"Tis like His Highness," whispered Mr. Morris to Calvert. "He is as thirsty for popularity as Lafayette himself."
Though he spoke in a low tone and in English, Madame de St. André overheard and understood him.
"You and Mr. Calvert seem to be in a conspiracy to malign His Royal
Highness," she said, turning around.
"No, no. If there is a conspirator in the case 'tis Monsieur d'Orléans himself," replied Mr. Morris, meaningly. To this Madame de St. André deigned no reply, and, shrugging her beautiful shoulders, turned her back once more to the gentlemen and her attention to the assemblage. Mr. Calvert, who sat directly behind her, could only see the pink ear and outline of the fair, displeased face thus turned away, but he thought she looked more imperiously lovely and more distant than the painted goddesses of the Olympian hierarchy who disported themselves, after the artist's fancy, upon the great dome of the hall.
"Madame," he said, leaning over the back of Madame de Chastellux's chair, "can you tell me who is that deputy of the tiers just making his way in? 'Tis the strangest and most terrible face I have ever seen," and he looked hard at the seamed, scarred visage, at the gloomy eyes, shining darkly in their great sockets, at the immense, burly figure of the man who was forcing his way contemptuously past the gallant Monsieur de Brézé to a seat among the commoners. As he looked, he was reminded in some fashion of the man Danton whom he had seen in the Café de l'Ecole the afternoon he had gone thither with Beaufort.
"It is Monsieur de Mirabeau," said Madame de Chastellux. "There is something terrible in his face, as you say, but there is genius, also, I think," she added.
"He has many talents and every vice, Madame," said Mr. Jefferson, coldly. "A genius if you will, but a man without honor, without probity, erratic, unscrupulous, mercenary, passionate. Cupidus alieni prodigus sui. Great as are his parts, he will never be able to serve his country, for no dependence can be placed in him. He cannot even further his own interests, for he is his own worst enemy. No association with such a character can be either profitable or permanent. Listen! he is being hissed!" It was true. A faint but perfectly audible murmur of disapprobation went up as Mirabeau took his place among the deputies. As the sound struck on his ear, he turned upon the throng like a lion at bay and glanced about him with eyes which literally seemed to shoot fire and before which all sounds of hatred trembled back into silence.
With conversation, with speculations as to whether the great question of voting par ordre or par tête would be settled by Monsieur Necker in his speech, what policy the King would follow, and with promenades in the great semicircular corridor running around the balcony, did the vast crowd while away the seemingly interminable wait before the court appeared. It was one o'clock when the heralds-at-arms, amid a profound silence, announced the approach of the King and Queen. As His Majesty made his appearance at the door, the silence was broken by tumultuous cries of "Long live the King!" Remembering that day and those prolonged demonstrations of loyalty and affection to His Majesty, Mr. Calvert always considered it the wonderfullest change his life ever saw when, six months later, he was a witness to the sullen animosity and insolence of the crowd toward its sovereign.
When the King had ascended the throne and seated himself (the princes of the blood royal who followed His Majesty being ranged upon the steps of the dais to his right and his ministers below and in front), there was another call from the heralds-at-arms, and Marie Antoinette, beautiful, pallid, and haughty-looking, appeared at the entrance, accompanied by the Princess Royal and the members of her immediate household. Amid a silence unbroken by a single acclamation the Queen took her seat on the King's left and two steps below him.
"Is there no Frenchman here who will raise his voice in greeting to his Queen?" said Mr. Morris, very audibly. But though many hear him, not a sound is made, and at the cruel silence the Queen, her haughtiness giving way for a moment, as it had the day before, wept.