The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI. Dumas Alexandre
the master; but if your choice is suggested by your surroundings, and is clearly made to get me into trouble, I shall entreat your majesty to find a successor for me. Sire, think of the dreadful dangers besieging your throne, and that one must have the public confidence in support; sire, this depends on you."
"Let me stay you a moment; I have long pondered over these dangers." He stretched out his hand to the portrait of Charles I. of England, by Vandyke, and continued, while wiping his forehead with his handkerchief: "This would remind me, if I were to forget them. It is the same situation, with similar dangers; perhaps the scaffold of Whitehall is erecting on City Hall Place."
"You are looking too far ahead, my lord."
"Only to the horizon. In this event, I shall march to the scaffold as Charles I. did, not perhaps as knightly, but at least as like a Christian. Proceed, general."
Dumouriez was checked by this firmness, which he had not expected.
"Sire, allow me to change the subject."
"As you like; I only wish to show that I am not daunted by the prospect they try to frighten me with, but that I am prepared for even this emergency."
"If I am still regarded as your Minister of Foreign Affairs, I will bring four dispatches to the first consul. I notify your majesty that they will not resemble those of previous issue in style or principles; they will suit the circumstances. If this first piece of work suits your majesty, I will continue; if not, my carriage will be waiting to carry me to serve king and country on the border; and, whatever may be said about my diplomatic ability," added Dumouriez, "war is my true element, and the object of my labors these thirty-six years."
"Wait," said the other, as he bowed before going out; "we agree on one point, but there are six more to settle."
"My colleagues?"
"Yes; I do not want you to say that you are hampered by such a one. Choose your Cabinet, sir."
"Sire, you are fixing grave responsibility on me."
"I believe I am meeting your wishes by putting it on you."
"Sire, I know nobody at Paris save one, Lacoste, whom I propose for the navy office."
"Lacoste? A clerk in the naval stores, I believe?" questioned the king.
"Who resigned rather than connive at some foul play."
"That's a good recommendation. What about the others?'"
"I must consult Petion, Brissot, Condorcet – "
"The Girondists, in short?"
"Yes, sire."
"Let the Gironde pass; we shall see if they will get us out of the ditch better than the other parties."
"We have still to learn if the four dispatches will suit."
"We might learn that this evening; we can hold an extraordinary council, composed of yourself, Grave, and Gerville – Duport has resigned. But do not go yet; I want to commit you."
He had hardly spoken before the queen and Princess Elizabeth stood in the room, holding prayer-books.
"Ladies," said the king, "this is General Dumouriez, who promises to serve us well, and will arrange a new Cabinet with us this evening."
Dumouriez bowed, while the queen looked hard at the little man who was to exercise so much influence over the affairs of France.
"Do you know Doctor Gilbert?" she asked. "If not, make his acquaintance as an excellent prophet. Three months ago he foretold that you would be Count de Narbonne's successor."
The main doors opened, for the king was going to mass. Behind him Dumouriez went out; but the courtiers shunned him as though he had the leprosy.
"I told you I should get you committed," whispered the monarch.
"Committed to you, but not to the aristocracy," returned the warrior; "it is a fresh favor the king grants me." Whereupon he retired.
At the appointed hour he returned with the four dispatches promised – for Spain, Prussia, England, and Austria. He read them to the king and Messieurs Grave and Gerville, but he guessed that he had another auditor behind the tapestry by its shaking.
The new ruler spoke in the king's name, but in the sense of the Constitution, without threats, but also without weakness. He discussed the true interests of each power relatively to the French Revolution. As each had complained of the Jacobin pamphlets, he ascribed the despicable insults to the freedom of the press, a sun which made weeds to grow as well as good grain to flourish. Lastly, he demanded peace in the name of a free nation, of which the king was the hereditary representative.
The listening king lent fresh interest to each paper.
"I never heard the like, general," he said, when the reading was over.
"That is how ministers should speak and write in the name of rulers," observed Gerville.
"Well, give me the papers; they shall go off to-morrow," the king said.
"Sire, the messengers are waiting in the palace yard," said Dumouriez.
"I wanted to have a duplicate made to show the queen," objected the king, with marked hesitation.
"I foresaw the wish, and have copies here," replied Dumouriez.
"Send off the dispatches," rejoined the king.
The general took them to the door, behind which an aid was waiting. Immediately the gallop of several horses was heard leaving the Tuileries together.
"Be it so," said the king, replying to his mind, as the meaning sounds died away. "Now, about your Cabinet?"
"Monsieur Gerville pleads that his health will not allow him to remain, and Monsieur Grave, stung by a criticism of Madame Roland, wishes to hold office until his successor is found. I therefore pray your majesty to receive Colonel Servan, an honest man in the full acceptation of the words, of a solid material, pure manners, philosophical austerity, and a heart like a woman's, withal an enlightened patriot, a courageous soldier, and a vigilant statesman."
"Colonel Servan is taken. So we have three ministers: Dumouriez for the Foreign Office, Servan for War, and Lacoste for the Navy. Who shall be in the Treasury?"
"Clavieres, if you will. He is a man with great financial friends and supreme skill in handling money."
"Be it so. As for the Law lord?"
"A lawyer of Bordeaux has been recommended to me – Duranthon."
"Belonging to the Gironde party, of course?"
"Yes, sire, but enlightened, upright, a very good citizen, though slow and feeble; we will infuse fire into him and be strong enough for all of us."
"The Home Department remains."
"The general opinion is that this will be fitted to Roland."
"You mean Madame Roland?"
"To the Roland couple. I do not know them, but I am assured that the one resembles a character of Plutarch and the other a woman from Livy."
"Do you know that your Cabinet is already called the Breechless Ministry?"
"I accept the nickname, with the hope that it will be found without breaches."
"We will hold the council with them the day after to-morrow."
General Dumouriez was going away with his colleagues, when a valet called him aside and said that the king had something more to say to him.
"The king or the queen?" he questioned.
"It is the queen, sir; but she thought there was no need for those gentlemen to know that."
And Weber – for this was the Austrian foster-brother of Marie Antoinette – conducted the general to the queen's apartments, where he introduced him as the person sent for.
Dumouriez entered, with his heart beating more violently than when he led a charge or mounted the deadly breach. He fully understood that he had never stood in worse danger. The road he traveled was strewn with corpses, and he might stumble over the dead reputations