Chapter 22: The Smile and the Nod.

AS Cagliostro had said and Mirabeau surmised, the King had upset the scheme.

Without much regret the Queen saw the constitutional platform fall which had wounded her pride. The King’s policy was to gain time and profit by circumstances; besides he had two chances of getting away into some stronghold, which was his favorite plan. These two plans, we know, were his brother Provence’s, managed by Favras; the other his own, managed by Charny.

The latter reached Metz in a couple of days where the faithful royalist Bouille did not doubt him, but resolved to send his son Louis to Paris to be more exactly informed on the matter. Charny remained as a kind of hostage.

Count Louis Bouille arrived about the middle of November. At this period the King was guarded closely by Lafayette whose cousin the young count was.

To keep him in ignorance of Charny’s negociations, the latter worked to be presented to the King by his kinsman.

Providence answered the envoy’s prayer for Lafayette, who had been informed of his coming but swallowed his excuse that it was on a visit to a sweetheart in Paris, offered to take him with him on his morning call on the monarch.

All the palace doors opened to the general. The sentinels presented arms and the footmen bowed, so that Count Louis could see that his relative was the real King of Paris.

The King was in his forge so that the visitors had to see the Queen first.

Bouille had not seen her for three years. The sight of her at thirty-four, a prisoner, slandered, threatened, and hated, made a deep impression on the chivalric heart of the young noble.