The Hero of the People
Copyright© 2024 by Alexandre Dumas
Chapter 18: The King Attends to Public Matters.
THOUGH the King had been only a fortnight in the Tuileries he had two places fitted out completely for him. The forge was one, the study the other.
Charny walked up to the desk at which his royal master seated himself without looking round at the papers with which he was familiar.
“Count Charny,” began the King at last, yet seeming to halt, “I noticed one thing, on the night of the attack by the rioters, you stood by me while you set your brother on guard over the Queen.”
“Sire, it was my right as head of my family, as you are chief of the realm, to die for you.”
“That made me think, that if ever I had a secret errand, difficult and dangerous, I could rely on your loyalty as a Frenchman, and on your heart as a friend’s.”
“Oh, Sire, however the King may raise me, I have no pretension to believe that I shall be more than a faithful and thankful subject.”
“My lord, you are a grave man though but thirty-six; you have not passed through recent events without drawing some conclusion from them. What do you think of the situation and what would be your means to relieve me, if you were my Premier?”
“Sire, I am a soldier and a seaman,” returned Charny, with more hesitation than embarrassment, “these high social questions fly over my head.”
“Nay, you are a man,” said the sovereign with a dignity in holding out his hand which sprang from the quandary; “another man, who believes you to be his friend, asks you, purely and simply, what you, with your upright heart and healthy mind, would do in his place.”
“Sire, in a no less serious position, the Queen asked my opinion: the day after the Taking of the Bastile, when she wanted to fling the foreign legions upon the mobs. My reply would have embroiled me with her Majesty had I been less known to her and my respect and devotion less plain. I said that your Majesty must not enter these walls as a conqueror if he could not as a father of his people.”
“Well, my lord, is not that the counsel I followed? The question is was I right? am I here as a King or a captive?”
“Speaking in full frankness, I disapproved of the banquet at Versailles, supplicating the Queen not to go there; I was in despair when she threw down the tricolor and set up the black cockade of Austria.”
“Do you believe that led really to the attack on the palace?”
“No, Sire; but it was the cover for it. You are not unjust for the lower orders; they are kindly and love you—they are royalist. But they are in pain from cold and hunger; beneath and around them are evil advisers, who urge them on, and they know not their own strength. Once started they become flood or fire, for they overwhelm or they consume.”
“Well, what am I to do? supposing, as is natural enough, I do not want to be drowned or burned.”
“We must not open the sluices to the flood or windows to the flame. But pardon me forgetting that I should not speak thus, even on a royal order——”
“But you will on a royal entreaty. Count Charny, the King entreats you—to continue.”
“Well, Sire, there are two strata of the lower orders, the soil and the mud; the one which may be reposed upon and the other which will yield and smother one. Distrust one and rest on the other.”
“Count, you are repeating at two hours’ interval, what Dr. Gilbert told me.”
“Sire, how is it that after taking the advice of a learned man, you ask that of a poor naval officer like me?”
“Because there is a wide difference between you, I believe. Dr. Gilbert is devoted to royalty and you to the King. If the principle remains safe, he would let the King go.”
“Then there is a difference between us, for the King and the principle are inseparable for me,” responded the nobleman; “under this head it is that I beg your Majesty to deal with me.”
“First, I should like to hear to whom you would apply in this space of calm between two storms perhaps, to efface the wreck made by one and soothe the coming tempest.”
“If I had the honor and the misfortune to be the wearer of the crown, I should remember the cheers I heard round my carriage, and I should hold out my hands to General Lafayette and Member Mirabeau.”
“Can you advise this when you detest one and scorn the other?”
“My sympathies are of no moment, the whole question is the safety of the crown and the salvation of the monarchy.”
“Just what Dr. Gilbert says,” muttered the hearer as though speaking to himself.
“Sire, I am happy to be in tune with such an eminent man.”
“But if I were to agree to such a union and there should be failure, what think you I ought to do?”
“Think of your safety and your family’s.”
“Then you suggest that I should flee?”
“I should propose that your Majesty should retire with such regiments as are reliable and the true nobles to some fortified place.”
“Ah,” said the King with a radiant face: “but among the commanders who have given proof of devotion, you knowing them all, to which would you confide this dangerous mission, of guarding and removing the King?”
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