The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI. Dumas Alexandre
and out by the stable doors.
Everybody wanted to go in as soon as the gates were open, and the throng spread over the lawn; it was forgotten to open the outlet by the stables, and the crush began to be severe. They streamed before the National Guards in a row along the palace wall to the Carrousel gates, by which they might have resumed the homeward route. They were locked and guarded.
Sweltering, crushed, and turned about, the mob began to be irritated. Before its growls the gates were opened and the men spread over the capacious square.
There they remembered what the main affair was – to petition the king to revoke his veto. Instead of continuing the road, they waited in the square for an hour, when they grew impatient.
They might have gone away, but that was not the aim of the agitators, who went from group to group, saying:
"Stay; what do you want to sneak away for? The king is going to give his sanction; if we were to go home without that, we should have all our work to do over again."
The level-headed thought this sensible advice, but at the same time that the sanction was a long time coming. They were getting hungry, and that was the general cry.
Bread was not so dear as it had been, but there was no work going on, and however cheap bread may be, it is not made for nothing.
Everybody had risen at five, workmen and their wives, with their children, and come to the palace with the idea that they had but to get the royal sanction to have hard times end. But the king did not seem to be at all eager to give his sanction.
It was hot, and thirst began to be felt. Hunger, thirst, and heat drive dogs mad; yet the poor people waited and kept patient. But those next to the railings set to shaking them. A municipal officer made a speech to them:
"Citizens, this is the king's residence, and to enter with arms is to violate it. The king is quite ready to receive your petition, but only from twenty deputies bearing it."
What! had not their deputation, sent in an hour ago, been attended to yet?
Suddenly loud shouts were heard on the streets. It was Santerre, Billet, and Huruge on their horses, and Theroigne riding on her cannon.
"What are you fellows hanging round this gate for?" queried Huruge. "Why do you not go right in?"
"Just so; why haven't we?" said the thousands.
"Can't you see it is fast?" cried several voices.
Theroigne jumped off her cannon, saying:
"The barker is full to the muzzle; let's blow the old gate open."
"Wait! wait!" shouted two municipal officers; "no roughness. It shall be opened to you."
Indeed, by pressing on the spring-catch they released the two gates, which drew aside, and the mass rushed through.
Along with them came the cannon, which crossed the yard with them, mounted the steps, and reached the head of the stairs in their company. Here stood the city officials in their scarfs of office.
"What do you intend doing with a piece of artillery?" they challenged. "Great guns in the royal apartments! Do you believe anything is to be gained by such violence?"
"Quite right," said the ringleaders, astonished themselves to see the gun there; and they turned it round to get it down-stairs. The hub caught on the jamb, and the muzzle gaped on the crowd.
"Why, hang them all, they have got cannon all over the palace!" commented the new-comers, not knowing their own artillery.
Police-Magistrate Mouchet, a deformed dwarf, ordered the men to chop the wheel clear, and they managed to hack the door-jamb away so as to free the piece, which was taken down to the yard. This led to the report that the mob were smashing all the doors in.
Some two hundred noblemen ran to the palace, not with the hope of defending it, but to die with the king, whose life they deemed menaced. Prominent among these was a man in black, who had previously offered his breast to the assassin's bullet, and who always leaped like a last Life-Guard between danger and the king, from whom he had tried to conjure it. This was Gilbert.
After being excited by the frightful tumult, the king and queen became used to it.
It was half past three, and it was hoped that the day would close with no more harm done.
Suddenly, the sound of the ax blows was heard above the noise of clamor, like the howling of a coming tempest. A man darted into the king's sleeping-room and called out:
"Sire, let me stand by you, and I will answer for all."
It was Dr. Gilbert, seen at almost periodical intervals, and in all the "striking situations" of the tragedy in play.
"Oh, doctor, is this you? What is it?" King and queen spoke together.
"The palace is surrounded, and the people are making this uproar in wanting to see you."
"We shall not leave you, sire," said the queen and Princess Elizabeth.
"Will the king kindly allow me for an hour such power as a captain has over his ship?" asked Gilbert.
"I grant it," replied the monarch. "Madame, hearken to Doctor Gilbert's advice, and obey his orders, if needs must." He turned to the doctor: "Will you answer to me for the queen and the dauphin?"
"I do, or I shall die with them; it is all a pilot can say in the tempest!"
The queen wished to make a last effort, but Gilbert barred the way with his arms.
"Madame," he said, "it is you and not the king who run the real danger. Rightly or wrongly, they accuse you of the king's resistance, so that your presence will expose him without defending him. Be the lightning-conductor – divert the bolt, if you can!"
"Then let it fall on me, but save my children!"
"I have answered for you and them to the king. Follow me."
He said the same to Princess Lamballe, who had returned lately from London, and the other ladies, and guided them to the Council Hall, where he placed them in a window recess, with the heavy table before them.
The queen stood behind her children – Innocence protecting Unpopularity, although she wished it to be the other way.
"All is well thus," said Gilbert, in the tone of a general commanding a decisive operation; "do not stir."
There came a pounding at the door, which he threw open with both folds, and as he knew there were many women in the crowd, he cried:
"Walk in, citizenesses; the queen and her children await you."
The crowd burst in as through a broken dam.
"Where is the Austrian? where is the Lady Veto?" demanded five hundred voices.
It was the critical moment.
"Be calm," said Gilbert to the queen, knowing that all was in Heaven's hand, and man was as nothing. "I need not recommend you to be kind."
Preceding the others was a woman with her hair down, who brandished a saber; she was flushed with rage – perhaps from hunger.
"Where is the Austrian cat? She shall die by no hand but mine!" she screamed.
"This is she," said Gilbert, taking her by the hand and leading her up to the queen.
"Have I ever done you a personal wrong?" demanded the latter, in her sweetest voice.
"I can not say you have," faltered the woman of the people, amazed at the majesty and gentleness of Marie Antoinette.
"Then why should you wish to kill me?"
"Folks told me that you were the ruin of the nation," faltered the abashed young woman, lowering the point of her saber to the floor.
"Then you were told wrong. I married your King of France, and am mother of the prince whom you see here. I am a French woman, one who will nevermore see the land where she was born; in France alone I must dwell, happy or unhappy. Alas! I was happy when you loved me." And she sighed.
The girl dropped the sword, and wept.
"Beg