"Tis a very beautiful and a very grateful country, Your Majesty," replied Calvert. "America desires nothing so much as to do some service for Your Majesty in return for all the benefits and assistance France has rendered her."
"We are glad to know that she is grateful. Ingratitude is the last of vices," said the Queen, quietly, looking at the young man with a sombre light in her beautiful eyes. "But, indeed, we fear France hath given her something she can never repay," and she passed on with the King. Together they walked the length of the salon between the ranks of courtiers, after which they mingled freely and without formality with their guests. Though it was easy to see that the Queen was suffering, so charming and easy were her manners, so brilliant her very presence, that a new animation and gayety was diffused throughout the entire assemblage. Mr. Morris, whom she had also treated with the utmost graciousness, was enchanted with her.
"I think Venus herself was not more beautiful," he said, enthusiastically, to Calvert when Her Majesty had passed on. "'Tis no wonder the wits have dubbed the King Vulcan. And this is the paragon of beauty and grace whom her ungallant subjects chose to insult this morning! Have they no hearts, no senses to be charmed with her loveliness, her majesty, her sorrows? I think you and I, Ned, ought to be loyal servants of both the King and Queen, for surely royalty could not have been more courteous in its treatment of two untitled and unimportant gentlemen."
"Certainly their Majesties were most amiable," said Mr. Jefferson, dryly, "and your reception was as unlike the ungracious notice which King George took of Mr. Adams and myself in '86 at Buckingham Palace as possible. But, come, I want to show you a view of the gardens," he went on, pushing back the heavy drapery and drawing the two gentlemen into the embrasure of one of the great windows, from which a perfect view of the extensive park, the bosquets, the artificial lakes and tapis vert, the fountains and statues, was to be had. A thousand lanterns lighted up the scene, though they shone with but a yellow, ineffectual radiance in the moonlight, which rested in splendor on the grass and water, turning to milky whiteness the foam in the basins of the fountains and throwing long shadows on the close-clipped lawns and marble walks.
The three gentlemen gazed for some minutes in silence at the enchanting scene before them.
"'Tis a fitting-setting for the palace of a king," said Mr. Morris, at length.
"Yes—" returned Mr. Jefferson, slowly, "if 'tis ever fitting that a king should arrogate to his sole use the wealth, the toil, the bounty of an empire. I confess I never look at this stately palace, at these magnificent gardens, but I shudder to think of the hundred millions of francs this impoverished nation has been goaded into giving; of the thousands of lives lost in the building of these aqueducts; of the countless years and countless energy spent in devising and carrying out these schemes for royal aggrandizement and pleasure. We come here and gape and wonder at it all, and little think at what stupendous cost our senses are so gratified.
"'The man of wealth and pride
Takes up a space that many poor supplied—
Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds,
Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds;
The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth
Has robb'd the neighboring fields of half their growth;
His seat, where solitary sports are seen,
Indignant spurns the cottage from the green;
Around the world each needful product flies,
For all the luxuries the world supplies:
While thus the land adorn'd for pleasure—all
In barren splendor feebly waits the fall.'"
As Mr. Jefferson finished quoting the lines, the sound of voices and exclamations of astonishment came to the gentlemen from the other side of the curtain. Looking into the salon they saw Monsieur de St. Aulaire surrounded by a little group of ladies and gentlemen. He was speaking quite audibly, so that his words reached the astonished group in the embrasure of the window.
"'Tis the latest from the Club des Enragés—the King abdicates to-morrow!" He passed on amid a chorus of dismayed ejaculations.