Александр Дюма
The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI
CHAPTER XVI.
THE WIDOW
During the slaying of the last of his adherents, what was the monarch doing? Being hungry, he called for his dinner.
Bread and wine, cold fowl, and meat, and fruit were brought him. He set to eating as if he were at a hunting-party, without noticing how he was stared at.
Among the eyes fixed on him was a pair burning because tears would not come. They were the queen's. It seemed to her that she could stay there forever, with her feet in her beloved's blood, living like a flower on the grave, with no nourishment but such as death affords.
She had suffered much lately, but never so as to see the king eating, for the position of affairs was serious enough to take away a man's appetite.
The Assembly, rather than protect him, had need of protection for itself. It was threatened by a formidable multitude roaring for the dethronement, and they obeyed by a decree. It proposed a National Convention, the head of the executive power being temporarily suspended from his functions. The Civil List was not to be paid. The king and family were to remain with the Assembly until order was restored; then they were to be placed in the Luxembourg Palace. Vergniaud told the deposed sovereign that it was the only way to save his neck.
This decree was proclaimed by torch-light that night.
The lights at the Tuileries fell on the ghastly scenes of the searchers and the mourners among the dead. Three thousand five hundred insurgents – to omit two hundred thieves shot by the rioters – had perished. This supposes as many wounded at the least. As the tumbrels rolled with the corpses to the working quarters, a chorus of curses went up against the king, the queen, their foreign camerilla, the nobles who had counseled them. Some swore revenge, and they had it in the coming massacres; others took up weapons and ran to the palace to vent their spite on the dead Swiss; others again crowded round the Assembly and the abbey where were prisoners, shouting "Vengeance."
The Tuileries presented an awful sight: smoking and bloody, deserted by all except the military posts which watched lest, under pretense of finding their dead, pillagers robbed the poor royal residence with its broken doors and smashed windows.
The post under the great clock, the main stairs, was commanded by a young captain of the National Guard, who was no doubt inspired by deep pity by the disaster, if one might judge by the expression of his countenance as each cart-load of dead was removed.
But the dreadful events did not seem to affect him a whit more than they had the deposed king. For, about eleven at night, he was busy in satisfying a monstrous appetite at the expense of a quartern loaf held under his left arm, while his knife-armed right hand unceasingly sliced off hunks of goodly size, which he inserted into a mouth opening to suit the dimensions of the piece.
Leaning against a vestibule pillar, he was watching the silent procession go by, like shades of mothers, wives and daughters, in the glare of torches set up here and there; they were asking of the extinct crater for the remains of their dear ones.
Suddenly the young officer started at the sight of one veiled phantom.
"It is the Countess of Charny," he muttered.
The shadow passed without seeing or hearing him.
The captain beckoned to his lieutenant.
"Desire," he said to him, on coming up, "yonder goes a poor lady of Doctor Gilbert's acquaintance, who is no doubt looking for her husband among the dead. I think of following her, in case she should need help and advice. I leave the command to you; keep good guard for both of us."
"Hang me if Doctor Gilbert's acquaintance has not a deucedly aristocratic bearing," remarked Lieutenant Desire Maniquet.
"Because she is an aristocrat – she is a countess," replied the officer.
"Go along; I will look out."
The Countess of Charny had already turned the first corner of the stairs, when the captain, detaching himself from his men, began to follow her at the respectful distance of fifteen paces. He was not mistaken. Poor Andrea was looking for her husband, not with the anxious thrill of doubt, but with the dull conviction of despair.
When Charny had been aroused in the midst of his joy and happiness by the echo of deeds in Paris, he had come, pale but resolute, to say to his wife:
"Dear Andrea, the King of France runs the risk of his life, and needs all his defenders. What ought I do?"
"Go where duty calls you, my dear George," she had replied, "and die for the king if you must."
"But how about you?" he asked.
"Do not be uneasy about me," she said. "As I live but in you, God may allow that we shall die together."
That settled all between those great hearts; they did not exchange a word further. When the post-horses came to the door, they set out, and were in town in five hours.
That same evening, we have seen Charny present himself for duty in his naval uniform at the same time that Dr. Gilbert was going to send for him.
Since that hour we know that he never quitted the queen.
Andrea had remained alone, shut in, praying; for a space she entertained the idea of imitating her husband, and claiming her station beside the queen, as he had beside the king; but she had not the courage.
The day of the ninth passed for her in anguish, but without anything positive. At nine in the morning next day she heard the cannon; it is needless to say that each echo of the war-like thunder thrilled her to the inmost fiber of her heart. The firing died out about two o'clock.
Were the people defeated, or the victors? she questioned, and was told that the people had won the day.
What had become of Charny in this terrible fray? She was sure that he had taken a leading part. On making inquiries again, she was told that the Swiss were slain, but most of the noblemen had got away.
But the night passed without his coming. In August, night comes late.
Not till ten o'clock did Andrea lose hope, when she drew a veil over her face and went out.
All along the road she met clusters of women wringing their hands and bands of men howling for revenge. She passed among them, protected by the grief of one and the rage of the other; besides, they were man-hunting that night, and not for women.
The women of both parties were weeping.
Arriving on the Carrousel, Andrea heard the proclamation that the rulers were deposed and safe under the wing of the Assembly, which was all she understood.
Seeing some carts go by, she asked what they carried, and was told the dead from the palace yards. Only the dead were being removed; the turn of the wounded would come later.
She thought that Charny would have fallen at the door of the rooms of the king or the queen, so she entered the palace. It was at the moment when Pitou, commanding the main entrance as the captain, saw, and, recognizing her, followed.
It is not possible to give an idea of the devastation in the Tuileries.
Blood poured out of the rooms and spouted like cascades down the stairs. In some of the chambers the bodies yet lay.
Like the other searchers, Andrea took a torch and looked at body after body. Thus she made her way to the royal rooms. Pitou still followed her.
Here, as in the other rooms, she sought in vain; she paused, undecided whither to turn. Seeing her embarrassment, the soldier went up to her.
"Alas, I suspect what your ladyship is seeking!" he said.
"Captain Pitou?" Andrea exclaimed.
"At your service."
"Yes, yes, I have great need of you," she said. Going to him, she took both his hands, and continued: "Do you know what has become of the Count of Charny?"
"I do not, my lady; but I can help you to look for him."
"There is one person who can tell us whether he is dead or alive, and where he is in either case," observed Andrea.
"Who is that, my lady?" queried the peasant.
"The queen," muttered Andrea.
"Do you know where she is?" inquired Pitou.
"I believe she is in the House, and I have still the hope that my Lord Charny is with her."
"Why, yes, yes," said Pitou, snatching at the hope for the mourner's sake; "would you like to go into the House?"
"But they may refuse me admission."
"I'll undertake to get the doors to open."
"Come, then."
Andrea flung the flambeau from her at the risk of setting fire to the place, for what mattered the Tuileries to her in such desperation? so deep that she could not find tears.
From having lived in the palace as the queen's attendant, she knew all the ways, and she led them back by short cuts to the grand entrance where Maniquet was on the lookout.
"How is your countess getting on?" he inquired.
"She hopes to find her lord in the House, where we are going. As we may find him," he added, in a low voice, "but dead, send me four stout lads to the Feuillants' gate, whom I may rely on to defend the body of an aristocrat as well as though a good patriot's."
"All right; go ahead with your countess; I will send the men."
Andrea was waiting at the garden end, where a sentry was posted; but as that was done by Pitou, he naturally let his captain pass.
The palace gardens were lighted by lamps set mostly on the statue pedestals. As it was almost as warm as in the heat of the day, and the slight breeze barely ruffled the leaves, the lamp-flames rose straight, like spear-heads, and lighted up the corpses strewn under the trees.
But Andrea felt so convinced that she should find her husband where the queen had taken refuge, that she walked on, without looking to either right or left. Thus they reached the Feuillants' gate.
The royal family had been gone an hour, and were in the record office, for the time. To reach them, there were two obstacles to pass: the guards and the royal attendants.
Pitou, as commanding the Tuileries, had the password, and could therefore conduct the lady up to the line of gentlemen.
The former favorite of the queen had but to use her name to take the next step.
On entering the little room reserved for her, the queen had thrown herself on the bed, and bit the pillow amid sobs and tears.
Certainly, one who had lost a throne and liberty, and perhaps would lose her life, had lost enough for no one to chaffer about the degree of her despair, and not to seek behind her deep abasement if some keener sorrow still did not draw these tears from her eyes and sobs from her bosom.
Owing to the respect inspired by this supreme grief, she had been left alone at the first.
She heard the room door open, but as it might be that from the king's, she did not turn; though she heard steps approaching her pillow, she did not lift her head from it.
But suddenly she sprung up, as though a serpent had stung her.
A well-known voice had simply uttered the single word, "Madame."
"Andrea?" cried Marie Antoinette, rising on her elbow. "What do you want?"
"I want the answer God demanded of Cain when He said, 'What have you done with your brother'?"
"With this difference," returned the queen, "That Cain had killed his brother; whereas I – so gladly – would give not only my existence, but ten lives, to save his dear one."
Andrea staggered; a cold sweat burst out on her forehead, and her teeth chattered.
"Then he was killed?" she faltered, making a great effort.
"Do you think I am wailing for my crown?" demanded the fallen majesty, looking hard at her. "Do you believe that if this blood were mine" – here she showed her dyed foot – "I should not have washed it off?"
Andrea became lividly pale.
"Then you know where his body is?" she said.
"I could take you to it, if I were allowed to go forth," said the prisoner.
Andrea went out at the door by which Pitou was waiting.
"Captain," she said, "one of my friends, a lady of the queen's, offers to take me where the count's body is. May she go out with me?"
"On condition that you bring her back whence she came," said the officer.
"That will do."
"Comrade," said Pitou to his sentry, "one of the queen's women wants to go out to help us find the body of a brave officer of whom this lady is the widow. I will answer for her with my head."
"That is good enough for me, captain," was the reply.
The anteroom door opened and the queen appeared, but she had a veil wound round her head. They went down the stairs, the queen leading.
After a twenty-seven hours' session, the House had adjourned, and the immense hall, where so much noise and so many events had been compressed, was dumb, void, and somber as a sepulcher.
The queen called for a light. Pitou picked up an extinguished link, lighted it at a lantern, and handed it to her, and she resumed the march. As they passed the entrance door, the queen pointed to it.
"He was killed there," she said.
Andrea did not reply; she seemed a specter haunting one who had called her up.
The queen lowered the torch to the floor in the lobby, saying: "Behold his blood."
Andrea remained mute.
The conductress went straight to a closet attached to the "Logographe" box, pulled the door open, and said, as she held up the light to illumine the interior:
"Here is his body."
Andrea entered the room, knelt down, and taking the head upon her knee, she said:
"Madame, I thank you; this is all I wanted of you."
"But I have something to ask you – won't you forgive me?"
There fell a short silence, as though Andrea were reflecting.
"Yes," she replied, at length, "for I shall be with him on the morrow."
The queen drew a pair of scissors from her bosom, where they were hidden like a weapon to be used in an extremity.
"Then would you kindly – " She spoke almost supplicatingly, as she held out the joined blades to the mourner.
Andrea cut a lock of hair from the corpse's brow, and handed it and the instrument to the other. She caught her hand and kissed it, but Andrea snatched away hers, as though the lips of her royal mistress had scorched her.
"Ah!" muttered the queen, throwing a last glance on the remains, "who can tell which of us loved him the most?"
"Oh, my darling George," retorted Andrea, in the same low tone, "I trust that you at least know now that I loved you the best!"
The queen went back on the way to her prison, leaving Andrea with the remains of her husband, on which a pale moonbeam fell through a small grated window, like the gaze of a friend.
Without knowing who she was, Pitou conducted Marie Antoinette, and saw her safely lodged. Relieved of his responsibility toward the soldier on guard, he went out on the terrace to see if the squad he had asked of Maniquet had arrived. The four were waiting.
"Come in," said Pitou.
Using the torch which he had taken from the queen's hands, he led his men to the room where Andrea was still gazing on her husband's white but still handsome face in the moonshine. The torch-light made her look up.
"What do you want?" she challenged of the Guards, as though she thought they came to rob her of the dead.
"My lady," said Pitou, "we come to carry the body of Count Charny to his house in Coq-Heron Street."
"Will you swear to me that it is purely for that?" Andrea asked.
Pitou held out his hand over the dead body with a dignity of which he might be believed incapable.
"Then I owe you apology, and I will pray God," said Andrea, "in my last moments, to spare you and yours such woe as He hath afflicted me with."
The four men took up the warrior on their muskets, and Pitou, with his drawn sword, placed himself at the head of the funeral party. Andrea walked beside the corpse, holding the cold and rigid hand in her own. They put the body on the countess's bed, when that lady said to the National Guardsmen:
"Receive the blessings of one who will pray to God for you to-morrow before Him. Captain Pitou," she added, "I owe you more than I ever can repay you. May I rely on you for a final service?"
"Order me, madame."
"Arrange that Doctor Gilbert shall be here at eight o'clock in the morning."
Pitou bowed and went out. Turning his head as he did so, he saw Andrea kneel at the bed as at an altar.
CHAPTER XVII.
WHAT ANDREA WANTED OF GILBERT
At eight precisely next day, Gilbert knocked at the house-door of the Countess of Charny.
On hearing of her request made to Pitou, he had asked him for full particulars of the occurrence, and he had pondered over them.
As he went out in the morning, he sent for Pitou to go to the college where his son and Andrea's, Sebastian, was being educated, and bring him to Coq-Heron Street. He was to wait at the door there for the physician to come out.
No doubt the old janitor had been informed of the doctor's visit, for he showed him at once into the sitting-room.
Andrea was waiting, clad in full mourning. It was clear that she had neither slept nor wept all the night through; her face was pale and her eyes dry. Never had the lines of her countenance, always indicative of willfulness carried to the degree of stubbornness, been more firmly fixed.
It was hard to tell what resolution that loving heart had settled on, but it was plain that it had come to one. This was comprehended by Gilbert at a first glance, as he was a skilled observer and a reasoning physician.
He bowed and waited.
"I asked you to come because I want a favor done, and it must be put to one who can not refuse it me."
"You are right, madame; not, perhaps, in what you are about to ask, but in what you have done; for you have the right to claim of me anything, even to my life."
She smiled bitterly.
"Your life, sir, is one of those so precious to mankind that I should be the first to pray God to prolong it and make it happy, far from wishing it abridged. But acknowledge that yours is placed under happy influences, as there are others seemingly doomed beneath a fatal star."
Gilbert was silent.
"Mine, for instance," went on Andrea; "what do you say about mine? Let me recall it briefly," she said, as Gilbert lowered his eyes. "I was born poor. My father was a ruined spendthrift before I was born. My childhood was sad and lonesome. You knew what my father was, as you were born on his estate and grew up in our house, and you can measure the little affection he had for me.
"Two persons, one of whom was bound to be a stranger to me, while the other was unknown, exercised a fatal and mysterious sway over me, in which my will went for naught. One disposed of my soul, the other of my body. I became a mother without ceasing to be a virgin. By this horrid event I nearly lost the love of the only being who ever loved me – my brother Philip.
"I took refuge in the idea of motherhood, and that my babe would love me; but it was snatched from me within an hour of its birth. I was therefore a wife without a husband, a mother without a child.
"A queen's friendship consoled me.
"One day chance sent me in a public vehicle with the queen and a handsome young gallant, whom fatality caused me to love, though I had never loved a soul.
"He fell in love with the queen. I became the confidante in this amour. As I believe you have loved without return, Doctor Gilbert, you can understand what I suffered. Yet this was not enough. It happened on a day that the queen came to me to say: 'Andrea, save my life; more than life – my honor!' It was necessary that I should become the bride of the man I had loved three years without becoming his wife. I agreed. Five years I dwelt beside that man, flame within, but ice without; a statue with a burning heart. Doctor, as a doctor, can you understand what my heart went through?
"One day – day of unspeakable bliss – my self-sacrifice, silence, and devotion touched that man. For six years I loved him without letting him suspect it by a look, when he came all of a quiver to throw himself at my feet and cry: 'I know all, and I love you!'
"Willing to recompense me, God, in giving me my husband, restored me my child. A year flew by like a day – nay, an hour, a minute. This year is all I call my life.
"Four days ago the lightning fell at my feet. The count's honor bid him go to Paris, to die there. I did not make any remark, did not shed a tear; I went with him. Hardly had we arrived before he parted from me. Last night I found him, slain. There he rests, in the next room.
"Do you think I am too ambitious to crave to lie in the same grave? Do you believe you can refuse the request I make to you?
"Doctor Gilbert, you are a learned physician and a skillful chemist. You have been guilty of great wrongs to me, and you have much to expiate as regards me. Well, give me a swift sure poison, and I shall not merely forgive you all, but die with a heart full of gratitude to you."
"Madame," replied Gilbert, "as you say, your life has been one long, dolorous trial, and for it all glory be yours, since you have borne it nobly and saintly, like a martyr."
She gave an impatient toss of the head, as if she wanted a direct answer.
"Now you say to your torturer: 'You made my life a misery; give me a sweet death.' You have the right to do this, and there is reason in your adding: 'You must do it, for you have no right to refuse me anything,' Do you still want the poison?"
"I entreat you to be friend enough to give it me."
"Is life so heavy to you that it is impossible for you to support it?"
"Death is the sweetest boon man can give me; the greatest blessing God may grant me."
"In ten minutes you shall have your wish, madame," responded Gilbert, bowing and taking a step toward the door.
"Ah!" said the lady, holding out her hand to him, "you do me more kindness in an instant than you did harm in all your life. God bless you, Gilbert!"
He hurried out. At the door he found Pitou and Sebastian, waiting in a hack.
"Sebastian," he said to the youth, drawing a small vial attached to a gold chain from inside his clothes at his breast, "take this flask of liquor to the Countess of Charny."
"How long am I to stay with her?"
"As long as you like."
"Where am I to find you?"
"I shall be waiting here."
Taking the small bottle, the young man went in-doors. In a quarter of an hour he came forth. Gilbert cast on him a rapid glance. He brought back the tiny flask untouched.
"What did she say?" asked Gilbert.
"'Not from your hand, my child!'"
"What did she do then?"
"She fell a-weeping."
"She is saved," said Gilbert. "Come, my boy," and he embraced him more tenderly than ever before. In clasping him to his heart, he heard the crackling of paper.
"What is that?" he asked, with a nervous laugh of joy. "Do you by chance carry your compositions in your breast-pocket?"
"There, I had forgotten," said the youth, taking a parchment from his pocket. "The countess gave it me, and says it is to be deposited in the proper registry."
The doctor examined the paper. It was a document which empowered, in default of heirs male, to the titles of Philip de Taverney, Knight of Redcastle, Sebastian Emile Gilbert, son of Andrea Taverney, Countess of Charny, to wear that title honorarily until the king should make it good to him by favor of his mother's service to the Crown, and perhaps award him the estates to maintain the dignity.
"Keep it," said Gilbert, with a melancholy smile; "as well date it from the Greek kalends! The king, I fear, will nevermore dispose of more than six-feet-by-three of landed property in his once kingdom of France."
Gilbert could jest, for he believed Andrea saved.
He had reckoned without Marat. A week after, he learned that the scoundrel had denounced the favorite of the queen, and that the widowed Countess of Charny had been arrested and lodged in the old Abbey Prison.
