The King agreed with him and said so at once, but it was with reluctance that the Queen gave her consent to the enterprise.
"It is a noble plan and a hazardous one, and we thank you, Monsieur, and those other gentlemen who are imperilling their lives to insure our safety, but I confess to you," said her Majesty, sadly, "that I sanction the undertaking and enter into it, not in the hope that the first part of it will succeed—alas! I distrust our generals and troops too deeply for that—but in the belief that once out of Paris we may ultimately be able to take refuge with our friends beyond the frontier."
As she spoke, there came a hurried tapping at the door, and, almost before permission to enter had been given, Beaufort appeared. He signed hastily to Calvert to depart, and on a silent gesture of dismissal from the King and Queen, he followed the young nobleman from the room through a door opposite to the one by which he had been admitted. Hurrying past endless antechambers, down marble stairways, and through long corridors, Calvert at length found himself at a little gate which gave upon the Carrousel. This Beaufort unlocked and, giving the password to the Swiss sentry who stood without, the two young men at length found themselves on the Quai des Tuileries. There, after a moment's hurried conversation, during which Calvert told Beaufort of the result of the momentous interview with the King and Queen, the two parted, the young Frenchman returning to the palace and Calvert making his way as quickly as possible back to the Legation, where Mr. Morris anxiously awaited him.
CHAPTER XXII
MR. CALVERT STARTS ON A JOURNEY
The Queen's consent having been obtained, Calvert set out upon his journey to the frontier the next day. He would have carried a lighter heart had he felt better assured of the good faith of the King and Queen. Louis had given his consent readily enough and had approved heartily of the plan, for it had ever been against his real wishes to call in the aid of the allies, but Calvert knew too well how little he dared rely on the King's firmness or courage. As for the Queen, he could only hope that the continued representations of Beaufort, Favernay, and others about her Majesty cognizant of the enterprise and the confidence she had expressed in himself, would confirm her in her resolution to help carry the undertaking through to a successful termination.
Mr. Calvert first made his way with all possible expedition back to Maubeuge, where he reported to Lafayette the result of his interview with their Majesties and received from him letters to certain officers who were to be taken into the enterprise and whose commands were to be won over if possible.
"Her Majesty can surely no longer doubt my good faith," said Lafayette, bitterly, to Calvert. "Success, death, or flight is all that is left to me now."
With these letters Calvert proceeded on his way to Namur, Givet, and Trèves, where different detachments of Lafayette's troops were garrisoned. He was made welcome at every mess-table, and his scheme was received with such enthusiasm that it seemed almost an unnecessary precaution to cross the frontier and seek a possible asylum for the Royal Family in case the great plan failed. But the very enthusiasm of some of these young officers caused Calvert to fear for the success of the enterprise. So loud-tongued were they in their loyalty, with such imprudence did they drink toasts to their Majesties and the success of the undertaking, that Calvert, himself so calm and silent, was both disgusted and alarmed.
With the enthusiastic promise of allegiance to the plan on their own part and that of their regiments, Calvert quitted the society of these officers, and, certain of the hearty co-operation of enough troops to make the safety of the King and Queen amply assured, he proceeded, by way of the Mozelle, to Coblentz. He arrived at that city on the 26th of July, and was immediately granted an interview with the great Prince-Elector of Trèves, but recently established in his splendid new palace on the Rhine, and the commander-in-chief of the allied army, his Grace the Duke of Brunswick.