Quickly, and with feverish impatience, she drew her black netted gloves from her delicate white hands, and at once took her place next to the count, on the seat already prepared for her.
"Will not the music be too difficult for me to play?" asked she, timidly.
"Nothing is too difficult for the Queen of France."
"But there is a great deal that is too difficult for the dilettante, Marie Antoinette," sighed the queen. "Meanwhile, we will begin and try it."
And with great facility and lightness of touch, the queen began to play the base of the piece which had been arranged by the Count de Vaudreuil for four hands. But the longer she played, the more the laughter and the unrestrained gayety disappeared from the features of the queen. Her noble countenance assumed an expression of deep earnestness, her eye kindled with feeling, and the cheeks which before had become purple-red with the exercise of playing, now paled with deep inward emotion.
All at once, in the very midst of the grand and impassioned strains, Marie Antoinette stopped, and, under the strength of her feeling, rose from her seat.
"Only Gluck can have written this!" cried she. "This is the music, the divine music of my exalted master, my great teacher, Chevalier Gluck."
"You are right; your majesty is a great musician," cried Lord
Vaudreuil, in amazement, "the ideal pupil of the genial maestro.
Yes, this music is Gluck's. It is the overture to his new opera of
'Alcestes,' which he sent me from Venice to submit to your majesty.
These tones shall speak for the master, and entreat for him the
protection of the queen."
"You have not addressed the queen, but my own heart," said Marie Antoinette, with gentle, deeply moved voice. "It was a greeting from my home, a greeting from my teacher, who is at the same time the greatest composer of Europe. Oh, I am proud of calling myself his pupil. But Gluck needs no protection; it is much more we who need the protection which he affords us in giving us the works of his genius. I thank you, count," continued Marie Antoinette, turning to Vaudreuil with a pleasant smile.
"This is a great pleasure which you have prepared for me. But knowing, as I now do, that this is Gluck's music, I do not dare to play another note; for, to injure a note of his writing, seems to me like treason against the crown. I will practise this piece, and then some day we will play it to the whole court. And now, my honored guests, if it pleases you, we go to meet the king. Gentlemen, let each one choose his lady, for we do not want to go in state procession, but by different paths."