The Hero of the People
Copyright© 2024 by Alexandre Dumas
Chapter 19: A Loving Queen.
CHARNY left the King with his heart full of opposing feelings.
The primary one, mounting to the surface over the tumultuous waves of turbulent thoughts, was deep gratitude for the boundless confidence testified to him.
This imposed duties the more holy from his conscience not being dumb. He remembered his wrongs towards this worthy monarch who laid his hand on his shoulder as on a true friend at the time of danger.
The more Charny felt guilty towards his master, the more ready he was to devote himself to him.
The more this respectful allegiance grew the lesser became the less pure emotion which he had cherished for the Queen during years.
This is the reason why he—having lost the vague hope which led him towards Andrea for the test, as if she was one of those flowering shrubs on the precipice edge by which a falling man can save himself—grasped with eagerness this mission diverging him from the court. Here he felt the double torment of being still loved by the woman whom he was ceasing to love and of not being loved by her whom he was beginning to adore.
Profiting by the coldness lately introduced into his relations with the Queen, he went to her rooms with the intention of leaving a note to tell of his departure when he found Weber awaiting him.
The Queen wished to see him forthwith, and there is no eluding the wishes of crowned heads in their palace.
Marie Antoinette was in the opposite mood to her visitor’s, she was recalling her harshness towards him and his devotion at Versailles; at the sight of the count’s brother laid dead across her threshold she had felt a kind of remorse; she confessed to herself that had this been the count she would have badly paid him for the sacrifice.
But had she any right to expect aught else than devotion of Charny?
She admitted that she was stern and unfair towards him, when the door opened and the gentleman appeared in the irreproachable costume of the military officer on duty.
But there was in his deeply respectful bearing something chilly which repelled the magnetic flow from the Queen’s heart, to go and seek in his the tender, sweet and sad memories collected during four years.
The Queen looked round her as though to try to ascertain why he remained on the sill, and when assured it was a matter of his will, she said:
“Come, my lord: we are alone.”
“I see that, but I do not see what in that fact should alter the bearing of a subject to his sovereign.”
“When I sent Weber for you I thought that fond friends were going to speak with one another.”
Charny smiled bitterly.
“I understand that smile and that you say, inwardly, the Queen was unjust at Versailles and is capricious here.”
“Injustice or caprice, a woman is allowed anything,” returned Charny: “a queen more than all.”
“Whatever the caprice, my friend,” said Marie with all the witchingness she could put in a voice or smile, “the Queen cannot do without you as adviser or the woman without you as loved friend.”
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