your influence to make her forget France, and plot dishonor to her husband's crown. I resolved to prove the truth or falsehood of these accusations myself. I thank Heaven that I did so; for from this hour I shall honor and regard you as a brother."
"I shall reciprocate, sire, if you will promise to be kind to my sister?"
The king looked at Marie Antoinette, who, seated on the sofa whence her brother had risen, was weeping bitterly. Louis went toward her, and, taking both her hands in his, pressed them passionately to his lips. "Antoinette," said he, tenderly, "you say that I do not love you. You have not then read my heart, which, filled to bursting with love for my beautiful wife, dared not ask for response, because I had been told that you—you—but no—I will not pain you with repetition of the calumny. Enough that I am blessed with your love, and may at last be permitted to pour out the torrent of mine! Antoinette, will you be my wife?"
He held open his arms, and looked—as lovers alone can look. The queen well knew the meaning of that glance, and, with a cry of joy, she rose and was pressed to his heart. He held her for some moments there, and then, for the first time in their lives, the lips of husband and wife met in one long, burning kiss of love.
"My beloved, my own," whispered Louis. "Mine forever—nothing on earth shall part us now."
Marie Antoinette was speechless with happiness. She leaned her head upon her husband's breast and wept for joy, while he fondly stroked and kissed tier shining hair, and left the trace of a tear with every kiss.
Presently he turned an imploring look upon the emperor, who stood by, contemplating the lovers with an ecstasy to which he had long been a stranger.
"My brother," said Louis, "for I may call you so now—seven years ago, our hands were joined together by the priest; but, the policy that would have wounded Austria through me, has kept us asunder. This is our wedding-day, this is the union of love with love. Be you the priest to bless the rites that make us one till death."
The emperor came forward, and, solemnly laying his hands upon the heads of the king and queen, spoke in broken accents "God bless you, beloved brother and sister—God give you grace to be true to each other through good and evil report. Be gentle and indulgent one toward the other, that, from this day forward, your two hearts may become as one! Farewell! I shall take with me to Austria the joyful news of your happiness. Oh, how Maria Theresa will rejoice to know it, and how often will the thought of this day brighten my own desolate hearth at Vienna! Farewell!"