But even here the Revolution was her nightmare. She had a dream that she was walking in one of her German forests when a gnome seized her from behind a tree and she knew that it was Gilbert.
She shrieked and, waking, found Lady Tourzel, an attendant, by her pillow.
"The Queen is sick," she called out. "Fetch the doctor."
"What doctor is in waiting?" asked the Queen.
"Dr. Gilbert, the new honorary physician whom the King has appointed."
"You speak as if you knew him, and yet he has only been a week in this country from America, and only a day out of the Bastile?"
"Your Majesty, I read his writings, and I was so curious to see the author," said the lady, "that I had him pointed out to me as he was in his rooms."
"Ah! well, let him begin his duties. Tell him I am ailing and request his presence."
Surprised and profoundly affected, though he seemed but a little uneasy, Gilbert appeared before the Queen. With her aristocratic intelligence she read that he felt timid respect for the woman, tranquil audacity for the patient and no emotion whatever for the sovereign. She was vexed, too, that he could look so well in the black suit worn by the third class of society and one the Revolutionists chose.
The less provoking he was in bearing, the more her anger grew. She had fancied the man an odious character, one of the heroes of impudence whom she had often seen around her. She had represented as a Mirabeau, the man she hated next to Cardinal Rohan and General Lafayette, this author of Andrea's woes. He was guilty in her eyes for looking the gentleman. The proud Austrian conceived a wild hatred against one whom she thought had stolen the semblance of the rank he had no business to aspire to.