The queen listened, and seemed to calm herself, by an effort, to prepare for the approaching contest. “Then, sire,” she said, “you think you need no excuse for keeping at the door of your castle the daughter of Maria Theresa, your wife, and the mother of your children? No! it is in your eyes a pleasantry worthy of a king, and of which the morality doubles the value. It is nothing to you, to have forced the Queen of France to pass the night in this ‘petite maison,’ where the Comte d’Artois receives the ladies of the Opera and the ‘femmes galantes’ of your court. Oh no! that is nothing. A philosopher king is above all such considerations. Only, on this occasion, I have reason to thank heaven that my brother-in-law is a dissipated man, as his dissipation has saved me from disgrace, and his vices have sheltered my honor.”
The king colored, and moved uneasily on his chair.
“Oh yes!” continued the queen, with a bitter laugh, “I know that you are a moral king, but your morality produces strange effects. You say that no one knew that I was out. Will you tell me that M. de Provence, your instigator, did not know it; or M. le Comte d’Artois—or my women? who, by my orders, told you falsehoods this morning; or Laurent—bought by M. d’Artois and by me? Let us continue this habit, sire; you, to set spies and Swiss guards; and I, to buy them over and cheat you; and in a month we will calculate together how much the dignity of the throne and our marriage has gained by it.”
It was evident that her words had made a great impression on him to whom they were addressed.
“You know,” said he, in an altered voice, “that I am always sincere, and willing to acknowledge if I have been wrong. Will you prove to me that you were right to go into Paris in sledges, accompanied by a gay party, which, in the present unhappy state of things, is likely to give offense? Will you prove to me, that you were right to disappear in Paris, like maskers at a ball, and only to reappear scandalously late at night, when every one else was asleep? You have spoken of the dignity of the throne, and of marriage; think you that it befits a queen, a wife, and a mother, to act thus?”
“I will reply in a few words, sire; for it seems to me, that such accusations merit nothing but contempt. I left Versailles in a sledge, because it is the quickest way of getting to Paris at present. I went with Madlle. de Taverney, whose reputation is certainly one of the purest in our court. I went to Paris, I repeat, to verify the fact that the King of France, the great upholder of morality—he who takes care of poor strangers, warms the beggars, and earns the gratitude of the people by his charities, leaves dying of hunger, exposed to every attack of vice and misery, one of his own family—one who is as much as himself a descendant of the kings who have reigned in France.”
“What!” cried the king in surprise.
“I mounted,” continued the queen, “into a garret, and there saw, without fire, almost without light, and without money, the granddaughter of a great prince, and I gave one hundred louis to this victim of royal forgetfulness and neglect. Then, as I was detained late there, and as the frost was severe, and horses go slowly over ice, particularly hackney-coach horses——”
“Hackney-coach horses!” cried the king. “You returned in a hackney-coach?”
“Yes, sire—No. 107.”