Calvert of Strathore

by Abbe Carter Goodloe

Madame de Staël impatiently shook off the detaining hand. "'Tis the day of days," she cried, enthusiastically, "the day for which my father has labored so long, the day on which will be written the brightest page of French history."

"I verily believe she thinks the States-General are come together to the sole honor and glorification of Monsieur, Necker," whispered Mr. Morris, in an amused undertone, to Calvert. "But look yonder, to the right of the King! There go our friends of the Palais Royal, the young Duc de Chartres and Monsieur de Beaujolais! Tis strange the Duc d'Orléans is not near the King. He curries favor with the multitude by abandoning his sovereign on this crucial day and putting himself forward as an elected deputy of the States-General! And there to the left of His Majesty is the Queen with the princesses. Is she not beautiful, Ned?—though Beaufort tells me she has lost much of the brilliancy of her beauty in the last year. Indeed, she has an almost melancholy air,-but I think it is becoming, for otherwise she would be too haughty-looking."

"She has reason to look melancholy, Monsieur," said Madame de Montmorin, in a low tone, and with a glance of deep sympathy at the Queen, who sat rigid, palely smiling in her golden coach. "Did you not know that the Dauphin is very ill? 'Tis little talked about at court, for the Queen will not have the subject mentioned, but he has been ailing for a year past."

As she spoke, the carriage of the Queen passed close under the balcony, and at that instant a woman in the crowd, looking Her Majesty full in the face, cried out, shrilly, "Long live d'Orléans!" The pallid Queen sank back, as though struck, into the arms of the Princess de Lamballes, who rode beside her. But in an instant she was herself again, and sat haughtily erect, with a bitter smile curving her beautiful lips.

"A cruel blow!" said Mr. Morris, under his breath, to Calvert. "Her unhappiness was complete enough without that. Arrayed in those rich stuffs, with the flowers in her hair and bosom and with that inscrutable and melancholy expression on her beautiful face, she looks as might have looked some Athenian maiden decked for sacrifice. Indeed, all the noblesse have a curious air of fatality about them, or so it seems to me, and somehow look as if they were going to their doom. Take a good look at this splendid pageant, Ned! 'Tis the first time you have seen royalty, the first time you have seen the nobility in all the magnificence of ceremony. It may be the last."

Mr. Jefferson got up from his place beside Madame de Tessé and came over to where Calvert and Mr. Morris were standing.

"What do you think of the King and Queen?" he asked, in a low voice, laying his hand, in his customary affectionate manner, on Calvert's shoulder. "The King has a benevolent, open countenance, do you not think so?—but the Queen has a haughty, wayward look, and the imperious, unyielding spirit of her Austrian mother."

"She will need all the spirit of her whole family," broke in Mr. Morris, warmly, "if she is to bear up beneath such wanton insults as that just offered her."

"I fear that the hand of Heaven will weigh heavily on that selfish, proud, capricious sovereign, and that she will have to suffer many humiliations," replied Mr. Jefferson, coldly, for he disliked and distrusted Marie Antoinette profoundly, and always believed that she was largely responsible for the terrible disasters which overtook France, and that had Louis been free of her influence and machinations, he had been able to disentangle himself and his kingdom from the fatal coil into which they were drawn.

"As for myself, I can think only that she is a woman and in distress," said Mr. Morris, looking after the Queen's coach, which rolled slowly through the crowded street, making a glittering track of light where the noonday sun (for 'twas past twelve o'clock by that time) struck the golden panels. It was followed on one side by a long line of carriages containing the princesses of the blood royal and the ladies-in-waiting to Her Majesty, on the other by the procession of princes, dukes, and gentlemen of the King's household. It was close on one o'clock when the last gilded coach, the last splendid rider, followed by the rabble, who closed in and pushed on behind to the Church of Saint Louis, had passed beneath Madame de Tessé's balcony. Some of her guests, having billets for the church reserved for them, entered their carriages and drove thither; the others, being weary with the long wait and excitement of the morning, accepted their hostess's invitation to breakfast, content to hear later of the celebration of mass in the Church of Saint Louis. Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Morris, and Calvert were of this party, and, after having promised to be at Versailles early the next morning and to stay for the night at Madame de Tessé's so as to accompany the ladies to the King's reception, they set off for Paris toward four o'clock in the afternoon. As they were about leaving, Beaufort, who had attended mass, came in, tired and gloomy-looking, and told them that Monseigneur de la Farre had preached a political sermon which the deputies had the bad taste and hardihood to applaud in church and in the presence of His Majesty.