Calvert of Strathore Part 25

"They have refused--all is lost," says His Majesty, in a hollow voice.

"Impossible!" she exclaims, looking from the King to Beaufort, who stood by, deathly pale, also.

"It is only too true, your Majesty," says Beaufort, for the King seemed incapable of speech. "In spite of the enormous bribes offered and received, in spite of promises, in spite of his Majesty's address, which should have mollified all parties and inspired confidence, the temper of the a.s.sembly, which had appeared favorable to his Majesty, suddenly changed and an outrageous scene took place; humiliations and insults and threats were heaped upon his Majesty, who retired as speedily as possible. D'Angremont was arrested as we left the a.s.sembly, which has refused to allow the departure of your Majesties, and there remains nothing but to try the last expedient."

The Queen stood gazing at the King and Beaufort, anger and despair written on every feature. Her eyes blazed, and into the lately colorless cheeks a deep crimson sprang.

"Impossible," she says again. "The traitors! To betray us at every turn!

Surely there is no one so friendless as the King and Queen of France!

And shall we trust ourselves again to flight? Oh, the horrors of that last ride!" She shuddered and sank into a chair. Adrienne knelt beside the despairing woman.

"All is ready--your Majesties have but to follow the instructions--to don the disguises prepared--once at Courbevoie all is secure," she says, speaking with the greatest energy and confidence and clasping the Queen's hand in her own.

Suddenly her Majesty started up. "Never--never!" she bursts out, beginning to pace up and down the small chamber. "Never will I again go through with the humiliation of flight and capture. Better death or imprisonment at the hands of this ungrateful, mad people!"

"But, your Majesty--" says Beaufort, beginning to speak, but the Queen interrupted him.

"I know what you would tell me, Beaufort," she stopped and spoke imperiously--"that this scheme is the best possible one, the only one, perhaps; that in this enterprise lies our only safety, but I cannot believe it! A thousand times would I rather trust myself to the allies!"

she said, beginning to pace the floor again.

"I think 'tis not that alone which Monsieur de Beaufort would tell your Majesty," said Adrienne, rising from beside the chair where the Queen had been sitting. She stood straight and tall before the desperate Queen and spoke rapidly. "He would say, also, that there is a handful of brave gentlemen who have risked their lives to serve your Majesties, who are waiting now but a few miles away and the further opportunity of serving you. Every moment adds to their peril. Should your Majesties fail them, what will become of them?" She threw out her hands with an appealing gesture.

"'Tis true," murmured the King. "It must not be said that we sacrificed the last of our friends," he said, smiling a little bitterly and looking at the Queen, who continued to pace the little room in the cruellest agitation.

"I pray your Majesties not to think of us," said Beaufort. "Your devoted friends and servants think only of what is best for your Majesties. 'Tis their opinion, as well as my own, that there is nothing left but flight."

"Never, never!" exclaimed the Queen, with increasing firmness.

"But think of the danger of remaining in Paris!" urged Beaufort. "We know not at what moment this insurrection prepared by the Jacobins may burst out, we know not at what moment this palace and the sacred persons of your Majesties may be at the mercy of an infuriated, insensate mob."

"Let them come--these dangers--these horrors," says the Queen, intrepidly; "they will bring Brunswick and the allies that much sooner to this Paris which I will not leave until they enter it." She stamped her foot upon the velvet carpet and clinched her white hands at her sides.

"Then your Majesty is resolved to give up the enterprise she has promised to support, to abandon those loyal servants who have depended upon her and his Majesty the King?" asks Adrienne, looking at the Queen, her face pale as marble and her eyes burning with indignation.

"Does Madame Calvert permit herself to question our actions?" says the Queen, turning imperiously upon her. Suddenly her beautiful eyes filled with tears. "Forgive me--you are right," she says. "'Tis our fate--our wretched fate--to seem to abandon and injure all who are brought near us, all who attempt to serve us. We cannot help ourselves--even now we must break our faith with these loyal friends, for now I see that after the refusal of the a.s.sembly to allow us to leave Paris, 'twere madness to attempt to go. We would but increase the danger, the humiliation we already have to endure. The only wise course is to await Brunswick and the allies. I see now the folly of this plan of escape--indeed, I was never fully persuaded of its wisdom. The confidence I felt in this young American--his devotion to us and that of those other friends--blinded me to the dangers and difficulties of the undertaking."

"And the King?" asks Adrienne, turning from the Queen to his Majesty, who sat by, indecision and weariness and timidity written on all his heavy features.

"We dare not," he says, at length, apathetically. "The Queen is right--after the refusal by the a.s.sembly to allow us to depart, after this new humiliation, it were worse than folly to think of escaping. We are surrounded by spies--treachery is within these very walls--how can we hope to get away? It is best to await our doom quietly here. What think you, Beaufort?" he asks.

"I implore your Majesty to make the effort," says Beaufort. "Once outside Paris, the Swiss Guards await you, Lafayette with his loyal regiments is even now at Compiegne----"

"Lafayette at Compiegne?--who knows?" says the Queen, gloomily, interrupting Beaufort again. "Monsieur de Lafayette hath betrayed us before and may do so again. I trust him not! To know that he has a share in this enterprise is to make me fear to pursue it! No, no," she goes on, shuddering and turning away. "St. Cloud and the 5th of October are too well remembered. I should have thought of all this before," she says, striking her hands together in an agony of doubt and despair. "It is too late now."

"And who will tell these gentlemen waiting at Courbevoie, and the regiments advancing from Compiegne at the risk of their lives, of this sudden change in your Majesties' plans? Should Monsieur d'Angremont be induced to divulge their names they will inevitably be lost--their only hope is in immediate flight," says Adrienne, looking from the King, sunk in resigned silence, to the frantic, hapless Queen, and back again.

"Who but myself, Madame?" said Beaufort, advancing. "And if your Majesties are fully determined to go no further in this business, I will ask leave to withdraw and set out for Courbevoie at once. Every moment is precious, and an hour's delay may mean the loss of many lives."

"No, no, Beaufort, I cannot let you go," cried the King, starting up.

"Nom de Dieu, I forbid you!--d'Angremont is taken from me--there is no one in whom I can confide or trust--we must send another," he went on, incoherently, and raising his hand as if to check Beaufort's departure.

For an instant the Queen swept him a glance of disdain. 'Twas not timidity that made her falter. She could not understand the physical weakness of the King; with her the abandonment of the great undertaking was a matter of expediency, not of fear, and she deserted her friends as relentlessly from interest as he did from cowardice.

"There is no one, your Majesty--no one whom we can send. 'Tis too late to trust others with this great secret--"

"Then I will go," said Adrienne, suddenly stepping forward. "Send me--I am in the secret, I can be trusted! I can put on the disguise intended for your Majesty and go." She turned to the Queen and spoke eagerly and rapidly. "I fear nothing. Let me go, let me go!" She dropped on her knees before the Queen. "I must go--I must," she said, wildly.

"Is there no other?" asked the Queen, turning to Beaufort. "Surely we are not so dest.i.tute of friends that we must send this girl upon such a dangerous mission!" she said, sorrowfully.

"I implore your Majesty to let me go," said Adrienne, once more. "'Tis a service I would do myself as well as your Majesty," she went on, her white face suddenly covered with a burning blush.

The Queen looked at her keenly for a moment, and then she put out her hand with a sad, comprehending smile. "You may go," she said.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TENTH OF AUGUST

According to agreement, Bremond sped instantly from the a.s.sembly to Courbevoie with news of the fresh humiliation put upon the King and the outrageous scene which had taken place. He found Calvert, Monciel, Favernay, Bachman, and several officers of the Swiss Guard, upon whose loyalty they could depend, a.s.sembled in a room of the officers' quarters of the barracks, anxiously awaiting the issue of the day's events. He told his news amid a dead silence, broken only now and then by an exclamation of indignation or disappointment from one of the listeners.

When he had finished speaking, Calvert turned to the little group, "Then, gentlemen," he says, "pursuant to the plan, the King's request having been denied, we may expect their Majesties here before ten, and shall have the honor of guarding them to Compiegne."

As he looked around upon the little company, there was not a face but expressed some secret doubt and misgiving. The King's timidity and vacillation were so well known that 'twas impossible not to question his good faith even in this last extremity. As ten o'clock pa.s.sed and eleven and no message or sign of the royal fugitives came to the anxious, impatient watchers, those secret doubts and misgivings began to be openly expressed.

"'Tis the Austrian who has kept him, I will bet a hundred louis," said one of the Guard's officers, gloomily. "I never believed she would keep faith with us--she is too deeply committed to Brunswick--nor will she let the King do so." Even while he spoke there was a sound of someone's running hurriedly up the stairs--they were a.s.sembled in an upper room--and in an instant an orderly was hammering at the door, which was flung open by Monciel.

"A messenger for Monsieur Calvert," he says, saluting.

Calvert followed the man hastily down the steps to where a figure waited for him which made him start back with an exclamation of surprise and consternation.

Adrienne--for it was she--came forward, taking off the cap pulled over her eyes and letting fall the great cloak with which she had enveloped herself in spite of the intense heat, and appearing in the outrider's livery which was to have been the Queen's disguise.

"C'est moi," she says, hurriedly, and putting a finger to her lips, "and I am come to tell you that their Majesties have failed you--have abandoned the plan--and to implore you to escape while there is time."

She stood straight and tall in her boy's clothes, but the dim light, falling upon her upturned face, showed it pale as death, and her voice trembled as she spoke.

"You are come to tell me this?" says Calvert, slowly, still staring at her as though scarce able to believe his senses. "And where is Beaufort?"

"The King refused to let him go; he is with his Majesty," she says, breathlessly--"d'Angremont is taken--'tis reported that the palace is to be attacked to-night. The King and Queen will not come--the King is afraid to attempt the escape, and the Queen will rely on no one save the allies--we implored them in vain to come but they refused--they have failed you--save yourselves!" She leaned heavily against the door.

"It is quite certain?--they will not come?" asked Calvert. Adrienne shook her head.

"Then wait--come in here," he said, drawing her into a little anteroom.

He ran back up the stairs and burst into the room he had just left, with an imprecation.

"Their Majesties have flashed in the pan," he said to the gentlemen who crowded about him. "'Tis no use to wait longer. D'Angremont is taken.

You, Monciel and Favernay, set out instantly to intercept Marbois's regiment and turn it back to Compiegne. You will go back with the troops and report to General de Lafayette what has happened. As for you, gentlemen," he says to the officers of the Guard, "not being needed here longer, you had best lead your men back with all speed to Paris to guard the palace. The attack is for to-night."