The Queen seemed to listen to it all without understanding. Between her knees she held her son, who looked at the multitude as frightened princes stare when appalled.
The King watched with a dull and heavy eye. He had little sleep in the night; he had not made a good breakfast though usually a hearty eater; he had no time to have his hair dressed and his beard had grown long. His linen was limp and roughened, too—all things to his disadvantage. Alas, Louis was not the man for emergencies, and this was a period of emergencies. He bent his head when they came: save once when he held his chin up—it was when he walked upon the scaffold.
Lady Elizabeth was the angel of sweetness and resignation placed by heaven beside those doomed creatures to console the King during the Queen’s absence; and the Queen after the King’s death.
Count Provence, here as everywhere, had the squinting glance of a false man; he knew that he ran no present danger; he was the popular member of the family—no one knew why—perhaps because he remained in France when his brother Artois fled.
Could the King have read his heart, he might not have felt any gratitude to him for what he pledged in the way of devotion.
Countess Andrea seemed of marble. She had recognized the man she most hated in the King’s new confidential adviser, and one whom the Queen seemed bound to win to her side. Like a statue, the stir round her seemed not to affect her, and she looked in attire as trim as if fresh from a band-box. One thought was alive within her, fierce and luminous—love for some unknown—perchance her husband, or hate for Gilbert—at whom she darted lightnings involuntarily whenever their glances crossed. But she felt that she might not defy his with impunity, for he was a pupil of Balsamo Cagliostro, the arch-mesmerist, and might sway her with the same art.
A hundred paces on the other side of the little drinking saloon, the royal train stopped. All along the line the clamor doubled.
The Queen bent out of the window and as the movement looked like a bow to the crowd, there was a long murmur. She called Dr. Gilbert.
He went up to the window: as he had kept his hat off all the way, he had no need to bare his head in respect. His attitude showed he was entirely under her orders.
“What are your people shouting and singing?” she requested to know.