Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 9

"Yes, sire, I confess it," answered the cardinal, with a low voice, which seemed to contradict what he uttered.

"He confesses it," cried the queen, gnas.h.i.+ng her teeth, and making up her little hand into a clinched fist. "He has held me fit for such infamy--me, his queen!"

"You a.s.sert that you bought the jewels for the queen. Did you deliver them in person?"

"No, sire, the Countess Lamotte did that."

"In your name, cardinal?"

"Yes, in my name, sire, and she gave at the same time a receipt to the queen for one hundred and fifty thousand francs, which I lent the queen toward the purchase."

"And what reward did you have from the queen?"

The cardinal hesitated; then, as he felt the angry, cold, and contemning look of the queen resting upon him, the red blood mounted into his face, and with a withering glance at Marie Antoinette, he said:

"You wish, madame, that I should speak the whole truth! Sire, the queen rewarded me for this little work of love in a manner worthy of a queen. She granted me an appointment in the park of Versailles."

At this new and fearful charge, the queen cried aloud, and, springing forward like a tigress, she seized the arm of her husband and shook it.

"Sire," said she, "listen to this high traitor, bringing infamy upon a queen! Will you bear it? Can his purple protect the villain?"

"No, it cannot, and it shall not!" cried the king. "Breteuil, do your duty. And you, cardinal, who venture to accuse your queen, to scandalize the good name of the wife of your king, go."

"Sire," stammered the cardinal, "sire, I--"

"Not a word," interrupted the king, raising his hand and pointing toward the door, "out, I say, out with you!"

The cardinal staggered to the door, and entered the hall filled with a glittering throng, who were still whispering, laughing, and walking to and fro.

But hardly had he advanced a few steps, when behind him, upon the threshold of the royal cabinet, appeared the minister Breteuil.

"Lieutenant," cried Breteuil, with a loud voice, turning to the officer in command of the guard, "lieutenant, in the name of the king, arrest the Cardinal de Rohan, and take him under escort to the Bastile."

A general cry of horror followed these words, which rolled like a cras.h.i.+ng thunder-clap through the careless, coquetting, and unsuspecting company. Then followed a breathless silence.

All eyes were directed to the cardinal, who, pale as death, and yet maintaining his n.o.ble carriage, walked along at ease.

At this point a young officer, pale like the cardinal, like all in fact, approached the great ecclesiastic, and gently took his arm.

"Cardinal," said he, with sorrowful tone, "in the name of the king, I arrest your eminence. I am ordered, monseigneur, to conduct you to the Bastile."

"Come, then, my son," answered the cardinal, quickly, making his way slowly through the throng, which respectfully opened to let him pa.s.s--" come, since the king commands it, let us go to the Bastile."

He pa.s.sed on to the door. But when the officer had opened it, he turned round once more to the hall. Standing erect, with all the exalted dignity of his station and his person, he gave the amazed company his blessing.

Then the door closed behind him, and with pale faces the lords and ladies of the court dispersed to convey the horrible tidings to Versailles and Paris, that the king had caused the cardinal, the grand almoner of France, to be arrested in his official robes, and that it was the will of the queen.

And the farther the tidings rolled the more the report enlarged, like an avalanche of calumnies.

In the evening, Marat thundered in his club: "Woe, woe to the Austrian! She borrowed money of the Cardinal de Rohan to buy jewels for herself, jewels while the people hungered. Now, when the cardinal wants his money, the queen denies having received the money, and lets the head of the Church be dragged to the Bastile.

"Woe, woe to the Austrian!"

"Woe, woe to the Austrian!" muttered brother Simon, who sat near the platform on which Marat was. "We shall not forget it that she buys her jewels for millions of francs, while we have not a sou to buy bread with. Woe to the Austrian!"

And all the men of the club raised their fists and muttered with him, "Woe to the Austrian!"

CHAPTER V.

ENEMIES AND FRIENDS.

All Paris was in an uproar and in motion in all the streets; the people a.s.sembled in immense ma.s.ses at all the squares, and listened with abated breath to the speakers who had taken their stand amid the groups, and who were confirming the astonished hearers respecting the great news of the day.

"The Lord Cardinal de Rohan, the grand almoner of the king," cried a Franciscan monk, who had taken his station upon a curbstone, at the corner of the Tuileries and the great Place de Carrousel--"Cardinal de Rohan has in a despotic manner been deprived of his rights and his freedom. As a dignitary of the Church, he is not under the ordinary jurisdiction, and only the Pope is the rightful lord of a cardinal; only before the Holy Father can an accusation be brought against a servant of the Church. For it has been the law of the Church for centuries that it alone has the power to punish and accuse its servants, and no one has ever attempted to challenge that power. But do you know what has taken place? Cardinal de Rohan has been withdrawn from the jurisdiction of his rightful judges; he has been denied an ecclesiastical tribunal, and he is to be tried before Parliament as if he were an ordinary servant of the king; secular judges are going to sit in judgment upon this great church dignitary, and to charge him with a crime, when no crime has been committed! For what has he done, the grand almoner of France, cardinal, and cousin of the king? A lady, whom he believed to be in the queen's confidence, had told him that the queen wanted to procure a set of jewels, which she was unfortunately not able to buy, because her coffers, as a natural result of her well-known extravagance, were empty. The lady indicated to the lord cardinal that the queen would be delighted if he would advance a sum sufficient to buy the jewels with, and in his name she would cause the costly fabric to be purchased. The cardinal, all the while a devoted and true servant of the king, hastened to gratify the desire of the queen. He took this course with wise precaution, in order that the queen, whose violence is well known, should not apply to any other member of the court, and still further compromise the royal honor. And say yourselves, my n.o.ble friends, was it not much better that it should be the lord cardinal who should lend money to the queen, than Lord Lauzun, Count Coigny, or the musical Count Vaudreuil, the special favorite of the queen? Was it not better for him to make this sacrifice and do the queen this great favor?"

"Certainly it was better," cried the mob. "The lord cardinal is a n.o.ble man. Long live Cardinal de Rohan!"

"Perish the Austrian, perish the jewelled queen!" cried the cobbler Simon, who was standing amid the crowd, and a hundred voices muttered after him, "Perish the Austrian!"

"Listen, my dear people of Paris, you good natured lambs, whose wool is plucked off that the Austrian woman may have a softer bed," cried a shrieking voice; "hear what has occurred to-day. I can tell you accurately, for I have just come from Parliament, and a good friend of mine has copied for me the address with which the king is going to open the session today."

"Read it to us," cried the crowd. "Keep quiet there! keep still there! We want to hear the address. Read it to us."

"I will do it gladly, but you will not be able to understand me,"

shrieked the voice. "I am only little in comparison with you, as every one is little who opposes himself to the highest majesty of the earth, the people."

"Hear that," cried one of those who stood nearest to those a little farther away " hear that, he calls us majesties! He seems to be an excellent gentleman, and he does not look down upon us."

"Did you ever hear of a wise man looking down upon the prince royal, who is young, fair, and strong?" asked the barking voice.

"He is right, we cannot understand him," cried those who stood farthest away, pressing forward. "What did he say? He must repeat his words. Lift him up so that we all may hear him."

A broad shouldered, gigantic citizen, in good clothing, and with an open, spirited countenance, and a bold, defiant bearing, pressed through the crowd to the neighborhood of the speaker.

"Come, little man," cried he, "I will raise you up on my shoulder, and, but see, it is our friend Marat, the little man, but the great doctor!"

"And you truly, you are my friend Santerre, the great man and the greatest of doctors. For the beer which you get from his brewery is a better medicine for the people than all my electuaries can be. And you, my worthy friend of the hop-pole, will you condescend to take the ugly monkey Marat on your shoulders, that he may tell the people the great news of the day?"

Instead of answering, the brewer Santerre seized the little crooked man by both arms, swung him up with giant strength, and set him on his shoulders.

The people, delighted with the dexterity and strength of the herculean man, broke into a loud cheer, and applauded the brewer, whom all knew, and who was a popular personage in the city. But Marat, too, the horse-doctor of the Count d'Artois, as he called himself derisively, the doctor of poverty and misfortune, as his flatterers termed him--Marat, too, was known to many in the throng, and after Santerre had been applauded, they saluted Marat with a loud vivat, and with boisterous clapping of hands.

He turned his distorted, ugly visage toward the Tuileries, whose ma.s.sive proportions towered up above the lofty trees of the gardens, and with a threatening gesture shook his fist at the royal palace.

"Have you heard it, you proud G.o.ds of the earth? Have you heard the sacred thunder mutterings of majesty? Are you not startled from the sleep of your vice, and compelled to fall upon your knees and pray, as poor sinners do before their judgment? But no. You do not see and you do not hear. Your ears are deaf and your hearts are sealed!