"I must know every thing, every thing," said she. "Go on bringing me every thing, and do not be hindered by my tears. It is of course natural that I am sensitive to the evil words that are spoken about me, and to the bad opinion that is cherished toward me by a people that I love, and to win whose love I am prepared to make every sacrifice." [Footnote: The queen's own words.—See Malleville, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 197]
At this moment the door of the cabinet was dashed open without ceremony, and the Duchess de Polignac entered.
"Forgiveness! your majesty, forgiveness that I have ventured to disturb you, but—"
"What is it?" cried the queen, springing up. "You come to announce misfortune to me, duchess. It concerns the dauphin, does it not? His illness has increased?"
"Yes, your majesty, cramps have set in, and the physicians fear the worst."
"O God! O God!" cried the queen, raising both her hands to heaven, "is every misfortune to beat down upon me? I shall lose my son, my dear child! Here I sit weeping pitiful tears about the malice of my enemies, and all this while my child is wrestling in the pains of death! Farewell, sir, I must go to my child."
And the queen, forgetting every thing else, thinking only of her child—the sick, dying dauphin—hurried forward, dashing through the room with such quick step that the duchess could scarcely follow her.
"Is he dead?" cried Marie Antoinette to the servant standing in the antechamber of the dauphin. She did not await the reply, but burst forward, hastily opened the door of the sick-room, and entered.
There upon the bed, beneath the gold-fringed canopy, lay the pale, motionless boy, with open, staring eyes, with parched lips, and wandering mind—and it was her child, it was the Dauphin of France.
Around his bed stood the physicians, the quickly-summoned priests, and the servants, looking with sorrowful eyes at the poor, deathly- pale creature that was now no more than a withered flower, a son of dust that must return to dust; then they looked sadly at the pale, trembling wife who crouched before the bed, and who now was nothing more than a sorrow-stricken mother, who must bow before the hand of Fate, and feel that she had no more power over life and death than the meanest of her subjects.