"Alas", returned the nobleman, "at the time of the American War, I was fired like others with the fever of independence thrilling society. I also wish to take a hand in the liberation of the slaves of Great Britain, as was said in those days, and I became a Free Mason, an Invisible like the Lafayettes and Lameths, under the redoubtable Balsamo, the King-Destroyer. Do you know the aim of that secret society? the wrecking of thrones. Its motto: 'Trample down the Lilies,' expressed in Latin as 'Lilia Pedibus Destrue!' in three letters for the initiated: 'L. P. D.' I retired with honor when I learnt this, but for one who shrank, twenty took the oath. What happens to-day is merely the first act of a grand tragedy which has been rehearsed during twenty years in the darkness. I have recognized the Bounden brothers at the head of the men who govern at the City Hall, occupy the Palais Royal, and took the Bastile. Do not cheat yourself; these accomplished deeds are no accidents, but Revolution planned long beforehand."
"Do you believe this, dear friend?" sobbed Marie Antoinette.
"Do not weep, but understand," said the count.
"Understand that I, the Queen, born mistress of thousands of men, subjects created to obey, must look on at them revolting and killing my friends—No, never will I understand this."
"You must, madam: for you have become the enemy of these subjects as soon as obedience weighed upon them, and while they are lacking the strength to devour you, they are testing their teeth on your friends, whom they detest as much as you, more than you."
"Perhaps you think they are right, Master Philosopher?" sneered the Austrian.
"Alas, yes, they are right," replied the Lifeguards Lieutenant, in his bland, affectionate voice, "for when I idly rode along the street, with handsome English horses, in a gold-laced suit, and my servants wearing more gold braid than would have kept three families, your people, twenty-five thousand wretches without daily bread, asked me to my teeth what use was I, who set up as a man above his fellow-men?"
"You serve them, my lord," said the Queen, grasping the count's swordhilt, "with this blade, which your fathers used as heroes on many a celebrated battlefield. The French nobility shielded the masses in war times; they won their gold by losing their blood. Do not you ask what use you are, George, while you, a brave man, swing the sword of your fathers."
"Do not speak of the nobles' blood," returned the count, "the commoners have blood to shed also; go and see the streams of it on Bastile Square. Go and count their dead in the gutters and know that those hearts, now ceased to beat, throbbed as nobly as a knight's when your cannon thundered against them. They sang in the showers of grapeshot while handling unfamiliar weapons, and the oldest grenadiers would not make a charge with that lightness. Lady and Queen, do not look at me with that angry eye, I beseech you. What matters to the heart whether it is clad in steel or rags? The time is come to think of this: you have no longer millions of slaves, or subjects, or mere men in France—but soldiers."
"Who will fight against me?"