Quelle immortelle gloire!
Que de cris de douleur!
Que de chants de victoire!
Cessons de nous troubler; notre Dieu, quelque jour,
Devoilera ce grand mystère.
Révérons sa colère;
Espérons en son amour.”
Athalie.
Pleasant was it, on that bright hot morning, to escape at last from Paris altogether. Sir Godfrey, indeed, remained at home to write his letters, with the purpose of riding out to meet them on their return: and Mr Thorpe, on horseback, with charge of the magic passports, was the sole cavalier; shrewdly overseen, doubtless, by the hard-eyed, rough-visaged, experienced Jackson, to whose sturdy driving there lay no perplexity about those great, straight, formal French roads, with staring guide-posts and swarms of Parisian people.
Soon, in fact, does the grand road towards Versailles sweep away from sight of Paris in its wide basin, among avenues and closing woods. With no lanes, nor secluded cross-ways, save to towns, it was harder to leave behind the Parisian people; and they soon heard that Versailles was stripped of its glory, so far as they were concerned, since nothing was doing there that day; the king had gone to Marly, or Fontainebleau, instead of passing in state to the Assembly, as had been expected from the journals. Much to the relief, it must have been, of Lady Willoughby, who disliked crowds and pressures of people, with the bustle and the dust; and to whom foreign kings and queens had but a dim, half-chimerical reality, after all, compared with the accustomed Georges, whose power and royalty were interwoven with any thoughts she had of public life; yet she appeared as much vexed as it was possible for her to be, proposing still to go on and see the outside of the palace, the fountains, or the remaining courtiers, the “houses of parliament,” which perhaps might be worth the pains. But these Charles disdained till another day, when the king should have returned—being even set against the remotest view of the town, its very smoke or spires; and, out of his father’s presence, Charles was always, by some peculiar force of his, indirectly master. His sister Rose, though the expedition had been fondly planned, nor did his arguments seem worth answering, too well knew the issue not to be resigned; while her governess, referred to as a matter of course, expressed as duly an entire acquiescence in any arrangement most satisfactory to Lady Willoughby, preserving an intense calm, and seeming to observe the various objects as their course was changed, the leaves of the trees, the tops of palisades, the very hats of market-people, with strange elevation of countenance, and with an air of suffering which required her vinaigrette. Even Jackson, who had a great share of the selfishness of privileged old servants, and greatly consulted his own personal ease, ventured to console his mistress, turning round and touching his hat, to remark that it was a long drive after all, and they would have had to put up at the town to bait these Flanders beasts—he carefully abstained from calling them horses—which it might cost a deal of trouble, as these French inns very likely had no stables; the inward satisfaction of Jackson, indeed, somewhat belied his rueful effort to look grieved. All appeared disappointed, save the tutor, ever fain to be serviceable, if seldom very successful where the office was of the present kind. Yet that day Mr Thorpe was excelling himself, now riding on, or now remaining behind, always for some object; nor was it long ere he came posting back, his plain, ineffectual features animated, and his mild short-sighted blue eyes shining moist through the thin-framed spectacles which enlarged them, to mention that they were close to Sèvres, where the royal porcelain was made. And at Sèvres, with its quaint old village houses, and its bridge across the Seine to another village, seeing what could be seen of its manufactory, its water-mill where the clay was ground, or its woody island amidst the river, the earlier part of the day was spent. Then turning to make a wide circuit into the Versailles road again, where the afternoon was to bring Sir Godfrey, the carriage passed at leisure through the quieter country that slopes and rolls westward from the Seine.