Joseph II. and His Court Part 110

LE ROI EST MORT, VIVE LE ROI!

It was the evening of the tenth of May, 1774. The palace of Versailles, the seat of royal splendor, was gloomy, silent, and empty. Regality, erst so pleasure-loving and voluptuous, now lay with crown all dim, and purple all stained, awaiting the last sigh of an old, expiring king, whose demise was to restore to it an inheritance of youth, beauty, and strength.

In one wing of the palace royalty hovered over a youthful pair, as the genius of hope; in another it frowned upon the weak old king as the implacable angel of death.

Louis the Fifteenth was balancing the great account of his life--a life of luxury, voluptuousness, and supreme selfishness. Yielding to the entreaties of his daughters, he had sent for the Archbishop of Paris; but knowing perfectly well that the sacraments of the church would not be administered under a roof which was polluted by the presence of Du Barry, the old libertine had banished her to the Chateau de Ruelles.

But Monseigneur de Beaumontr required something more than this of the royal sinner. He exacted that he should make public confession of his scandalous life in presence of the court to which he had given such shameful example. The king had struggled against such open humiliation, but the archbishop was firm, and the fear of death predominating over pride, Louis consented to make the sacrifice.

For three days the courtiers had hung about the anteroom, afraid to enter (for the king's disease was small-pox), yet afraid to take flight, lest by some chance he should recover. But now the doors of the royal apartments were flung wide open, and there was great trepidation among the crowd. The archbishop in his canonicals was seen standing by the bed of state; on one side of him stood the grand almoner, and on the other the minister, the Duke d'Aiguillon. At the foot of the bed knelt the daughters of the king, who in soft whispers were trying to comfort their miserable father.

"The king wishes to bid adieu to his friends!" cried the Duke d'Aiguillon, in a loud voice.

Here was a dilemma! Everybody was afraid of the small-pox, for the handsome Marquis de Letorieres, whom Louis had insisted upon seeing, had just died of the infection, and n.o.body desired to follow him. And yet the king might outlive this attack, and then--what?

Once more the Duke d'Aiguillon called out for the king's friends; and, trembling from apprehension of results that might follow this latter contingency, they entered the chamber of death. The atmosphere was fearful. Not all the fumes of the incense which was sending its vapory wreaths to the pictured ceilings could overpower the odor of approaching dissolution. In vain the acolytes swung their golden censers--death was there, and the scent of the grave.

Breathless and with compressed lips the king's friends listened to his indistinct mutterings, and looked upon his swollen, livid, blackened face. Each one had hurried by, and now they all were free again, and were preparing to fly as far as possible from the infected spot. But the clear, solemn voice of the archbishop--that voice which so often had stricken terror to their worldly hearts--was heard again, and he bade them stay.

"The king asks pardon of his subjects for the wicked and scandalous life which he has led on earth," said the archbishop. "Although as a man he is responsible to G.o.d alone for his deeds, as a sovereign he acknowledges to his subjects that he heartily repents of his wickedness, and desires to live only that he may do penance for the past and make amends for the future."

A piteous groan escaped from the lips of the dying monarch, but his "friends" did not stay to hear it; they fled precipitately from the frightful scene.

While here a trembling soul was being driven from its earthly dwelling, in another wing of the palace the other members of the royal family were in the chapel at prayer. The evening services were over, and the chaplain was reading the "forty hours' prayer," when the sky became suddenly obscured, peal upon peal of thunder resounded along the heavens, and night enveloped the chapel in its dismal pall of black.

Livid flashes of lightning lit up the pale faces of the royal supplicants, while to every faltering prayer that fell from their lips the answer came from above in the roar of the angry thunder-clap.

There, before the altar, knelt the doomed pair, the innocent heirs of a selfish and luxurious race of kings; whose sins were to be visited upon their unconscious heads. No wonder they wept--no wonder they shuddered on the dark and stormy night which heralded their reign.

The rites were ended, and the dauphin and dauphiness went silently together to their apartments. The few trusty attendants who were gathered in the anteroom greeted them with faint smiles, and uttered silent orisons in their behalf; for who could help compa.s.sionating these two young creatures, upon whose inexperienced heads the th.o.r.n.y crown of royalty was so soon to be placed?

As they entered the door, a flash of lightning; that seemed like the fire which smote the guilty cities of Israel, flashed athwart their paths, and the thunder cracked and rattled above the roof as though it had been riving that palace-dome asunder. The dauphiness cried out, and clung to her husband's arm. He, scarcely less appalled, stood motionless on the threshold.

The violence of the wind at that moment had burst open some outer door.

The lights in the chandeliers were almost extinguished, and one solitary wax-light, that had been burning in the recess of a window, went entirely out. Regardless of etiquette, and of the presence of the royal pair, Monsieur de Campan sprang to the chandelier, and, relighting the candle, quickly replaced it in the window.

The dauphin beheld the act with astonishment, for no one at that court was more observant of decorum than Monsieur de Campan.

"What means that light in the window?" inquired the dauphin, in his clear, touching voice.

"Pardon me, your highness, it is merely a ceremony," replied Monsieur de Campan, confused.

"What ceremony?" asked the dauphin, with surprise.

"Your highness commands me?"

"I request you--if the dauphiness permits," said Louis, turning to his wife, who, almost exhausted, leaned for support against him, and bowed her head.

"Your majesty has given orders, that as soon as the event, which is about to take place, has occurred, the whole court shall leave Versailles for Choisy. Now it would not be possible to issue verbal orders in such a moment as the one which we await; so that the master of the horse and myself had agreed upon a signal by which the matter could be arranged without speech. The garden du corps, pages, equerries, coaches, coachmen, and outriders, are all a.s.sembled in the court-yard, their eyes fixed upon this light. As soon as it is extinguished, it will be understood that the moment has arrived when the court is to leave Versailles."

"The disappearance of the light, then, will communicate the tidings of the king's death?"

Monsieur de Campan bowed. Louis drew his wife hurriedly forward, and pa.s.sed into another room, where, with his hands folded behind him, he walked to and fro.

"G.o.d is just," murmured he to himself, "and there is retribution in heaven."

Marie Antoinette, whose large violet eyes had followed her husband's motions, raised them to his face with a look of inquiry. She rose from the divan on which she was sitting, and putting her small, white hand upon the dauphin's shoulder, said:

"What do you mean, Louis?"

"I mean that this solitary light, for whose disappearance these people are waiting, s.h.i.+nes in retribution for the fearful death-bed of my father."

"I do not understand."

"No, Antoinette, how should you? You have never heard the tragic story of my father's death, have you?"

"No, my husband," said she, tenderly; "tell it to me now."

"I will, Antoinette. He was one of the best and truest hearts that ever lived; and yet these selfish courtiers all forsook him in his dying hour. He lay alone and abandoned in his room by all save my angelic mother, who nursed him as loving woman alone can nurse. The court was at Fontainebleau, and the dauphin's father announced that as soon as his son had expired, they would all journey to Choisy. My father, who in an arm-chair, was inhaling, for the last time, the balmy breath of spring, saw these hurried preparations for departure from the open window where he sat. He saw carriages, horses, trunks, lackeys, and equerries ready at a moment's warning to move. He saw that the signal for the rus.h.i.+ng crowd to depart was to be his death. Turning to his physician, he said, with a sad smile, 'I must not be too long in dying, for these people are becoming impatient.'" [Footnote: Soulavie, "Memoires," etc., vol. i.]

"Shameful!" cried Marie Antoinette, wiping away her tears.

"Ay, more than shameful!" exclaimed Louis. "Now, you see, that the hour of retribution has come, for once more the court grows impatient with the length of a dying sovereign's agony. Oh, would that my n.o.ble father were alive! How much more worthy was he to be a king than I."

"From my heart I echo your wish," said Antoinette, fervently. "How was it that he died so young?"

Louis looked searchingly at the face of his young wife. "He died of a malady whose name is an impeachment of the honor of those who survive him," said the dauphin, sternly, "and my mother died of the same disease. [Footnote: It was generally believed that the dauphin and his wife were poisoned by a political party, whose leader was the Duke de Choiseul. The royal couple belonged to the anti-Austrian party.

"Memoires de Campan," vol. i., p. 78.] But let us not throw any darker shadows over the gloom of this heavy hour. I am stifled--I have a presentiment of--" A loud shout interrupted the dauphin. It came nearer and nearer, and now it reached the anteroom, where the crowding courtiers were pouring in to greet King Louis XVI.

The dauphin and his wife were at no loss to understand these shouts.

They exchanged glances of fear, and side by side they fell upon their knees while, with tear-streaming eyes, they faltered. "O G.o.d have mercy upon us, we are so young to reign!" [Footnote: "Memoires de Campan,"

vol. i., p. 78.]

The doors were thrown open, and the mistress of ceremonies of Marie Antoinette appeared. Behind her came a mult.i.tude of lords and ladies, their curious eyes peering at what they had never expected to see--a royal couple a.s.suming the purple, not with pomp and pride, but with humility, distrust, and prayer.

They rose, and faced their subjects. Madame de Noailles courtesied so low that she was upon her knees.

"Your majesties will forgive this intrusion," said she, with all the aplomb of her dignity. "I come to request that your majesties will repair to the state reception-room to receive the congratulations of your royal relatives, and those of your court, who are all waiting anxiously to do you homage."

Such a request, from the lips of Madame de Noailles, was the exaction of an indispensable form of court-etiquette, which the young couple dared not evade.

Arm in arm they went, Marie Antoinette hiding her tears with her handkerchief, and looking inexpressibly lovely in her childish emotions, while the loud greetings of a magnificent court hailed her as their queen.

While the consorts of the royal princes folded their sister-in-law in their arms, the princes, with courtly decorum, bowed ceremoniously before the king.

"Permit us, sire," began the Count of Provence, "to be the first to lay our homage at your majesty's feet, and to--"

"My brothers, my brothers!" cried Louis, deeply affected, "is my crown to rob me of the dear ties of kindred? Oh, do not call me king, for I cannot afford to lose the dear companions of my childhood."