Memoirs of a Physician (35 page)

The crowd pointed him out in the crowd, terrible glances were darted at him from the parliament, and that was all. The great hall of the Palais was crammed to overflowing; actors and spectators together made a total of more than three thousand persons.

Outside the Palais the crowd, kept in order by the staves of the officers, and the batons and maces of the archers, gave token of its presence only by that indescribable hum which is not a voice, which articulates nothing, but which nevertheless makes itself heard, and which may justly be called the sound of the popular flood.

The same silence reigned in the great hall, when, the sound of footsteps having ceased, and every one having

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taken his place, the king, majestic and gloomy, had commanded his chancellor to begin the proceedings.

The parliament knew beforehand what the bed of justice held in reserve for them. They fully understood why they had been convoked. They were to hear the unmitigated expression of the royal will; but they knew the patience, not to say the timidity, of the king, and if they feared, it was rather for the consequences of the bed of justice, than for the sitting itself.

The chancellor commenced his address. He was an excellent orator; his exordium was clever, and the amateurs of a demonstrative style found ample scope for study in it. As it proceeded, however, the speech degenerated into a tirade so severe, that all the nobility had a smile on their lips, while the parliament felt very ill at ease.

The king, by the mouth of his chancellor, ordered them to cut short the affairs of Brittany, of which he had had enough. He commanded them to be reconciled to the Duke d’Aiguillon, whose services pleased him; and not to interrupt the service of justice ; by which means everything should go on as in that happy period of the golden age, when the flowing streams murmured judicial or argumen-tative discourses, when the trees were loaded with bags of law papers, placed within reach of the lawyers and attorneys, who had the right tc pluck them as fruit belonging to them.

These flippancies did not reconcile the parliament to the lord chancellor, nor to the Duke d’Aiguillon. But the speech had been made, and all reply was impossible.

The members of the parliament, although scarcely able to contain their vexation, assumed, with that admirable unity which gives so much strength to constituted bodies, a calm and indifferent demeanor, which highly displeased his majesty and the aristocratic world upon the platform.

The dauphiness turned pale with anger. For the first time she found herself in the presence of popular resistance, and she coldly calculated its power. She had come to this bed of justice with the intention of opposing, at least by her look, the resolution which was about to be adopted there, but gradually she felt herself drawn to

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make common cause with those of her own caste and race, so that in proportion as the chancellor attacked the parliament more severely, this proud young creature was indig nant to find his words so weak. She fancied she could have found words which would have made this assembly start like a troop of oxen under the goad. In short, she found the chancellor too feeble and the parliament too strong.

Louis XV. was a physiognomist, as all selfish people would be if they were not sometimes idle as well as selfish. He cast a glance around to observe the effect of his will, expressed in words which he thought tolerably eloquent. The paleness and the compressed lip of the dauphiness showed him what was passing in her mind. As a counterpoise he turned to look at
Mme.
Dubarry; but instead of the victorious smile he hoped to find there, he only saw an anxious desire to attract the king’s looks, as if to judge what he thought. Nothing intimidates weak minds so much as being forestalled by the minds and wills of others. If they find themselves observed by those who have already taken a resolution, they conclude that they have not done enough that they are about to be, or have been ridiculous that people had a right to expect more than they have done.

Then they pass to extremes; the timid man becomes furious, and a sudden manifestation betrays the effect of this reaction produced by fear upon a fear less powerful than itself.

The king had no need to add a single word to those his chancellor had already spoken; it was not according to etiquette it was not even necessary. But on this occasion he was possessed by the babbling demon, and, making a sign with his hand, he signified that he intended to speak. Immediately attention was changed to stupor.

The heads of the members of parliament were all seen to wheel round toward the bed of justice, with the precision of a file of soldiers upon drill. The princes, peers, and military felt uneasy. It was not impossible that after so many excellent things had been said, his most Christian majesty might add something which, to say the

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least, would be quite useless. Their respect prevented them from giving any other title to the words which might fall from the royal lips.

M. de Kichelieu, who had affected to keep aloof from his nephew, was now seen to approach the most stubborn of the parliamentarians, and exchange a glance of mysterious intelligence. But his glances, which were becoming rebellious, met the penetrating eye of
Mme.
Dubarry. Eichelieu possessed, as no one else did, the precious power of transition; he passed easily from the satirical to the admiring tone, and chose the beautiful countess as the point of intersection between these two extremes. He sent a smile of gallantry and congratulation, therefore, to
Mme.
Dubarry in passsing, but the latter was not duped by it; the more so that the old marshal, who had commenced a correspondence with the parliament, and the opposing princes, was obliged to continue it, that he might not appear what he really was.

What sights there are in a drop of water that ocean for an observer. What centuries in a second that indescribable eternity. All we have related took place while Louis was preparing to speak, and was opening his lips.

” You have hejard,” said he in a firm voice, ” what my chancellor has told you of my wishes. Prepare therefore to execute them, for such are my intentions, and I shall never change them ! “

Louis XV. uttered these last words with the noise and force of a thunderbolt. The whole assembly was literally thunderstruck.

A shudder passed over the parliament, and was quickly communicated, like an electric spark, to the crowd, A like thrill was felt by the partisans of the king. Surprise and admiration were on every face and in every heart.

The dauphiness involuntarily thanked the king by a lightning glance from her beautiful eyes.
Mme.
Dubarry, electrified, could not refrain from rising, and would have clapped her hands, but for the very natural fear of being stoned as she left the house, or of receiving hundreds of couplets the next morning, each more odious than the other.

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Louis could from this moment enjoy his triumph. The parliament bent low, still with the same unanimity. The king rose from his embroidered cushions. Instantly the captain of the guards, the commandant of the household, and all the gentlemen of the king’s suite rose. Drums beat and trumpets sounded outside. The almost silent stir of the people on the arrival was now changed into a deep murmur, which died away in the distance, repressed by the soldiers and archers.

The king proudly crossed the hall, without seeing anything on the way but humble foreheads. The Duke d’Aiguillon still preceded his majesty without abusing his triumph.

The chancellor, having reached the door of the hall, saw the immense crowd of people extending on all sides, and heard their execrations, which reached his ears, notwithstanding the distance. He trembled, and said to the archers :

” Close around me ‘

M. de Eichelieu bowed low to the Duke d’Aiguillon, as he passed, and whispered :

” These heads are very low, duke some day or other they will rise devilish high. Take care ! “

Mme.
Dubarry was passing at the moment, accompanied by her brother, the Marchioness de Mirepoix, and several other ladies. She heard the marshal’s words, and as she was more inclined to repartee than malice, she said :

” Oh, there is nothing to fear, marshal ; did you not hear his majesty’s words? The king, I think, said he would never change.”

” Terrible words, indeed, madame,” replied the duke, with a smile ; ” but happily for us, these poor parliament men did not remark that while saying he would never change, the king looked at you.”

And he finished this compliment with one of those in-imitable bows which are no longer seen, even upon the stage.

;Mme. Dubarry was a woman, and by no means a politician. She only saw the compliment where D’Aiguillon detected plainly the epigram and the threat. Therefore,

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she replied with a smile, while her ally turned pale and bit his lips with vexation, to see the marshal’s anger en-dure so long.

The effect of the bed of justice was, for the moment, favorable to the royal cause. But it frequently happens that a great blow only stuns, and it is remarked that after the stunning effect has passed away, the blood circulates with more vigor and purity than before. Such at least were the reflections made by a little group of plainly dressed persons, who were stationed as spectators at the corner of the Quai aux Fleurs and the Rue de la Barillerie, on seeing the king, attended by his brilliant cortege, leave the hall.

They were three in number. Chance had brought them together at this corner, and from thence they seemed to study with interest the impressions of the crowd; and, without knowing each other, after once exchanging a few words, they had discussed the sitting even before it was over.

” These passions are well ripened,” said one of them, an old man with bright eyes, and a mild and honest expression. ” A bed of justice is a great work.”

” Yes,” replied a young man, smiling bitterly ; ” yes, if the work realize the title.”

” Sir,” replied the old man, turning around, ” I think I should know you I fancy I have seen you before.”

” On the night of the thirty-first of May. You are not mistaken, Monsieur Rousseau.”

” Oh ! you are that young surgeon my countryman, Monsieur Marat.”

” Yes, sir, at your service.”

The two men exchanged salutations. The third had not yet spoken. He was also young, eminently handsome, and aristocratic in appearance, and during the whole ceremony had unceasingly observed the crowd. The young surgeon moved away the first and plunged into the densest mass of the people, who, less grateful than Rousseau, had already forgotten him, but whose memory he calculated upon refreshing one day or other.

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The other young man waited until he was gone, and then, addressing Eousseau:

” Sir,” said he, ” you do not go ? “

” Oh ! I am too old to venture among such a mob.”

” In that case,” said the unknown, lowering his voice ; ** I will see you again this evening in the Rue Plastriere, Monsieur Eousseau do not fail.”

The philosopher started as if a phantom had risen be-fore him. His complexion, always pale, became livid. He made an effort to reply to this strange appeal, but the man had already disappeared.

CHAPTEE XXXV.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE WORDS OF THE UNKNOWN UPON J. J. EOUSSEAU.

ON hearing those singular words, spoken by a man whom he did not know, Eousseau, trembling and unhappy, plunged into the crowd ; and without remembering that he was old and naturally timid, elbowed his way through it. He soon reached the bridge of Notre Dame; then, still plunged in his reverie, and muttering to himself, he crossed the quarter of La Grove, which was the shortest way to his own dwelling.

” So,” said he to himself, ” this secret, which the initiated guard at the peril of their lives, is in possession of the first comer. This is what mysterious associations gain by passing through the popular sieve. A man recognizes me, who knows that I shall be his associate, perhaps his accomplice, yonder. Such a state of things is absurd and intolerable.”

And while he spoke, Eousseau walked forward quickly he, usually so cautious, especially since his accident in the Eue Menil Montant.

” Thus,” continued the philosopher, ” I must wish, for-sooth, to sound the bottom of these plans of human regeneration which some spirits who boast of the title of

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illuminati propose to carry out. I was foolish enough to imagine that any good ideas could come from Germany that land of beer and fog and may have compromised my name by joining it to those of fools or plotters, whom it will serve as a cloak to shelter their folly. Oh, no ! it shall not be thus; no, a flash of lightning has shown me the abyss, and I will not cheerfully throw myself into it.”

And Eousseau paused to take a breath, resting upon his cane, and standing motionless for a moment.

” Yet it was a beautiful chimera,” pursued the philosopher. ” Liberty in the midst of slavery the future conquered without noise and struggle the snare mysteriously woven while earth’s tyrants slept. It was too beautiful ; I was a fool to believe it. I will not be the sport of fears, of suspicions, of shadows, which are unworthy of a free spirit and an independent body.”

He had got thus far, and was continuing his progress, when the sight of some of M. de Sartines’ agents gazing around with their ubiquitous eyes, frightened the free spirit, and gave such an impulse to the independent body, that it plunged into the deepest shadows of the pillars under which it was walking.

From these pillars it was not far to the Hue Plastriere. Eousseau accomplished the distance with the speed of lightning, ascended the stairs to his domicile breathing like a stag pursued by the hunters and sunk upon a chair, unable to utter a word in answer to all Therese’s questions.

At last he recovered sufficiently to account for his emotion; it was the walk, the heat, the news of the king’s angry remarks at the bed of justice, the commotion caused by the popular terror a sort of panic, in short, which had spread among all who witnessed what had happened.