Mirabeau grasped his arm with a sudden movement, and an expression of solemn earnestness filled his lion-like face. "I am convinced of it," he answered, "and I will add, the danger is so great, that if we do not soon meet it and in heroic fashion, it will not be possible to control it. There is no other security for the queen than through the reestablishment of the royal authority. I believe of her, that she does not desire life without her crown, and I am certain that, in order to keep her life, she must before all things preserve her crown. And I will help her and stand by her in it; and for this end I must myself speak with her and have an audience." [Footnote: Mirabeau's own words.—See Count de la Marck, "Mirabeau," vol. 21. p. 50.]
And Mirabeau, the first man in the revolution had his audience with
Marie Antoinette, the dying champion of monarchy.
On the 3rd of July, 1790, the meeting of the queen and Mirabeau took place in the park of St. Cloud. Secrecy and silence surrounded them, and extreme care had been taken to let no one suspect, excepting a few intimate friends, what was taking place on this sequestered, leaf-embowered grass-plat of St. Cloud.
A bench of white marble, surrounded by high oleander and taxus trees, stood at the side of this grass-plat. It was the throne on which Marie Antoinette should receive the homage of her new knight. Mirabeau had on the day before gone from Paris to the estate of his niece, the Marchioness of Aragan. There he spent the night; and the next morning, accompanied by his nephew, M. de Saillant, he walked to the park of St. Cloud.
At the nether gate of the park, which had been left open for this secret visit, Mirabeau took leave of his companion, and extended him his hand.
"I do not know," he said, and his voice, which so often had made the windows of the assembly hall shake with its thunder, was now weak and tremulous, "I do not know why this dreadful presentiment creeps over me all at once, and why voices whisper to me, 'Turn, back, Mirabeau, turn back! Do not step over the threshold of this door, for there you are stepping into your open grave!' "
"Follow this voice, uncle, there is still time," implored M. de Saillant; "it is with me as it is with you. I, too, have a sad, anxious feeling!"
"May they not have laid snares for me here?" whispered Mirabeau, thoughtfully. "They are capable of every thing, these artful Bourbons. Who knows whether they have not invited me here to take me prisoner, and to cast me, whom they hold to be their most dangerous enemy, into one of their oubliettes, their subterranean dungeons? My friend," he continued, hastily, "wait for me here, and if in two or three hours I do not return, hasten to Paris, go to the National Assembly, and announce to them that Mirabeau, moved by the queen's cry of distress, has gone to St. Cloud, and is there held a prisoner."
"I will do it, uncle," said the marquis, "but I do not believe in any such treachery on the part of the queen or her husband. They both know that without Mirabeau they are certainly lost, and that he, perhaps, is able to save them. I fear something entirely different."
"And what do you fear?"