"But Lorge may be burnt over our heads," objected Pharamond. "Excuse me; but you fail to grasp the situation, which is much more serious than you suppose."
"I shall certainly not leave France," returned Gabrielle, with decision. "No one will hurt us in Touraine, for we are beloved and respected, and the hearts of the people shall be our bulwarks."
This was rather a bad beginning to the newly-inaugurated régime. It was unwelcomely manifest that the foot was down. She had never mentioned her husband or referred to his possible desires. That was significant. Pshaw! she was a woman who was made to lean on others, and just now she was supported by the queen, the family solicitor, and other meddlesome advisers, and was thereby induced to assume an independence which was foreign to her nature. So she was bent on returning to Lorge? Well and good, the sojourn must be brief. The temporary props being left behind, others would have to be supplied--by him. Pressure could be brought to bear within the walls of the grim chateau, and so soon as it should be urgent to flit, why, then there should be a flitting. For the present she was mistress of the situation, and till a change could be brought about, must have her way unchallenged.
As for Clovis, with much spare time upon his hands, his idle hours were spent in brooding and regret, and the yearning that besets humanity to have things other than they are. He was both fascinated and disgusted by the scenes that passed around him, episodes which served to increase the peevishness due to private worries.
He was haunted by the idea that if Gabrielle had refrained from writing that letter, the maréchal would not have so disposed his property as to secure it against his son-in-law. But that piece of sly impertinence on the part of the lady who bore his name had put everything agog. But for her all apprehensions might ere this have been removed. He would have been independent; have betaken himself and the magic tub to some other land under the guidance of the dear affinity; have escaped from the turmoil of politics, the noisy babble of miscreants and cutthroats; be enjoying in peace the applause and serenity which go with success in science. Instead of that, here was he, the Marquis de Gange, kicking his heels in a capital which resembled in its wild proceedings the mental phantasmagoria that follows indigestion, deprived even of the consoling presence of her who knew how to comfort him.
Pharamond was all very well in his way, always obliging and cheery, but somehow or other his sweetness left a taste in the mouth that was bitter, even acrid. How this should be Clovis was at a loss to comprehend, for there was no doubt that the abbé was sincerely sorry for his brother's woeful plight, and did all that in him lay to prune the thorns that pricked him. As Clovis meditated, topics were ever cropping up which he longed to discuss with the governess; but, alas, alas! thanks to the insane jealousy of a most annoying wife, the charmer was gone--her place knew her no more!
To brood over the halcyon days which are gone by is conducive to snappishness, and, after a chewing of the cud, to chronic sullenness and gnawing discontent. Sometimes the marquis would strive to rouse himself from dismal reverie, and force himself to take interest in what was passing; but the contemplation thereof only led to further disapproval, for he found himself in company that revolted him. To think that he, a noble of high rank, should find himself cheek by jowl with the low, dirty, foul-mouthed scribbler, whose name was Marat! People's friend, forsooth! If a wolf could write a journal, the brute could not raven more thirstily for blood. Blood--not in drops from a single breast, nor even in a river from the slaughter of families. He howled for the crimson liquor in the profusion of an ocean from the instinctive love of it which impels the tiger to rend his mangled victim after his hunger is appeased. Then to have to be civil to that dandified Robespierre, whom instinct whispered was one of the coming men--one whose talents were insignificant and oratory wretched, but who plodded ahead to his goal with a passionless undeviating pitiless perseverance that was appalling; one who boasted with apathetic cruelty that to gain a point the immolation of a generation was as nothing; who was already clamouring for the sacrifice of the royal family, and of all who were tainted with nobility.
To visit the palace was to be distracted with indignant pity. Though the son of St. Louis still ate off silver plate, the most elaborate precautions were taken to secure him against poison. The wine he drank, the food he ate, was introduced secretly by devoted friends. Not a scrap passed his lips that was supplied from the royal kitchens. Things had gone so far that there was no safety--as the hapless king had realized on the eve of the Varennes disaster--but in flight. His friends in Paris could be of little service, for he was as close a prisoner in the gilded Tuileries as the felon in his cell--in a worse plight than the convicted assassin in his jail, whom the rabble were forbidden to persecute.
Clovis could perceive as clearly now as Pharamond that so acute a situation could not last. This was a state of crisis which should have nearly attained its apogee, and which promised to result in catastrophe. And here was the Gange family lingering on in the most undesirable manner instead of making itself scarce, and skipping out of danger. As we know, Clovis was not too brave, and preferred scientific to military triumphs. If other nobles viewed the situation from a long way off, why should not he also? What was it to him that the continued outpouring of landholders had unhinged the public mind, and that the exodus of those who should have rallied round their monarch was indeed the greatest cause of the miseries that loomed ahead? By deserting their native land at the most critical period of its history, the French nobility cast a stain on their order, which may never be wiped out. At this time, no less than a hundred thousand of the most influential class had turned their backs upon their country!
The marquis exhorted and implored his brother to speak to Gabrielle, to beg her to be sensible and go, before it was too late. With perfect truth (for once) Pharamond declared that he had done his best--that Gabrielle was obstinate and declined to budge--adding, with a conciliatory smile, that Clovis must practise the unruffled calm that springs from a tranquil mind; that when the new-blown prerogative of managing people was more familiar to the heiress, she would be less headstrong, more considerate.