CHAPTER C.
THE QUEEN GIVES UP HER RING.
Marie Antoinette bore this tumultuous scene with the spirit of a martyr; nay, her own waning hopes had been exhilarated even by this rude homage, and she was willing to deceive herself into a belief that the people of France might yet be won to do her justice. So she smiled on the gay throng that danced and shouted before her, took the child in her lap, and told him to kiss his little hand to the people who loved him so, and laughed outright at some of the quaint compliments paid to her beauty.
While she was thus occupied, a group of young girls came into the broken procession, carrying garlands in their hands, and loose flowers in their aprons. They were led by a fair and gentle young creature whom the queen regarded with a glance of pleasant recognition. This girl stepped out from her companions, approached the throne, and laid her flowers at the feet of the queen, to whom her great blue eyes were lifted with a look of touching affection.
Marie Antoinette gathered up the flowers and held them in her lap with seeming carelessness, but her fingers had searched out the letter they concealed, and while apparently admiring the blossoms, she read,
“Have I performed my promise? Is the monarchy saved?
MIRABEAU.”
For answer the queen gathered up some of the flowers, and fastened them in the lace that shaded her bosom. A flash of light came into the young girl’s face. She arose, and her sweet lips joined in the song of her sister flower-girls, who broke into a regular dance, flinging up their long garlands as they waited for her.
“Long live the king! Long live the queen!”
With this shout ringing sweetly from their fresh lips, the flower-girls whirled away, waving their garlands, and tossing back loose blossoms to the steps of the throne.
There was no etiquette in these proceedings; all was wild, and brilliant confusion. The anarchy which followed was already foreshadowed in the shouts, dances, and songs, that turned what should have been an august assembly, into a revel.
After the flower-girls came the federates, full of enthusiasm, and after them the legislative assembly, in which Mirabeau walked with a step more haughty than any king of France ever assumed. His bold eyes fell upon the flushed face of the queen with a look of proud triumph, and the wonderful smile that made his strong face more than beautiful, swept it as he saw the flowers on her bosom. These flowers had a language of thanks that he read at a glance, and felt more keenly than words, for there was a touch of romance in them that fired his imagination.
The deputations and the assembly passed on; then came a change in the music, a hush, as if something of unusual interest were approaching. This dead silence was broken by low murmurs, more thrilling than shouts, while the thousands that still remained in the Champ de Mars surged around the altar and crowded toward the throne.
It was only seven men, bowed, thin, white-haired, and broken, who came slowly forward from a seat they had occupied, and with faltering steps, were about to pass before the throne.
The color fled from Marie Antoinette’s face when she saw this pitiful band of men, some old without years to make them so, all with a look of broken-hearted apathy in their eyes, ready to pass before the throne like ghosts calling for judgment. The king turned white, and a spasm of pain shot athwart his face. The nobles, who stood behind the throne, shrunk back, casting glances of sudden apprehension on each other. They need not have dreaded those poor broken men, for grief and privation had made them weak as little children. If any expression appeared upon their wan faces, it was that of vague, wondering gratitude toward the king, who saw them free, and made no protest.
The court of France was gathered, like ghosts, about the throne, upon which a shrinking king and queen sat, while the live shadows of an ancient despotism crept toward them with downcast faces, and steps that faltered in their walking.
Then a look of infinite pity came into the king’s face, and clasping his hands, like one who inwardly asks forgiveness of God for sins not altogether his own, he bowed his head upon his breast, and waited for these ghostly reproaches to pass on. But the queen sat upright, clasping her child firmly, as if to shield him from the indignant murmurs of the people, which came fearfully to her ear.
The seven prisoners—for these were all the Bastille contained when it was torn down—paused an instant before the throne, and one of them called out, in a broken voice,
“Thanks, sire, that you have made us free!”
The king lifted his head, and these wronged men saw that his eyes were full of tears. The people who stood nearest saw it, and the vindictive spirit which had forced this trying scene on their monarch, gave way to bursts of generous sympathy.
“Down with the Bastille! Long live the king!” burst from a thousand lips that had been bitter with curses a moment before.
“Down with the Bastille! Long live the king!” rolled back among the thousands already defiling toward Paris; and that which the extremists had intended as an insult, was rolled into the most glorious events of the day.
“Thank God that you are free!” said Louis, in a low voice, that scarcely reached any one but the queen. She spoke louder, and with generous enthusiasm.
“There are none among all these thousands who grieve for your sufferings, or desire their redress more than the king and his wife,” she said.
A quivering shout broke from those feeble old men; some of them tried to smile, others began to cry, and one came forward, tottering feebly in his walk, and with his thin hand outstretched,
“Give it me! If you have pity, give it me! For your own sake, for mine; for the sake of those who come after us, give me the ring upon your finger!”
His eyes shone as he spoke; the white beard upon his bosom quivered with the eager intensity of his words.
The queen hastily took a ring from the starlike jewels that flashed on her hand, and leaning forward, held it toward the old man.
“Ah! if a ring could atone!” she said, with the brightness of great sympathy in her eyes, “there is enough for you all!”
“Not that!” said the old man, impatiently shaking his head. “Give me that other—the golden serpent—the green beetle that has slept in the tombs of Egypt thousands on thousands of years! Give me that!”
“What, this?” said the queen, looking with a thrill of awe on the tiny, golden serpent strangling a beetle, which was coiled around one of her fingers, looking old and weird among her other shining jewels. “It came to me in a strange way, and I have worn it long. Will no other do? This is of less worth than any.”
“Give me that!” persisted the old man. “I want no other! Take it from your finger, lady; the hand is cursed around which that serpent coils!”
How eager he was; how his faded eyes shone and sparkled. He clutched one thin hand in the silver of his beard, and twisted it in an agony of impatience.
“Grief has touched his mind,” thought the queen, drawing the ring from her finger. “After all, why should I care for this more than another, only because I found it on my toilet years ago, and could never learn how it came there?”
Still she hesitated and held the ring irresolute. There seemed to be a fascination about the antique gem that troubled every one who touched it. The prisoner’s hands began to quiver, and his eyes grew keen as a serpent’s. Inch by inch he crept nearer to the throne, with the look of a man who meant to seize upon his prize if it were not readily given up.
“Give it to me! Give it to me! Your mother would not have withheld it a moment!”
“My mother! You speak——”
“Of Maria Theresa—the empress! The great and good empress—my august sovereign!”
The queen reached forth her hand and gave him the ring.
He grasped it; he pressed it to his bosom and lifted it to his lips in a wild passion of delight. It seemed to fire both heart and brain with new life—to lift a weight from his shoulders, and give vigor to his limbs. He fell upon his knees before the queen, and pressed the hem of her robe to his lips, murmuring thanks and blessings in her native language.
“It may be averted! This was a soul, a life to me, but the most venomous serpent on your hand. It has filled your life with hate and tumult. Be at rest now, the evil has departed from your house, from you and from yours.”
The old man arose and stood upright, as if he had been aroused from a long, dim dream. The unutterable sadness had gone out from his face; he turned toward his astonished companions smiling.
“The old man is mad,” said Marie Antoinette, leaning toward the king. “Why should he care for that ring more than another?”
Louis smiled. How could he answer? This scene had made but little impression on him; and those around only knew that the queen had given a ring from her own hand to the oldest and most picturesque of the seven prisoners; but this was enough for a new excitement, and a shout of “Long live the queen!” broke through the noise of their revelry.